And??

A blog? Why am I doing this? What do I hope to accomplish? I have been asking myself these questions over and over. What makes me think anyone will read this, and is that even my goal? I am not sure actually. All I know is that I am on a roller coaster of anger, hurt, hopelessness followed by hope...or maybe it is hoping for hope, resolve, and determination...then I am suddenly painfully aware of my inability to take action again. 

I go off to bed every night saying "Tomorrow I will do this." Then, I can't fall asleep because my mind races with the indignity and insult of my situation. I get stuck on this broken record playing my feelings of shame and anger and hopelessness, over and over...round and round. The next morning, I wake up feeling physically ill and like it is all just impossible. I convince myself that I have brought this upon myself and am somehow so inept and unworthy of anything better and that it is all just a useless fight not worth fighting. Then in the back of my head I hear that little voice say "Bull Shit!"

"I have something to offer this world, damn it," that small voice says. I mean really, what am I whining about. It's not like I am homeless, starving, imprisoned for life or on my death bed. All of those things could certainly happen to me, but they haven't. I am not completely destitute. I haven't hit the lowest possible low that I could hit. Obviously I have to have done somethings right. So, I can take credit for that, right? I feel like a complete failure but I actually could be worse off.

Right now, as I am writing this, I am confident that I can survive. I know, and I think that I have always known, that unless someone or something comes and takes my life from me, forcefully and against my will, then I will survive. What I struggle with now, and at various times in my past, is the desire to do more than just survive. To put a comfortable distance between me and the end of the survival rope...the one we tie a knot in and hang on to. I want to move away from that end, I want to feel like I could slip a little and not run out of rope. Most of my life I have been just barely hanging on. I want to get past the fear that around the next corner something might take my last inch of rope away and replace it with...nothing.

I am on a roller coaster here. And as the track rolls through crest and trough after crest and trough, my resolve to endure it rolls with it. When I am on a crest, I have enough hoping for hope to make an attempt. Attempt at writing or thinking, to attempt at hope, to attempt at taking action. It is while I am on these crests that I am hopeful enough to actually try and build momentum that will carry me through the next trough. 

That is why, at least for now, I am writing this blog. To document that momentum. To share it with not only the me that is down in the dip side of the roller coaster ride, but also with anyone who might need some momentum to make through to that next crest. My hoping for hope is that I will find a way off the roller coaster. And that documenting it, I will help others find their way, too.