It's Tuesday Again...

... and I'm having a hard time doing this.
It's that time of year.
The holidays have come and gone and some of the yucky of them is still hanging on like those little fruit juice seeds at the bottom of the glass.
The weather sucks.
My mood sucks.
I'm afraid to write anything because I'm afraid that it will come off way more snarky than I intend. I mean, I don't mind being snarky but I want to mean it when I do it. :)
So, I should just write something funny...yeah, there's not a funny bone in my body, at this moment. And, I'm not sure that you can really decide to be genuinely "funny."
I feel sorta ungrounded in a lot of ways in my life.

I don't have it all together, right now.

The irony is that you have to have it together a certain amount before you have the confidence to admit that you don’t have it all together.

The truth is that nobody has it all together but most of us make a living acting like we do. I’ve found that some of the best-looking facades cover over some of the biggest train wrecks of lives. Now, around the 40s, is often when the lies start to catch up with the liars.

Well, one can hope. :)

There exists inside of me - I think, inside of us all - this need to believe that what we do really does matter. That right decisions really do lead to good consequences - call it "Karma" or "reaping what you sow," or whatever. There is this need to believe that the quote, "Nice guys finish last," is incorrect, that the lies really do  catch up with the liars.

We all love a good underdog story - the guy who isn't supposed to be good enough, who reaches inside himself and finds that mysterious "something," that helps him to propel himself over and above the "giants" of his world.

We love it because, for one tiny moment, the Universe slides into it's proper gear.  Things work like they should, not like they usually do - the little girl beats the cancer, the marriage survives, the bully gets knocked down and learns his lesson, the family is reunited - like a bad 30 minute sitcom, in which everything is made right in the end and where "right" wins out against all odds.  My very good friend, Bea, references that moment, near the end, in "Lassie" where a parent would sit down with the little boy, Timmy, and explain how and why, even though everything looked so bleak, it ended up all right in the end. She calls them, "So you see, Timmy," moments.

What I've seen of life so far, it would appear that good guys do, sometimes (often,) finish last. That injustice does occur, unanswered. That horrible things do happen to really good people. And, that, sometimes, it keeps happening to them. I find myself craving my own sort of "So you see, Timmy," moments. And, wondering if all my battling to do "right" is worth it.

And then, I have to have a real, honest conversation with myself.

Okay, A-Girl, here's the deal : You do what you do because you believe it's right.
Not for any other reason.
If you make the choices that you make because you believe that you're gonna get a big giant prize in the end, how is that different from any other old-fashioned selfishness?

I believe that we were put here on Earth to become better than we are.
I believe that everyday is a new opportunity to evolve into a better creature than we were yesterday.

It takes baby steps, it takes making small "right" decisions all along the way. It takes carving the darkness out of our hearts with a thimble in the hope that someday that thimble is lost in the hugeness of a grown-up, "better" heart. There is a knowledge that I am probably making my life harder than it has to be in the short term because I believe that the growth is worth it, in the end.

It takes faith.

I don't know that I could wrap up my religious beliefs into some nice, tidy package. I'm not even sure that I know what they are, anymore. But I do believe that "this" is not all there is. That "earth" and "now" are part of a much bigger thing.

A thing where bravery and self-sacrifice and standing up for truth, really do mean something.

And that, gives me faith for days like today and hope for tomorrow.