The idea to keep moving is simple enough. Just keep going, keep the momentum. Yet often it's the simplest of things that are hardest to execute, let alone continue. It's the mere notion of drudging along without an obvious end that is the major hinderance. My major hinderance.

In retrospect I've often approached things with a sort of a plan, a sense of knowing: whatever I'm going through would come to an end; whatever feelings along the way are fleeting; whatever is endured, all would be worth it. What does not kill me will make me stronger; there is a purpose to the challenges I'm facing. This knowing is what kept me alive. For the longest time this knowing is what held me together. Like a fishing line, it is seemingly fine and fragile--just a mere thought, a mere belief. But also like a fishing line, it can withstand great tension and turmoil. At the end of it all, reward: a fish, my end.

The progression of events recently has me lost. For the longest time, for as long as I can remember, I've passed my years with this "optimistic" approach: keep going and it will all be worth it in the end. Recently, however, I found myself looking back at these years and am not understanding how I am here, lost of faith and hope. Where has the drive gone? Where is my will to continue? It is a daily struggle, now, to get up and "seize the day", as I am often consumed with waves of disbelief.

As I write this, I see how my own directive is the cause of this. I've allowed myself to wander into the world of what if's: what if this isn't temporary; what if these struggles continue; what if all this work doesn't pay off; what if this is all for nothing.

True, there is nobody holding me in this elusive forest--nobody but myself.

~n