Renew and re-frame...

In a time flagged by stress, work, change, growing concern over safety, security, and general well being, and an overarching hyperactive intensive sense of swimming against an ever-increasing current...I get the sense that I am being bombarded with messages that are not congruent, not all accurate, and generally not leaving me feeling healthy in where I am in my life. For those that are English majors...that was a run on sentence...and I know it...and yes...I posted it anyway LOL.

Point is...I feel overwhelmed. I am overwhelmed. By what you ask?

By being financially in a great deal of trouble...almost 1/2 a million dollars of debt when counting in student loans, house debt, car debt, and credit accounts, by a growing feeling of being out of control because of both things I can control and things I can not control, by having children whose health I have worried about for 30 years now and still to this day worry about daily...and starting all over again with little ones, by a job that I feel stuck in because of not being able to pass one stupid test...and the serious state test I have to pass and the next attempt at it which will be coming soon, because of playing in 3 bands and making basically no money but having some stress relief because I am playing and performing...but it taking an incredible amount of time away from my family which I don't feel good about especially when it isn't giving back in a financial way...my own health which is not great and the series of "conditions" that keeps adding up in my list of unhealthy attributes...I am amazed at how high I function given what my list is and the stuff I do...

There is more but that is a lot of it...and yet...with all this and more...I still do what I do to try to be the best I can be every day...I work hard at being a good person...a good man...a good father and husband...and sometimes feel like a I'm a miserable failure at it all...but I still try...I want...WANT to be upbeat and positive...I try hard to look at the good and re-frame the negative into lessons to learn from and try to feel any forward motion that I can muster...to find the good...and choose that healthy perspective. I do try...verb...

So that I can go forward and find that sunset...that rainbow...that bit of dew on a leaf...the wave crashing to shore...the breeze on my face...and the song from a sparrow...the beauty of God's world and word to help me get out of this muck and mire...to breathe with fresh air and see with renewed eyes...and believe in the good and the helpful...to be healthy...and to be alive...truly alive. I am sick in a lot of ways (mostly between my ears)...but I live a good life with my family, music, marriage, and effort. So that I will not be miserable by being overwhelmed. That's tough...but that's the call.

We all have crap in our lives that we live with and stuff...issues that we need to deal with. It truly is what you choose to do to in any given situation that will determine where it takes you. There is a litany of possibilities that one can direct themselves to and it will be what and how one engages the circumstance they find themselves in as to what they will learn...what they will get out of it. You always have a choice...some sort of one...even if it isn't a preferable choice there is always "something" one can DO...to move one's self forward.

And so it is...and so will I.