Focus?

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

 

Just 10 days ago at the mid-January point, I wrote about what the month had held so far and what some of the topics on my mind were. With only 6 (!) days remaining to this first month of 2025, I feel as if I am still tiptoeing through the days.

My study is a mess: Dad paperwork (some old, some older, some newer, some new, and, of course, miscellaneous) in a couple of piles, my paperwork (the same), a small but growing pile of donations after the heady exclamation in that aforementioned post that we had moved a lot of things to Goodwill, and, of course, some other stuff. At the same time, there are some small, "neater" stacks of papers on the couch in the downstairs study that (a) are mostly mine and (b) need to move upstairs to my study and get filed, shredded, or recycled. My study is chillier than downstairs (excuses, excuses) and I keep looking at those downstairs stacks and think, "I'll get to those...later."

The real issue is that my mind is cluttered or, more to the point, my focus is blurry right now. I am working hard (perhaps too hard?) on finding my center, my cornerstone. (Maybe I have more than one cornerstone?) Maybe it has been this cold wave (finally ending, it would appear) that has kept me from walking as much or as far as I want and am used to (I did walk home from visiting Dad today; that was a good thing!) that is pushing me down. (As I wrote just a few days ago, walking is a very important part of my life.) I am quite sure that the noise, much of it toxic, blasting out from the new administration is part of the picture as I worry about the safety and well-being of family and friends in this new era. 

And, having written all of that out and seeing my words in the light of day, maybe I do have a focus after all. I remember that not only am I am my best when I focus on the small moments, the immediate moments, and the community moments, but it is more than my just noticing thosenthings. It is my moral duty, one I take up gladly, to do my part to mend the broken seams of this world. 

Maybe I am indeed ready to move forward.