I’m lost on a road to “God knows where.”  Feeling scared.  Uncertain.

It’s my story right now, and I’ve good reasons for my emotional state.  It’s not the first time in my life I’ve been lost or overwhelmed by circumstance.

There’s no doubt my situation is difficult, and solutions to my problems seem beyond my current capacities. I am grateful that I’m not alone in having to face this, but it makes me feel worse knowing that I’m dragging down people who care with me.

I don’t believe in hopelessness. There is always a way out of any difficulty, at least, that’s always been my mantra in the past.  I’ve been stuck in my current difficulties for months, with the disparate elements to my challenges built up over the past five years, or maybe over my lifetime as a result of how I’ve lived, decisions made and actions taken or not.

Mine isn’t a new story.  My health is not good, and is deteriorating over time.  It is responding to my focus on trying to find a solution to my worst problems, and a way to cope with the things I won’t be able to control.  My financial situation is a disaster, brought about by a series of mistaken steps, all of which seemed to be the correct decisions at the time, but have left me in serious debt, absent an income on which I can rely, and quite uncertain as to the potential for even basic survival, under my current situation.

I don’t feel overwhelmed with guilt about my current position. I know that I am accountable for everything that happens to me in my life.  That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s all my own fault, but simply that different decisions at critical junctions would have led to different outcomes, and the decisions were mine to make, or even sometimes, mine to avoid making.  Even in those circumstances where my arm was twisted, or I was taken advantage of my others, it was up to me to make better choices or pick better partners.

Other people played important roles in my story, and how I ended up here in this mess, and just as no one is an island unto themselves in achieving success in life, likewise, no one is solely responsible when things go straight to hell, either.  But the role of others in creating my difficulties is of little value to me now, in trying to figure out where to go from here, and how to get there.

Here are a few random thoughts about how I will get out of this mess.

1. Make a list, detail the issues including both those which seem unsolvable and those which appear to have potential solutions, no matter how unpalatable.
2. Take concrete steps to begin to address some of the issues.  Whether or not I can solve everything, or even most things, I can do something about most things.  I desperately need to break the hold that my emotional condition has on me.
3. Start listening better to the people in my life who care about me.  At the moment they seem to believe in me more than do I myself.
4. Creatively analyzing my situation with a view to possible improvements in it.  A little improvement is better than none.  Maybe everything isn’t quite as far gone as I currently believe,  maybe I can still pull myself back from the brink.  Of if not, figure out how to ride out the storm caused by going over the edge.
5. Let go of the past, embrace the future.  What is, is.  What has already happened is done, over and can’t be changed. But what has not yet happened, may never happen, or may result in outcomes totally different than anticipated by my fears.