Life is an obstacle course. Some parts bear not a second glance. Barrel on ahead. Others stop you in your tracks.
Those hurdles loom dark and foreboding. They knock the wind from your lungs and turn your blood to ice. Make you second guess your next step for fear of the mine your foot might compress. Those blockades force your eyes wide and turn your head in every direction looking for the slightest aid.
When faced with a barricade of such magnitude you have a choice. Sit and throw your hands up in defeat. Or trudge on using any and all means necessary to overcome the wall ahead.
Last week my writing wall seemed insurmountable, after struggling to complete a simple chapter to end my second novel and receiving a thorough lashing from a critique of three chapters of my first novel. The desire to sit, cry and never get back up pulled heavy that day. I opened and closed my story so many times my computer screamed, “Make up your damn mind!”
I took a break, hopped in the car to feed my horse and leave it all behind. During the drive I couldn’t help feeling sorry for myself. Poor me. I only have a loving family, a pretty roof over my head and delicious food to eat. But the wall wouldn’t allow me to see any of that. Until I saw this.
Three feet off the road, I saw his little head gently raise from the tall grass surrounding him. His sad eyes looked directly at me for the briefest of moments then fell back behind the blades.
Certain he’d been hit and left injured but alive, I had to stop. My stomach twisted with thoughts of gore I might find and my heart broke for this animal.
After three tentative steps I found it was no hit and run, but a dump and run. One many weeks before judging by the way the skin sucked to his bones and his lethargic stumble as he tried to flee. With gentle words, a measured approach and no energy on his part with which to run he settled down in a nook of thorny brush and branches.
Long story short, this is that same skin and bone flea and tick infested puppy after one week of TLC.
On that day, it took this puppy, frail but fighting for life, to make me look at the wall and say, “Ha, I’m getting over you.”
So, the moral to the story is when the obstacle seems insurmountable take a step back, think of all you have, all others don’t, hold tight to the people who support you and keep on truncking!
None of us are the writers we want to be, (insert noun) we want to be, the people we want to be. But we’re one hell of a work in progress!
Press on!
And Spay and Neuter your cats and dogs! Mine are.
Facts: Approximately 4 million cats and dogs are euthanized each year in U.S. shelters alone. Beyond that, many millions more live in unfit condition in homes and on the streets. For more facts about spaying and neutering click here.
Working for The Healing Species, an international compassion education and rescue organization, I saw first hand the atrocities overpopulation cause people and animals alike. Don’t contribute to the problem. Be part of the solution!
Stepping off the soap box now. 🙂
Megan Mitcham 