Navigating life

Lately my soul has been restless-I feel worthless and bored with my life. These feelings brought me back to something I wrote a while back- As I walked along Shilshole Marina I began to think of all those boats...

What good is a ship while warming her harbor? With that longing to rise up and stretch her broad white sails upon the restless sea? Indeed, I am a ship of torn sails from my journeys through the mighty oceans. In the midst of torturous winds and rains, my heart has ripped like those sails. Yet, in the solitude of the placid and tumultuous sea, my past has shaped me; in the tossing cold currents, my heart heals as the waves soften to rhythmic tidal lyres. My father once told me “if a poem made me cry, I knew I had to memorize it.” His love of poetry, his artistic sensitivities, and his life’s challenging journey has inspired me and shaped me into who I am today. This is one of his favorite poems (and mine):

“My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; / It rains, and the wind is never weary; / My thoughts still cling to the moldering Past, / But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, / And the days are dark and dreary,” says Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Along with many wonderful memories of my childhood-2 sad ones stick out like a sore thumb: Divorce and Disease. As I have grown, my father’s illness has too. Sadness and wistful memories of the past often plague me. Envious, I observe my friends who have healthy fathers and I long to have experienced that same ease within their families. I often wonder what it’s like...What is it like to have a father come home after work-healthy and strong? Or to smell his faint drift of cologne while being embraced in his safe and loving arms? Or to go play hoops in the back yard on a sunny afternoon?

These thoughts come and go. I get sad when I think of these things-but I cannot let my disappointment and wishful thinking consume me. I know how much my father LOVES me and how much my heavenly father LOVES me also...

I guess I've learned when I start to feel down, I try and realize who I am focusing my attention on....ME, DUH! Are we living in sorrow, reminiscing over old memories, never realizing how fortunate we really are? Often I forget how blessed I am! I am healthly, I have a father, mother, step father, family, and friends who deeply love and support me! I think if we undergo hardships and learn nothing it's like leaving a new ship in harbor. I was not made to be just looked upon-to sit tied to lost hopes and sad memories. I desire to stretch out my sails to a call that cannot be denied. My past has given me a clearer perspective on life, and a sensitivity that I can use to better understand and help others. Encouragement, care, empathy, and hope are qualities I hope to bestow upon others in this tough, dark world. As Longfellow wrote, “Be still, sad heart! And cease repining; Behind the clouds is the sun still shinning; Thy fate is the common fate of all, into each life some rain must fall, Some days must be dark and dreary.”