MOMENTUM

As I have been fairly active these last few weeks in attempting to rehabilitate my life from the devastation of divorce and bankruptcy several years ago, my most recent foray has been into the jungles of home mortgages.

I have lived in the same house for eleven years; the same house which once I owned, then lost in foreclosure, rented for the last five years, and now am trying to buy back again. It's not easy arranging financing with a bankruptcy and foreclosure in the past, two items, I might add, that were more or less forced upon me as the result of my divorce. That was an extremely large and difficult pill to swallow. Swallow it I did, and I have been chewing the cud of it for the last five plus years.

I made a decision, though, about a year ago, to not be a victim anymore. I may have been a victim in my divorce, and several bad things may have happened, but I decided last year to not let those things happen again if it were within my power. This process of arranging financing has tested the resolve of my decision to be a victim no longer. It would be so easy to just whine and give up, and tell myself, "This is just too hard". Four years ago, I would have given up.

The truth is, though, that I am sick of playing a victim. I am sick of living life by other people's rules, whims, and insensitivity's. I am long sick of believing I am at the mercy of others when it comes to things like this. Please understand, the easy path would be to simply stay a "victim"; it's such a handy excuse. At least that's how it seems.

But I just can't do it. I envision MORE. I envision fully being what I am made to be, and stretching the limits of even that. Playing the part of a victim destroys that vision utterly.

I asked myself in pity the other day, "How long am I going to have to pay for the mistakes of others?" What a silly question. The truth is, I don't have to pay, I simply have to decide to forge ahead, and leave the past behind. In essence, the past is not a wall in front of me, barring my way, although it is simpler to view it as such. Rather, the past is a wall behind me, protecting me from dwelling in it, and making the same mistakes over and over again. Everything in front of me is new; I haven't been here before, and isn't it all grand to behold?

It would be so easy to just stop the hard work of arranging financing to repurchase my home. At least that is what it looks like from behind the wall of the past. But I am not behind that wall anymore, and the clearness of my vision nowadays tells me that the lie is behind the wall; the lie that shouldn't be trusted, the lie that tells me to give up. It's a lie because giving up only seems easier. There is this incredible quantity called momentum, which is easily maintained once the initial inertia of standing still (quitting) is overcome.

It's all friction. That's all that it is, really. Overcoming friction when you are already moving is actually easier than stopping and giving up. A victim would do the hard work of stopping. That victim, however, lies dead and buried behind the wall of the past. He can't come out to play anymore.