Tomorrow is a big day. I wake up at 3:30 AM, pick up a friend, and head to Napa to see her run the marathon. I have absolutely no clue how any of this is going to turn out and so I’m extremely anxious to say the least. More precisely, there are two emotions, brawling in the streets of my interiors (euphemism for the stomach and intestines). In the red trunks, with crushing jabs and the willingness to bite is dread. Wearing the blue trunks, and dedicating today’s fight to a young child with some incurable illness, is the delight of possibility. Unfortunately, a little like those cartoon angel / devil versions of ourselves which would pop up over our shoulders if our lives were suddenly transformed into bad sitcoms, the emotion we’re all rooting for is getting the crud knocked out of it due to the unfair play of the other side.
Dread is a nasty competitor, who really has no qualms about any questionable tactics. He dredges up the worst events of our lives, pulls at our greatest insecurities, and generally makes up feel horrible about things that haven’t even happened yet. He uses anecdotal evidence to make us believe that every hope we have ever had has ended in death, destruction, and agony. And so, once dread determines to enter a fight, he typically has a decided advantage over any other pugilists. Being a dedicated pessimist, I am easily convinced that any action by myself will only result in some sort of horrific failure, possibly involving mosquito infestations, boils, and a rain of toads.
So, the positive side of the equation, the potentially good ending, the hope for a better tomorrow, well, it has its work cut out for it. It must learn to counter all the dirty tricks that dread brings up, and still try to get in a shot or two of its own. This of course is made more difficult by the fact that I tend to magnify and focus more on the negative results, the times I’ve struggled, and the less fulfilling aspects of my life. And so, I’m pretty convinced that something horrible will happen tomorrow, and my next entry will be deciding whether I’d rather take rat poison or snake poison to numb the pain.
In the end I decided that if I didn’t go, then I would feel like I missed out on an opportunity. And I already did miss out with my own inaction earlier. Like I have tried in vain to convince you, I really am not a complete defeatist. There is a part of me that wants this to happen and is actually making the effort. I just wonder if the effort will be enough.
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