This journal is all about the question
What now?
And this entry was inspired by a new friend with an old soul . . .

Sometimes, the best answer is to know that there is no answer. There are going to be times when you don’t know what to do—or there will be times when you can’t move, as if too much is happening at once, and your body is stalled, as if to be caught in some uncomfortable submission, or you’re stuck and emotionally paralyzed; or in the case that your heart and your head are mismatched, and your body is at odds with what’s happening around you—and when life takes on a newly unfortunate or unexpected shape and you don’t know what do—sometimes, the best move is not to do anything.
Just pause.

I see this as a quick and important note for those who live in their divorced life or for those who find themselves in their divorced mindsets and for those who have a need to be heard or have the need to be right. Before I say anything else, I want to say that I understand this from a personal perspective. While my opinion is subjective to me, I understand that there are certain relatable concepts when it comes to parenting and co-parenting in an otherwise tough or hostile environment.

I have seen what happens when being right is more important than being happy. I have seen what happens when pride and ego comes first. And no, nothing good comes from this.
Or, okay—

What I want to do now is go back. And yes, I mean I want to go way back. I want to go back to a time when I was young. I was sick but I was too young to understand why or what it meant to have gastroenteritis. I was too young to understand big words like this, or adult words that doctors use. I was far too young to understand why I was in and out of the hospital.

I didn’t know much about these things.
I only knew that I was sick and at the time, it seemed as if nothing was going to help me feel better.

Most people will never believe this about me, but I am shyer than I appear. I’m scared of people and while I understand that I am a public speaker, I have social anxiety and stage fright that often causes me to vomit before I do my presentations.
And, too, I am much more submissive than I ever wanted to be. However, it has been years. Through the experiences of my past or my efforts to improve as a person, when it came to the moments when enough was enough, or when the discomfort of my surrounding was too great, I had to find whatever it was within me to respond or stand up. When I found this, I had to allow myself to be heard, and heard clearly.

There is no one on the face of this world who hasn’t lived or thought or felt the sting of regret. And that’s the saying. Isn’t it?
That’s the thing about life, right?
“Life . . .No one ever gets out of this alive.”

I remember my first presentation in a high school setting. I have to say that I was as nervous then as I was when I was a kid. I never did well at school. I never fit in well and I never thought that I was “enough” or “cool,” and somehow, I was being brought in as a special speaker.
Although I was fully gown, I was as scared then as I was when I crossed through the double-doors of my own middle school. I say this because I never had a true high school experience. I never went beyond the ninth grade in a formal classroom setting.

I have heard it said that when it rains, it pours. And I agree. There are times when the world is falling down around us. There are times when it seems like there’s no way out from the storms and there are certainly moments when nothing goes well. Each time you brace yourself to accept what’s taken place, it seems like something else happens.
And once more, there we are . . . wondering the question.

I have to say this because I believe this is true.
We take moments for granted. We assume that this is life and that life will be the same. We make plans and never consider the alterations of life or the weather. We go and we live and we assume; and the ideas of change are not considered. Safe to say, we think that our life will be as it is, until one day, life changes, and then nothing is ever the same again.

This brings me back to the ideas of my Mother, or as I affectionately referred to her as Mom, and back to the ideas of life as it was for her. Then again, this brings me back to the life that Mom assumed she would always have.

I chose to end my last journal by asking the question, “What now?”
I asked this because of the countless times when I found myself in the wake of an aftermath or in the wake of a tragedy or some life-altering change, and yes, I asked myself, “what now?” because out of nowhere, life was about to be different.