Oh the weather outside is frightful

And I have no fire in my house...which is a good thing since I have no fireplace.

I can't really complain I suppose. It's a HIGH of NEGATIVE 17 in Minnesota.
Plus I have a house, and tons of clothes (that I can't really fit into but that's another self critical blog I suppose) and a car and heat, oh and a bed.

So yeah. It's cold.

It's no coincedence that people call old age the winter of their lives. Winter is a winding down before a rebirth of sorts, as in spring.
Old age, at least the way I see it, is a winding down before a spectacular rebirth in God's kingdom.
I realize not a lot of you feel this way. But I do and it's my blog.

I look at these bare thin trees out my window at work and I think of the frail limbs of the elderly, or the ill. How easily they get snapped by gusts of wind or to much weight being placed on them.
But I know young and healthy people that feel frail and bare as well.
I'm talking about those moments when you feel that the world has given you to much weight to bear, to much responsibility, to much grief, to much of everything. These moments when you just collapse under the weight and it isn't until someone helps you that you're able to stand on your own.
To me, there seems to be this shame associated in asking people for help. This idea that if I expose what it is that I'm most struggling with that people will be aghast that I struggle with such things and flee the scene as if their life depended on it.
I feel like I should handle it on my own. Put a brave face on it and trudge forward head down striving for the goal.
What is that goal again?
I don't know.

I mean, the majority of experiences I have with this situation tell me otherwise. I talked to Bobbie just last week about something and she was nothing but encouraging and uplifting.
Also, I love it when people ask me for help. When they let me help them carry the load, when they lean on my shoulder and I can try to comfort them.
Why then would I rob others of that same opportunity?

We're created to live in this community, this state of depending on others and supporting each other. To not be engaged in vital growing relationships with people, to not reveal to at least one person what it is that is your deepest dream and have them encourage you in that.....that's what causes the bare branches and the feeling that you're carrying the weight of the world.

I told Tony and Deano one of those things on Sunday....and just by the sheer fact of letting that dream slip it's taken hold of my mind and won't let go.
I told someone else today.
I think it's time to stop dreaming and start planning. Looking logistically at if this is possible, if this is something that I can actually do and follow through to the end.

I'm also afraid to start things. Beacuse if I don't finish, or change my mind in the middle...then I'll be a flake not following through on the 13957th thing in my life and disappointing people again.
I think I need to get over that.