Hexenschuss

img_7809Today was a day where I had some of the most awkward conversations of my life— the kind that made me feel as though I were thrust into one of those crazy movies my sister used to bring home where the ending, à la Jacob’s Ladder, left me concluding that the world can be a very messed up place.

Today was not something that I can even elaborate on either. There is no harm that will be directed towards me, and I will go to bed with my world looking very much like it did when I got up this morning. My continued self-care and feeding still centers around an ability to execute small tasks that ultimately weave into a bigger network that is complex enough to result in a paycheck. I’ve reached full-on adulthood, and the skill sets I have acquired must be used to forge ahead as best I can with the resulting morals, aptitude and attitude about it all. On most days, I feel up to the task of going through these motions with little difficulty. Today was not one of those days.

One of the hardest things about being an adult is kicking back to watch some popcorn-friendly entertainment while knowing that at the end of the day, conflict resolution isn’t so easily folded up in the known world. Most frequently, we conclude our days of toil not quite accomplishing things fully, but still have a sense that we’ve moved the ball down the field. If we had too many days where we felt we were losing ground, then I fear for the speed with which our carefully constructed society would crumble away. Or be willfully torn down.

As I get older, there are some activities that serve as an assiduous drain on my mental and emotional stamina. During these moments, usually all I need to regain fighting form is some time alone for reflection and spacing out. After that, I can usually charge back in and create more days where I’m operating on the plus side of life’s equation. I’m becoming a bit of an optimist in my old age (and you have to be if you’re going to get through life alive), so at this particular moment I’m hoping that more of these recharge days will do my outlook some good in the days to come. For now, I’m only finding myself walking back through my front door and feeling as though there’s no amount of mind balancing respite that can recharge me. Sometimes the witnessing of certain events can be just too unsettling.

The world can be a very uncertain and often unfair place. The fact that we don’t see this super often just goes to show how adept we’ve gotten at shaping our habits in a way that keeps our  routines feeling more or less fulfilled. Safeguarded. Satisfying. Sometimes we can’t play the game and rig the odds to shift into our favor. Sometimes other forces serve to rip the carpet out from underneath our feet. This hasn’t happened to me, but today I watched some of those activities take place, and there was nothing I could do except feel empathic pain and simultaneous disgust that I was going to be allowed to carry on with day as usual.

Life, whether we like to think about it or not, is often a product of Fortuna’s capricious nature.  Today my sense is that I’m still in her good graces, but at the same time I appreciate how unexpectedly our circumstances can change. I feel immense gratitude for everything that surrounds me, and I shall continue to examine my days to see where I can safeguard each experience to a positive effect. For now, the only conclusion I seem to be left with is that today was an incredibly hard day to be an adult. I pray that tomorrow morning I wake up at least a little bit kinder as a result of seeing some of the bad. I know that evil resides everywhere and threatens to take hold where it sees opportunity, so I guess it is my greater hope that for every day we get to safely roll out of bed, we all make an effort to be a bit kinder to the world as a result. Right now this sounds pretty pathetic, but I’ve got nothing else to offer as comfort.