Wreckage

What’s burning just outside your door?  And what’s that smell?

Ever look around you and think the whole damn thing is a mess?  You’ve trashed your health, your relationships and any other thing that could hold meaning for you?  Clearly, as a person with a brain no matter how small, you know this isn’t the case but the upsides of things elude you.  The glass is always half empty during these times for me.  Even something that I’m as passionate about as writing doesn’t seem to make a dent.  I realize I’m the only one that reaches these conclusions and arrives at this place so I’ll try to explain this phenomenon to you that have never been there before.

This is the sort of “aha” moment that no one should aspire to.  This is the moment when you realize that everything you’ve been working toward, everything you’ve been striving for is just a big ol’ flaming bag of dog doo that’s burning on your front porch.  You know the gag.  You know that you have to stomp it out or the whole house might go up in flames but you also know that in doing so you’re just going to spread that crap all over the place and well, it’s going to stink.  So, maybe you just sort of sit there and watch it burn.

Because as long as you watch it you can take that drastic measure if it does in fact start to spread.  If the flaming doo that is your aging body and deteriorating health begins to get worse in the form of doctor’s bills, decreased physical abilities and whatnot, then you have to take action.  The bitch of it is that as you fail physically you might just begin to fail mentally.  Decreased mental ability isn’t all that funny when you can’t remember things.  Now where was I?  Oh yeah, burning dog poop.

So, sometimes you just watch it burn.  Disengagement works.  Divorcing yourself from your situation is an effective, if fleeting defense mechanism but therein lies the rub.  It’s defensive, it’s passive and after a while just in order to keep going you’ve cut yourself off from anything that might carry the aforementioned meaning.  This leaves you pretty empty even though you know the burning bag will eventually (probably) burn itself out.  But then you begin to realize what you’ll be left with, a pile of crap on your front step.  It’s impossible to ignore and you have to take special care not to tromp through it every day when you enter the house i.e. when you try to go about living your life.  So, assuming you’re at this stage, what’s the answer?  The bottom line is, the “what” is simple, the “how”; not so much.  You have to get rid of the shit, but how and where?

You know you can’t just scoop it up and fling it into the lawn because you’re certain to walk through it eventually, someday, when you mow the lawn.  You can’t just push it off the front step to the side somewhere because, 1) it’s still going to stink and 2) you’re going to know it’s there anyway and it’ll bother you like that mistake you made painting the bathroom.  No, that crap has got to go, be hauled away, disposed of forever.  You’re going to have to pick it up, bag it and put it in the trash.  This will take a little more effort but the lasting effects are worth it.  Getting that stuff hauled away, even if other crap reappears flaming on your front step sometime later (and not to be a downer, but it probably will) at least gives you the satisfaction that you took steps to rid yourself of it.  It’s a crying shame doing this won’t ensure you never end up in this kind of mess again but I hate to break it to you Bunky, but that’s sorta life.

Wait for the flames to subside, go grab the scoop and a bag and get that stuff off your front step.  You can do it.  You have to.  So get to scoopin’.

I sincerely hope you don’t find “surprises”  burning on your front step often but I know it happens sometimes.  Sometimes those messes are small and easily removed and sometimes it’s a daily chore for successive days.  Just want to encourage you to hang in there.  Keep hauling it away.  Eventually the danger and the smell will only be a memory.

I don’t always write an extended life metaphor about dog poop but when I do I hope you get something out of it.  (Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write)  If you want to read more non-dog-poop posts, you can click here to go to my blog’s home page.  If you would like to receive an email on Sundays with links to my weekly blogs you can subscribe here or at the blog for free.  You won’t get any junk because you subscribed, as I never sell or share emails.  Click this to subscribe and thanks for reading!