It’s hard to string words together.

I feel like I’m experiencing some form of creative atrophy.

Like the words can’t come to my fingertips.

Like if I simply don’t type them, perhaps it’s not real.

Ok, here’s what’s real.

Since the year began, almost exactly, I have had the most raging storm cloud over my head. If it wasn’t so devastating it would be almost comical.

Seriously, nothing in my life has been more difficult than the last five months. That includes watching my father die of cancer, stopping drinking seventeen years ago or any other number of things I won’t even start to get into at this moment. None of that even compares.

I also know it’s not over. It may just be the beginning, actually. And I’ve stopped looking for the end… searching for the light at the end of the tunnel.

And that’s not as dismal as it sounds, and here’s why: I’ve been waiting. Waiting for it to be “over.” Putting my life *on hold* waiting for that moment when I would wake from this nightmare so I could resume my life.

And that’s just not going to happen.  It doesn’t work that way.

Well, it might, I guess.

But I could also continue to waste my life in the process and amplify my misery instead of grasping moments of peace and joy when I could really use them.

I mean, who couldn’t use peace and joy regardless of whatever is happening in their life?

So it may be kind of late to make a resolution, but my New Years really sucked, so I’m going to have to ask for an exception here…

I really only have one.

I’m resolving to live without regret.

To do my very best to say what I think.  To tell people I love them. To say when I am hurt. To apologize when I am wrong. To not be held back by fear of disappointment or embarrassment, to take risks even if it means possible pain or failure…because it could also bring bliss or success.

Most importantly to make sure I don’t end up with a list of “what ifs” and “if onlys” when I am old and gray.

Because at the end of it all, this too shall pass–someday, sometime, somehow–but I will have to look at myself in the mirror everyday.  And I will have to live with the choices and the paths I take now for years to come.

I’m done waiting for the storm to pass. I’m putting on my boots and going for a walk in the rain.

Image courtesy of Sura Nualpradid, “Train Tunnel” at FreeDigitalPhotos.net