Redoubt Report #002
I made another run tonight. My personal life, as jumbled as it may seem sometimes, feels a bit more in order than I might have previously thought. It just may be my overwhelming pessimism that gets the best of me sometimes, but I feel that perhaps it’s time for me to stop being negative and at least try to focus on being positive.
Another Direction (formerly known as Retreat)
After stopping at the Sheetz near Glenside and Broad, I felt that doing an about face with my run might be a better inspiration than the previous run’s inspiration.
I drove towards Short Pump on my run, not really knowing why I felt like driving reverse course felt better this night than it ever had. My personal life, as I alluded to in the previous report and earlier in this one, seems to be taking a bit of a nosedive upon first appraisal. If it’s a reciprocated feeling that I used to get that I no longer do or if it’s a general trust being eroded away with another day’s passing, it seems to be nevertheless changing.
Driving backwards in my route, I came up with the following: the opportunities I had in the past may be presenting themselves again, just in a way that doesn’t feel generally beneficial. This hasn’t been the first time backing away from something felt like the right thing to do, but I just can’t keep but thinking to myself that it may be the right thing to do.
It’s this gut feeling that I can’t easily shake off. Hurting others really hasn’t been my most desired action, even if it causes me grief in the present or in the future. Feeling as if I really can’t make any other decision seems to be overwhelming me, but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad feeling. Why would we have feelings like this if it weren’t possibly a good thing? If it’s not regret or some slumbering selfishness awakening at this particular point in my life, what else could it be other than a gut instinct?
A Bumpy Survey
Either I didn’t notice it recently, or the local surveying team seems to have set up posts on Three Chopt between Gaskins and Parham during the day between my runs on it yesterday and this evening. The slight bumps really didn’t mean anything to me, but it told someone else that around two o’clock in the morning, someone actually traverses on these roads.
I wonder if there any points of such insignificant turbulence that I overlooked while making my travels down the road of life (excuse the cliche and shameful metaphor). I sipped on my drink as I continued to think about any sort of bump that I hit in any of my exploits in the world and what it could have told me at that point in time.
It made me appreciate what input might be gathered from even the slightest point of resistance in virtually any situation be it in relationships or in line of work. I think in the future I’ll be looking out for any such bumps in the road, trying to do my best to interpret what these small disturbances reveal to me.
Full Circle
Upon returning, before I came back inside to compose my thoughts here, I lingered outside and continue thinking. The environs just outside the house feel inviting and welcoming. The cool air and the slight breeze added to my state of mind and helped me relax that bit more.
The sounds of the small insect life outside that I had thought to be an annoyance before I left now filled my ears almost like a white noise. Perhaps it was the mini aural episode I had where I had a tunnel-vision of hearing, or perhaps it was my simple affinity for being alone that gave me pause to stay outside.
I reminded myself that I used to write like this on a normal basis, be it kept on paper for my own self-reflection or to be indexed on the Internet as another wondering soul’s thoughts and beliefs. It’s not like putting this out here on the Internet made me feel any different than writing a journal for my own safe keeping, but writing gave me an outlet to collect my thoughts in a way that my improvised speech might never properly serve well.
Even so, I still ramble. Perhaps incoherently and definitely without organization. The old habits are so hard to get rid of. It’s just that this one seems to be allowing me to collect myself in a way I haven’t been able to before I started this again.
