Funny how people sometimes give you credit for the very qualities you feel you most lack. In the past few days I’ve been told by three separate people something along the lines that I’ve got ‘enough will power to power a small village’ and that I’m remarkably rational and unemotional. This, at a time when I feel like an out of control bundle of nerves.

I guess the problem is my pessimism. My glass is half full. And chipped. And wobbly. And sitting on a fault line while harboring subversive thoughts. So while everyone is seeing the will and control I display, I am only seeing where they have failed me. You all hear that I can get myself to run a 10-K, but I only see that I couldn’t twist my arm sufficiently to take on a full marathon. And while friends may be amazed that I can keep a hold on my feelings well enough to work through major difficulty, they don’t see where it bubbles over and burns me.

So for all my will power and rationality, why am I not able to will myself to be an optimistic person who is actually happy with everything around them, rather than resigned to it only through sheer determination?

I’m done being broken. Life is not what you expect it to be, but that's no one's fault but your own. The only guarantee in life is death. Everything else is extra and you weren’t owed. Instead of whining, take what you got and make the most of it.

That’s what I’m trying to do now. This is my Summer of Sucking It Up. Job/career/family not working out the way you want? Tough. It is what it is. Deal with it. If one path doesn’t work out, find another. There is always something worth doing, even when it seems like nothing has gone right.

So I’m trying to take the rancid, shriveled lemons I’ve recently acquired, and make them into a lemon meringue pie. Or at the very least, acquire a taste for rancid, shriveled lemons. ;) One way or another, it’s going to be a battle royale of will power for me, and I am so up for it.

Right now, that means making up a very huge list of things that I have to do. I’ve got the time and the freedom. Sure, they’re not fun. But they never will be. So it’s best to get them out of the way while I have nothing better to do anyways.

I’ve spent the past year living far outside of my head – thinking little, feeling much. It was a nice change for me. But I’ve been negligent of my mind and have let my thoughts get disarrayed. It’s also been a while since I took stock of my views on things and I think it’s time to reevaluate and reconsider. I’ll be spending a lot of time researching and thinking this summer.

I’ve also gone back to running and am aiming to be able to do a half marathon by mid August. I’m up to 4.5 miles now, just gotta tack on another 9.6 in the next eight weeks. Inshallah, I’ll make it, provided my problematic knees and ankles behave themselves. It would be a great birthday gift to myself and if I lose a few pounds along the way, all the better.

And harder than that, I have to learn how to live with my family again. I was spoiled during my year away – used to the quiet calm that comes from living on your own and answering only to yourself. Now I am back to being needed, put upon, and talked at.
It’s been a hard few weeks being around the noise, inefficiency, static, and drama, and my behavior has suffered. But I know better than to be this impatient and unkind.

Lastly, I need to chip off the rust that my heart has acquired. I’ve become too lax with my faith and practice. The Prophet said: "There is a polish for everything that removes the rust and the polish for the rust-of-heart is the dhikr (remembrance) of God."

Inshallah.

It's time I went invisible again. Catch you guys on the flipside in a few weeks/months/years - as long as it takes to figure things out. Or be flummoxed to the point where I want to talk/write again.

*sinks*