growth and decay

I've been tired this weekend.  It's somewhat discouraging.  It reminds me of how little logic and reason mean, should I backslide far enough.  The allure of of comforting answers can be a strong one, as I tell myself that everything will be different now, but then life happens.

I try to keep track of every little thing that seems to help or harm, assessing my strategies of what I can handle, and how well.  Sometimes I've found that nothing I have any control over turned out to be enough.  Sometimes I could have been better at assessing what was helping, what wasn't, and what risks were just stupid.

I should not need the reminder that doing better has been quite difficult.  I'll try not to think about how it can also be quite precarious, but I can't forget that this is not an abyss I've ever quite made my way out of.  This is bound to make me prone to negativity about it.

Still, it's the effort itself that's important in life.  For all life.  We're either growing or we're dying.  Literally, each offsets the other and there is no in-between.    As I get older, making that distinction seems to grow more imminently important, but I also realize that I don't have to just passively watch in horror.

I have to remind myself that it's also the reason I write, so it doesn't even matter if I have nothing to write about.  This is the only thing that motivates me, when I have nothing else, but I've realized that I should be able to stretch it a lot further than I have been.  Least when I have the energy.

Maybe I'm declining because I haven't been running.  There isn't really any substitute for that.  Or because I have an appointment with VSAC tomorrow, and suppressing my anxiety has been exhausting.  This might seem to be a big step, but I think I'm all out of smaller steps, here.

As for being more social, those are even bigger steps, for me.  I can go back to worrying about that, once I'm on track with this education bit.  As far as helps and harms go, I think it might be important, too.