Stuck

I'm stuck. It's not that things are bad, they're not. I'm just stuck. And it's not just me. Talking to friends, it seems we're all at a loss as to how to get out of this sticky situation. We're stuck in the mud, we're mired in the past. We can't move forward, we can't let go, we can't get on with our lives. It feels unnatural. It feels like we're giving up, like the dreams we want to achieve are never going to happen. And yet, maybe this is all just part of the process.

Maybe we have to accept where we are and be ok with that. Maybe we need to look at ourselves and look at our lives and decide that wherever we are now is just fine. That's not to say we should be complacent and that's not to say we should accept mediocrity and that's not to say we should give up on our dreams. But wishing things were different- wishing we had a different job or had a different relationship or had children or had a new house- doesn't mean that where we are now should make us unhappy. Somehow we think that we are not ok- that we are too fat or too flaky or too loud- and that if we change those things, happiness will come. But happiness may come or not no matter what we look like or act like. Happiness may come when we least expect it.

So maybe the thing to do is to be ok with being stuck. To love ourselves even if we are not perfect. To be ok in our own skin even if we wish that skin were 5 or 50 lbs lighter. To appreciate our flakiness and indecision for what it is, for what it makes us, for how it defines us and separates us from others. To laugh at our silly, sometimes obnoxious, behavior, to embrace how it allows us to live in the present and be fully present. To understand that as stuck as we are the world continues to move forward and we with it.

We may feel stuck and we may feel uncomfortable and we may wish things were different and that we were different and that the situation was different. But acceptance that we are stuck means acknowledging our starting point, means telling ourselves that if we are ok with where we are - even if it is not where we want to be- we are at the beginning. We can stay stuck for a while, we can wallow and we can cover ourselves with our despair and we can sink all the way in to the top of our heads. And then, when the time is right, we will have had enough. And we will wash ourselves off, and we will look at who we are and where we are, and we will embrace it and we will move.

After all, this is the life.
- a

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