A Different Kind of Loss

I've lost something important. It came upon me when I was still in the hospital; after I got disconnected from all the wiring and tubes and I began to see a glimmer of my new life. I had a new lease on life, literally. A second chance after beating a cancer that could have killed me by now. No longer would I be content to let the world spin around with myself as a prop. I would be taking the bull by the horns, pulling myself up by the bootstraps and breaking free (of cliched metaphors, one may hope)!

By the time I came home I literally felt like a new person. I was not the same; and not just in the physical sense that my stomach was gone and I can trace my finger over a scar that reminds me of these changes. But in a very real way that I was motivated to be able to do anything. I don't know how to describe it, but it was like any doubts and fears I had were gone, taken out of my body with the stomach and diseased cells within it. This person was so on top of things. I had clear purpose and determination. My goals became neatly divided into their respective short and long term columns. Productivity and success were all I could see in my future.

Something happened along the way. I lost it. I find myself staring at the same pots in the sink, the same pile of laundry and the same tabletop of clutter, compounded daily so as to send the family to different corners of the house to eat their meals. This is not the way it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be on top of everything. There would be no time for clutter, neither in my head nor in my environment.

I should be working right now, if not selling my soul to the corporate grind and slaving in a cube under fluorescent lights, then earning a respectable income with my words. Have you read the Internet lately? It is in desperate need of a proofreader! Why do I have to be so selective in the opportunities I choose to pursue? But that's another story.

I have to regain the momentum I had five months ago. Maybe I need to reflect on all that Napoleon Hill motivation or something. I feel stuck in the same rut of procrastination and ennui that led me to let an entire decade pass by without doing anything of note. This is a time when I want to be productive and moving forward. There's a mind-set I possessed shortly after my surgery that had me feeling a palpable determination; a definite purpose. And it involved a whole lot more than watching bad television and making sarcastic Facebook comments.

Fondly looking toward the future,

Terri