What is a Step?

I started this blog today for myself. I hadn't intended to start one; I had merely gone to view a friend's and clicked a few buttons and found that I wasn't invited like I thought and that I needed a membership to continue. So then I signed up, thinking that it would just allow me to post or what have you, but it asked for a blog name and here I am. Sadly, the thought that ran through my mind was that I could use this place as a private journal. My thoughts would be safer here than on my own computer because my husband, like myself, tends to snoop when he feels threatened. I'm leaving. He feels very threatened. I don't want to talk about him anymore.

A step is a decision. A decision small or large, emotional or rational, "right" or "wrong." For years I have lived a life of paralysis brought on by the fear of making the "wrong" decision. I have had no faith to step forward and live. I have sat, huddled in the corner with fear and left all my decisions up to it. (I would say him, to characterize how I have used men to "save" me from my fears or her, to characterize how my own fears have kept me immobile, but I am distancing myself from fear and stripping it of its power and so it is now an IT!) I have taken the easy road. Each time my heart and soul screamed for the road less travelled, I ran toward the beaten path with a vengeance. I never gave myself permission to make my decision and trust that the outcome would follow. I feared negative consequences brought on by my personal desires. I thought that the only right decision was the selfless one. I thought of everyone else's needs and made a decision for my life. To a certain extent, I still feel that need. I still feel as though it is sacrilege to follow my own heart or my own dreams. But I'm not moving forward.

Today I feel a foreboding dread. I am not afraid to live on my own. I am not afraid to leave, but I feel a tug that makes me feel nauseous. Something is still not right. Perhaps it is just nerves. Perhaps it is that my husband is helping me move and I am taking on his mood swings as we pass from step to step, decision to decision. He is very unhappy and quarrelsome. Or I am very impatient and cannot be as considerate as he would like me to be in his hour of need. Or probably a little of both.

I hope to keep track of my steps here. Any size. I want to be conscious of my decisions and for the reasons I am making them.

I dare to dream a world. Some people say this is not a good thing, but if the world is merely our perception of it, then I dare to dream a perception that isn't run over by someone in my life who wishes to control me inside and out.

Oh, it hurts.

© Nicole J. Williams, 2005, all rights reserved