Wait, Nothing Changed?!

The world didn't end.  Am I relieved?  Well, yes, but I am also disappointed and I will tell you why.

On Thursday, December 20th, I spent the day looking at the world as if it might be the last time I ever saw it.  I held gratefulness in my heart for running water, central heat, and electricity.  I looked at the people driving in cars and felt overcome with emotion.  I went to a restaurant for breakfast, thinking that it might be the last time I got such a simple and amazing treat in my life.  I walked through the world marveling at how simple, easy, and smooth life is for me living in California.

Before I went to bed, I set my alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning.  That was exactly eleven minutes short of the actual Solstice.  (I wanted to be awake if anything happened.)  But as we all now know, nothing happened.  Instead of the power going out, an asteroid hitting the planet, or aliens taking over; I said I prayer for peace on earth and real positive change and then went back to sleep.  I repeated this prayer at the moment of sunrise with my daughter.

There was (and is) a part of me that felt really sad about 'nothing happening', but it has led to some rather startling realizations about myself.  Of course, anytime I have a startling realization, there is some twisted part of me that feels the need to share it with the world; hence this blog.

Now that the world is moving on as it always has, I've been thinking what now.  And I've been thinking about the plans and commitments that I've made moving into 2013.  And here is what I have discovered....

Somewhere inside of me, I really believed that *something* was going to change.  Something obvious.  I've put everything in my life into a kind of holding pattern, because I figured that I wouldn't have to worry about certain things moving past the Winter Solstice of this year anyway.

What is sad, and scary, is that this belief was so ingrained, I didn't even realize that it was there.  Consciously I didn't realize that I was holding myself back in so many places.  I didn't realize that I was choosing not to do things in order to wait and see how things turned out.  I have kept myself in a half frozen existence.  Somewhere deep inside my noggin, I was forcing myself to hold back and rest up because I believed that all those creature comforts would be gone.

Now I have to face the fact that nothing happening.  Nothing.  Life is moving forward in exactly the same way that it has my entire life.  And as much as I want to feel happy about that, it is a difficult pill to swallow.

Here is how things have changed....Now I have to face reality.  I have to do the hard work of owning up to my addictions.  I have to look at how I've let myself fail.  I have to stop using my creativity to make excuses for not being creative.  I have to release the hold that I've placed on myself and actually step into action.

There is nothing scarier than that...