By Kenneth Stepp
Groundhog Day. All I can think of is Bill and Andy starring in one of the best movies I ever experienced. He wakes up every morning stuck in the same day. I love the classics. Today I realize I am living the same way. Every day seems just like the day before. I really hadn’t thought of it until a friend messaged me and asked, “how was your day?” My answer, same old same old. I am living a Groundhog Day existence. Wow. And my life has always been exciting. Is this penance for all the mistakes I’ve made? Does a person only have so much fun in one lifetime? Did I use all mine up? I really hope not…
I decided to get out today. Here I sit here writing again. Writing is my outlet. I guess that’s better than some other outlets I could have.This world of singleness causes us to develop coping outlets. Maybe because it’s such a confusing journey. You meet, usually on line, facebook, or another social media site. You meet face to face, maybe at an event or for lunch. You both see potential. You start talking online daily. Then it happens. Two days of silence. It’s over. You hope it’s friendly. But every now and then you get a crazy who has to insult their way out the door. Damage. We all handle it differently. I tend to retreat and do what I call cocooning for a while. Then I slowly emerge from my home and see if the season will be changing soon. I guess my hope is that I continue to trust. I find myself weighing out every opportunity a little more each time. I find myself hoping to not change as much as I fear I might.
I assume I am not alone as I sit here in my aloneness. I have a few single friends who experience this from time to time. Mine has remained much longer than I expected. It seems as I go along this journey that phase last longer each time I go through one. I’m unsure this is a bad thing. Perhaps I am just thinking more now. Maybe that’s the change I have gone through. Maybe we change ourselves without realizing it. Is it a defense mechanism? Is it simply evolving emotionally? Or are we creating the world around us?
“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
A better way of thinking. That might be the ticket. Wouldn’t it be great to have someone as smart as Albert in history that wrote about romantic relationships? I’d buy the book today. In my view, they would run out of books all the time. But, sadly, Albert was a math guy. Well. We have benefited from that too. So, what’s the answer? Do we just throw ourselves back out there and hope for the best? That was what I did for a very long time. Something about me changed. I can’t remember when it did. It just did. Will I change back? I was happier then. I was so full of hope. I knew my forever love was right around the corner. Or, I had already met her. But after all this time. My hopefulness has began to decrease at warp speed. I sure hope it shows up again. Have you ever been here? What did you do to climb out of this? Is there really light at the end of the tunnel or it really the proverbial train light? I suppose I will learn the hard way. Like I always do…
“You can’t stop the future
You can’t rewind the past
The only way to learn the secret
…is to press play.”
― Jay Asher
