What You Gotta Do

We have our strengths, we have our weaknesses. Sometimes we just have to work through our weaknesses just to get to our strengths.

Since about five o'clock last night, I have been performing a ritual. It involves lifting up couch cushions, crawling through dust bunnies on the floor, retracing steps, calling places I have been, visiting the gym, looking under the same stack of books and magazine's on my bedside table at least ten times until I finally gave up in utter dejection, picked up the top magazine to read it, and ended the ritual. It happens about once every two months or so with some regularity, yet it still holds this power over me, as if it is some kind of wicked punishment.

Today, it is the search for my wedding ring. This time, it was where I always put it, on my bedside table, it was just hiding under that top magazine. I imagine it to be buried in the back yard, mysteriously stolen, or maybe somehow blown into the outer limits of space into the black hole of lost rings, keys, driver's licenses, sunglasses, receipts, and one of my all time top lost things, my wallet.

As I frantically search, I go from extreme shame and self loathing to bitter blame, to hopefully, every now and then, somewhere in between, something like a healthy attitude. I tell myself, "It's a wonder you've kept up with this thing for five years!" And, "Don't panic, you've got a back up for just such times as this." But it doesn't help a great deal.

The disaster was averted, once again, this time. But this is a struggle that I have had since the year I lost three nice winter coats in one season as a kid. So, like the fact that I am so extremely confused by numbers that, hard as I try, I cannot calculate my score correctly in card games, or sometimes even count my reps at the gym, I must just keep plowing through the harder things in my life to get to the easy ones.

Nobody is good at everything, and I tend to think it best not to focus too much on your weaknesses. However, they have a way of showing up sometimes in places where they demand your attention.

So, full circle, you gotta do what you gotta do to get to do what you gotta do.

I gotta do my life in my own way. So I gotta put up with the fact that I'm gonna hit kinks, they are unavoidable. I just have to remind myself not to get too bent out of shape over the rough spots and soon enough I'll be flying again.