A Little Bit Courageous

The title of this post is taken from the REO Speedwagon song, "Keep Pushin' On." It's a song about overcoming heartbreak which does not apply to my current life but I believe that most of it is universal. Despite the vertigo calling to me from the chasm of my doubts, I want to set an example and declare that, "Sometimes, I think I was a little bit courageous." Why? Because I thought about the breaks I took from this project and that project that piled up until I could have left each one for dead. Instead, I move ahead and think no further than this next step embodied in this post.

This is one of those moments, accounting for the nature and scale of my fears, where the building is burning down and I need to face smoke and flame to save it. It may come to pass that I may have to abandon it to save the people who are more important. That's just a metaphor and an exaggeration but it helps in its own way. Compared to the scale of my fears, the matter is colossal. Compared to the most important things in life, the matter (as if it were just one) is trivial. Paying a few fines would be unpleasant but it's something that can be done. Dealing with the extra agony from money that can't be spent on coping will be far worse.

I need to be a little bit more courageous and deal with events before they overwhelm me. Right now, I'm looking at the immediate problems of not having any money until the middle of next week in case something comes up. If I do run out of something crucial, there are people to call upon. The specific problems are: an aggressive automated collections program got me to agree to pay a certain amount of money exactly one day before we will have it. It caught me sleepy and cooperative as if I were on something illegal that I've never tried. The closest I've come involved the first few days on a new pain medication prescribed partially because pain was depriving me of sleep. The result was two or three days of bliss like a faint echo of twilight sedation. Since I took the medicine as prescribed, I came out of it after a few pleasant days with a reduction in pain. In any case, I made arrangements to make that payment and I'm sure that a human would be understanding of the one day.

My electric bill (including all forms of power except people power) is the other concern. I seem to have writhed in agony through an entire month but then my system prevented that bill from falling through the cracks. I paid that month's bill in full as if I had found an old copy of the bill and paid that. Therefore, I would be current on the next due date if not for my screwup from some home repair related disaster. They deferred and divided a balance for me concerning that but my August mistake invalidated the agreement. I'm not up to dealing with a big negotiation but I've taken action to get them enough money to be bargaining from a position of less weakness.

I haven't managed my way though the property tax debacle yet but that's next on the list. Most recently, I emerged from two full days of enforced "rest" to surface and write this. The first day was pure agony. Every time I woke, I was in such horrible pain that I sought escape in sleep or getting as close as I could through meditation. I couldn't eat anything because freaking Jello hurt my teeth. Then I spent yesterday more or less asleep but without the greatest of extremes in pain so also without the greatest extremes of pain control. When I emerged from that state, it was somewhere between four and five AM and I was filled with writing ideas. I believe old "Blahthings" might return in a slightly different form and under a different name.

The urge to write about public policy has returned but not so much about politics. There's a line from "The West Wing" that comes close to summing me up. "[He] doesn't like running for office because it takes too much time away from doing the job." I had to do the brackets around he because the character Josh was talking about the character named CJ who was a woman. I had to wrangle the language a bit to put it into place. I'd rather write about how I'd prefer to see the nation work than why I'm going to vote for the Democratic candidate as you all know that I will.

Of course, Melissa is a lot more courageous than I will ever be. I can't tell you about her journey (even the parts that I know) except to say that it starts with a form of anxiety disorder and continues through her working with the public every day now. Somehow, both of us (quoting Kevin Cronin of REO Speedwagon singing) will "Keep Pushin' On."