Drifting . . .

The 9th Annual Short Story Challenge Interviewing . . . Me!

Drifting . . .

I��m sitting here mindlessly playing computer solitaire, not thinking much of anything, just letting old sorrows, lost hopes, and unborn possibilities drift around in my mind like flakes in an old fashioned snow globe.

It��s futile to try to sort out the thoughts. There��s no need to dwell on what is gone and what can never be — those are part of my very being, so that even when the thoughts are not recognized, I feel their importance.

Nor is there any need to dwell on what has not yet happened — although those possibilities are still unformed, I feel their portent.

I��m trying not to rush through this strange hiatus between all the endings and a new beginning. So many people are gone from my life, through death, mental illness, and misunderstanding that sometimes I am overwhelmed by the complexity of starting over alone and wish to make immediate decisions and plans to give me a start on the future. But other times, like now, I am content to let the future take care of itself. There may never again be a time where so much is open to me. When I have to start making decisions, the world will narrow with each choice.

If I continue to do my mostly volunteer work for an online company, I will be tied to the computer for longer than I wish, doing work that has long since lost its appeal. If I were to walk away, I will have to embrace one further loss since this ��job�� has been part of my life for many years. If I were to get a real job to make my financial situation stronger, I won��t be able to take dance classes. Nor will I have time to write (or rather, not write, which is what I so often do). If I continue to take dance classes, I won��t be able to travel, or at least not much.

I am not yet ready for such a narrowing of possiblitilities��even if it means embracing my sorrows and lost hopes a bit longer.

And so I drift.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, ��an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.�� Connect with Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.