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What Is It You Are Avoiding At This Point In Time?

A fellow blogger, Reena Saxena, asked this question in her Exploration Challenge. This question stopped me dead in my tracks. Well, my reading, thinking, tracks.

It made me wonder – what am I avoiding at this point in time? How about a bunch. A passel. More than I could put into one post.

But really, this isn’t true. Saying there are too many things to count is just another way of avoiding. If there are too many, why bother? Let’s just toss the question aside and move on.

Which, in itself, is a cop-out. So is my life an endless circles of cop-outs?

I sincerely hope not, but what do I know? I can’t even list avoided ‘things.’

So, if I brave up and seriously think about the question, what do I find?

I find I am avoiding the world right now. But no, that’s quite true. I am avoiding myself. I am out of work and feeling like anybody else in the world can get a job except me. I am often told, so-and-so called this place and got a job.  She put in an application here and got a job. He interviewed here and got hired. And on and on.

I’m told, “With your skills, you will have no problem finding a job.” Truth is, I don’t have a job. Where are these ‘no problem’ jobs?

So what the hell is wrong with me?

Sorry, got carried away there.

But I hope you get the point. Which isn’t, by the way, me freaking out about the job, but that I’m avoiding the whys or hows or whens. I don’t want to face myself if I’m somebody who can no longer get a job. If a medical mistake had changed the entirety of who I am.

I don’t want to face myself as I stand on the threshold of financial failure. The Bi-Polar me doesn’t even know how to see myself anymore.

Who am I? This is what I am avoiding.

Am I better knowing this? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s safer to pretend.

So, then, the question is:

Am I willing to stop pretending?

I don’t know.

I do know I am thankful to Reena for asking the question in the first place.

What are you avoiding at this point in time?

 

Here is the link to Reena’s challenge

 

 

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Flash Fiction for the Practical Practitioner

The challenge for Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner will open early Wednesday morning, April 19th. Allow the prompt to take you anywhere you want to go! (Limit your stories to 200 words.)

Flash Fiction for the Practical Practitioner

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All his life, he’d felt awkward in himself, so unlike his family. Straight hair versus curly. Dark skin versus light. Brown eyes versus blue. Plod-along sameness against the wild need to roam free.

He’d roamed for over a year, following a silent call. Why was he different? Who was he? Was he adopted? Found? Just a throw-back to some earlier, unknown, ancestor?

His gaze now never left the ocean. Somehow this was it. Home. Taking a little-used trail through the rocks and scrub, he stepped onto the sand. On the doorstep.

Tossing his pack down, kicking off his boots, he moved towards the surf, belonging sweeping through him as the waves lapped around his feet. He waded further. Further. Water past his hips, armpits.

I’m coming, he cried silently, I’m coming.

Water rose over shoulders, chin, to his top lip. He paused, uncertain, then continued. The water rose over his head. Filled with fear, he struggled for the surface, no longer knowing what was up. What down. Fought to hold his breath, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t last. Couldn’t …….

A moment later, he drew in a lungful of oxygen, flipped his tail and headed out to the open sea.

Home.

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Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers 3-16-2017

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This week’s photo prompt is provided by Tim Livingston with the blog, The ForesterArtist.

Guide for Flash Fiction for Aspiring Writers

1. A prompt photo will be provided each Tuesday to be used as a base to your story. Please include photo prompt with your story.

2. Linking for this challenge begins on Tuesday and runs to the following Monday evening.

3. Please credit photo to photographer.

4. The story word limit is 100 – 150 words (+ – 25 words). Please try to stay within this limit.

“Whowie,” George cried, pushing through the thick forest undergrowth, face to face with the rusted wreak from another time.

Sam stomped up beside him. Spiders. She hated spiders. So why was she following this idiot through forest pretending to be jungle? Oh, right, she had no reason. If even one spider got in her hair…..

“Relics of a lost civilization!” George pulled off his backpack, digging for his camera. “Can you imagine?” he asked. “Archaeologists have been looking for this for centuries.”

“Don’t overdo it.”

“What do you mean? This is fantastic!”

“No, it isn’t. It’s just Uncle Charlie’s old car.”

George pouted. “You don’t know how to play the game.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m telling Mommy,” he frown-cried, running back through the clearing.

Sam followed. “I want lunch.”

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The Pony Hunt

One of the main reasons people travel to Chincoteague is for a glimpse of the wild ponies. Our search started no different.  We drove to the Natural Refuge, paid our fee, and entered into Pony Land.  But where were the ponies?

They hide, you see, in the marshes and woods, sometimes allowing searchers a glimpse and other times, not.

We drove. No ponies anywhere.  So we got out to hike one of the trails, hoping against hope to see a wild pony or two.

We peered through grasses.

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Scanned the marshes.

20160221_101105No ponies, but pony lovers never give up.

All of a sudden – a clue!

20160221_101314Where there are hoof tracks there must be ponies!

Another clue –

20160221_101021Where there is manure there has to be a pony!

Finally we reached the end of the trail!

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A pony!