Keep going

The summer is, thankfully, almost over. But not without it's casualties. Half into August and the yard and it's gardens are burnt and brown. Hiding between the weeds and the wild grass are the beautiful plants I've loving collected and sowed over the years,..stressed and withering.
But, under it all, they are still alive.
And I know how they feel.
In so many ways this summer has been a struggle. My personal and professional life, my health. All of it, at one time and then another have felt so overwhelming. Yet, through each day I've heard that faint voice in the back of my brain saying "keep going". That voice has gotten me through all of my life.

When I was a young child, everywhere I went, I ran. And not, like Forrest Gump, because I was particularly fast or good at it. I think I ran because, I think, it made me look and feel as though I had some place "real" to go. And my presence in anyone's eyes, was fleeting,..a flash that came and went. I ran home from school each day, hurdling over the low garden walls between yards along the street on my way. On vacations in Mexico I would climb the hill behind the cabin we rented just so that I could run down it. Forced to keep up with the forward motion of my body and feeling slightly on the edge of falling gave me kind of a rush. Because I would do this over and over, I'm sure it left my parents shaking their heads, as I was always the child  averting attention rather than trying to attract it. But through it all, that small and faint voice in my head whispered "keep going". Later, when I was in high school and had stopped running everywhere, and had gained a bit of weight over the summer, I had to run around the track to pass a required physical education course. It was a humiliating experience. While not the last of the class, but close enough to be grouped with the pathetically out of shape, I struggled to get to that finish line. All the while, head down and panting "keep going, keep going". I wish I could say that it was a motivating moment,..one that made me work to get my physical shit in order, it wasn't. But what it did do, was cement the "keep going" mantra in my life.

No matter how hard or how impossible the course in front of me seemed, I kept going. When I left my first husband and was totally clueless about living my life, I kept going. When I was pregnant with Ryan and everyone was telling me the right thing to do was give him up, I kept going. Even when depression had a firm grasp on my life, I kept going. Despite that handful of times when I teetered on the edge of giving up, I still kept going.

At the end of this month I will be 52 years old. The age my grandmother on the first birthday I remember she had. 52 years. 52 years of "keep going". Some days when life just seems to be bent on breaking my resolve, I still keep going. All these years with a loving but alcoholic husband,..keep going. Parenting three kids who struggled with depression and ADD, and learning disorders,..keep going. At work, which has been the greatest challenge of all of my life, it's ever in the back of my mind. Orders left after Friday,..keep going,.. closings popping, seemingly impossible standards,..production questions from upper management,..keep going,..keep going, keep going, keep trying,..never give up, never give up.

It all sounds very good, doesn't it?..but the truth of the matter is that there are probably times when I should have cut my losses and given up on certain things. Not that I would change any of the majors in my life, but there definitely have been times when I haven't exactly helped myself by beating my head up against a wall trying to make something work that was never going to work. And too, there is this thought of what that eventual finish line is go look like. Are there times when I am pushing myself toward nothing at all? What I mean is, what is the reward at the end of some of these struggles? And then there is the flip side of that coin. The things that I should be pushing myself to keep going in that I dont. Like my health, and my house.It is not a perfect, or even attractive picture, I guess. I have been rather selective when it has come to being determined. Still, I have no real regrets.

All in all, the effort to keep going this summer has left me exhausted and in some respects, broken.  Mostly, at work. I have never in my life questioned my mental wherewithal. Never. But over, and over, I have found myself struggling to focus, questioning my judgment, my memory, my abilities. I tell myself that it is mostly all of the change. Change to right, to be sure. I was blissfully ignorant of my mistakes for years, but now as I chew on these new procedures, and their correctness, my professional insecurity is growing. Head down, keep going, isnt always working for me. And there have been a few occasions it has most certainly worked against me.

I look at the garden, and I know how it feels,..withered and spent,..but still there. Still going, and I hope, still growing.