unfolding

the days are moving, and that is a blessing.  winter is coming, regardless of the warm, warm days.  you can smell it in the sweet decay of fallen leaves and the gold-brown-red hues of the trees trying desperately to shield their inevitable nakedness.  you can feel it in the air, the undertone of chill that your bones are already preparing for, if you are from the mid-west or have lived here for any length of time.  the days are moving, the seasons are changing, and life is going on.  that's a good thing; that is truly a blessing.

looking back through pictures of earlier summer.  things were already changing, and the horror of that kind of change is knowing it's happening, but being unable to do anything about it.  you can't really act decisively on a hunch.  you just can't, it's not right.  but i knew.  too many times of confrontations for no reason.  too many times of having to bite my tongue, knowing that my anger was a hand grenade ready to blow things to bits, anger born from confusion as to why good was never good enough.  times of not being able to get close, for fear of either bringing more fissures to her demeanor or of being cut by her sharp edges.  anytime you're in a situation where you have to compromise who you are to maintain where you're at, change is happening, and it's not good.

this picture was taken by Rachel, as i had asked her to help me, to take author pictures, as i was trying to get my head wrapped around jump-starting my publishing activities again.  it wasn't going to happen, and she did try, i take nothing away.  but it wasn't time.  i was in a strange place, unable to get back to the Tim that does the things that makes books and flyers and poetry and music and stuff.  i think the hardest part was, i knew she wasn't able to have my back, as she was having so much trouble having her own.  but that's WANT, and want is not the best thing to base a relationship on.

regardless, i have looked at her pictures today, and realize my feelings haven't changed one iota, but my sighs are not as deep, and my withdrawal symptoms are minimal now.  i did a lot today.  i went to the store and got some needed things, i visited my parents, i had a conversation of enlightenment with Keith, i made my mom coffee, i made a potato broccoli cheddar soup in my crock pot.  i repaired my toilet.  i had a call to set up an interview on Thursday.  i put in more applications.  i went walking this afternoon.  i did stuff that needed to be done, and i didn't just lay around the house, though i felt like doing exactly that.

there is a tomorrow on the horizon.  if i should be blessed with awakening in the morning, i intend to go to my doctor's appointment in Warren, go to my kidney doctor's office after to get blood drawn for an appointment next week, pick up these tickets at Stambaugh, perhaps make this casserole for my mother, go to lunch with or without Lonnie, see if i can find the other props i need for this opening shot for the video for "Everytime the Phone Rings", and generally do things to keep me feeling human and to keep feeding my spirit.  that's the deal right now.  that's survival.  and i do know how to get by.

autumn is approaching.  i'd wanted us to go to California this winter.  i would have worked and saved and made plans toward that.  but i was not going to honor a plan to do something with someone who had definite business somewhere else.  doesn't change how i feel.  just makes it clearer that if you keep walking knowing the bridge is out, you have no one but yourself to blame if you fall in the water.

thank you, Jehovah, for moving me through this day.