Going Nowhere...

I am in a place this morning, up way earlier than I wanted to be, and I have no topic that is resounding with me, which is odd.  I feel, at least mentally, to be going nowhere.  

I start almost everyday with something that is living large in my head:  a thought, a feeling, an idea, a concept.  Something that is looming and taking up space that I might need for something else.  However, today, I am blank.

I immediately thought about not writing but I realized that I needed to write even though I wasn’t instantly sure about what I would write.  So forgive the rambling nature of today’s post.  I am not really sure I am going anywhere with all of this which has kind of become the point...

But perhaps that is a point I should come to know better...going nowhere might just be the way I haven’t tried before.  It requires an open, inquisitive mind.  It is wide open without a great deal of thought or feeling.  I could literally end up anywhere...

I have so many ideas and thoughts and I guess feelings, although I would prefer I didn’t, all day every day.  I am always going somewhere mentally, all the damn time.  And it is exhausting really.  To wake up every day and already have an idea where my internal life will go and what we will think about so it is somewhat refreshing to not have any mental place to reside today.  I am just here, doing the practice of writing it all down and doing the deal.

Well, I guess when you don’t have a destination in mind, it is kind of hard to really roll with it.  I have only just begun this whole blog and I seriously have nothing to say.  So many words that lead me nowhere...wait, maybe that is every day.

I started walking the river bottom again after holding myself only to the meadow, I guess I just needed a change in scenery.  It somewhat amazes me at how very much I enjoy the routine of a thing - a particular hike or walk that I must do daily.  And then, without any real thought about it, I suddenly am bored and in need of a new vista.

Perhaps that is the main point of today’s blog - that when I do not decide things in advance:  what I am going to write, what I am going to think, what I am going to feel, where I am going to hike, new things are made possible.  Going nowhere is actually something...something that provides me a new pathway to land somewhere other than usual.  And given all the mental ruts I end up in, frequently, a new one would be welcome at this point.

It is 5 am on a Sunday.  And I am going nowhere...at least for the moment.  The coffee will kick in here in a few minutes and then I will be off and running, per usual.

This whole lack of thought process makes me wonder if there is a completely different way to live my life...I mean what if I got up everyday and worked to eliminate my ideas about it all and just surrendered to the day.  To the powers that be.  What might that be like?  If I myself had no agenda other than to do what was immediately and pressingly in front of me?

And I am thrown back to a time in early recovery where my life was so drastically changed that I could no longer predict what the day would bring...I could not place where I would be, how I would feel or what I would be doing.  In early sobriety I was granted so much time that I had previously been wasting away with drink and the recovery from drink...the time I got back felt almost like a punishment.  Now, here I am all these years later and time is the one thing that I feel is in short supply.

So perhaps waking with a blankness today, a lack of agenda and drive is perhaps a good thing.  Perhaps me not knowing what lurks around next hour’s corner is better than that which I can conjure on my own.  I guess I am going to find out...and regardless of what the outcome may be, I think I am ready to turn myself over to the day, however she may unfold.  I can unfurl myself into whatever happens next, wherever I may end up and how so ever I may be.

Truth is, me making up my mind about shit hasn’t always landed me in a great space, at least not mentally.  I so fill in the blanks of life, I write copy for life, when life presents me with a storyline that lacks sufficient substance and sinew.  I am a filler inner.  And until just now, really didn’t see and couldn’t own that I am not always correct in my self written plot twists.  In fact, I likely get it wrong about as often as I get it right.

So for today, I endeavor to just be present in this moment, going nowhere, not hurrying myself along because I am not now, or really ever, knowing where I am going anyway.  I mean, I have ideas and dreams and all of that, but all of that serves only to distract me from the work that is presently in front of me that I am avoiding doing...and regardless of whether I want to or not, it is my work to do.

I think I have tried all the self directed bullshit.  So today, I wake and write and intend to go nowhere at all, and with that decision a well of excitement brews for the unanticipated, the unknown and the unseen to develop more freely and completely before me...again, still.