Tilting the Apple Cart

What do you do when something happens, right out of the blue, to upset your apple cart? You know which apple cart I'm referring to...the safe, stable little world you've created for yourself. I find that it's generally the times when I think my apple cart is sturdiest, that something comes along and proves that I've got one wheel on the cart that's about ready to come off, hurling all my apples into the street.

Even if you're not necessarily blissfully happy with the path you've chosen for yourself, there's still some comfort in knowing when you wake up that your routine is going to be the same as it was the day before. No matter how much you might rail against that boredom, and long to travel the world and see the sights, or strike it rich and try your wings, there's still always a tiny part of you that relishes knowing where you'll be when you wake up tomorrow...or in a week. Or a month.

My apple cart is teetering on the brink of something. Whether that is a good something or a bad something, it's far too soon to tell. But it's definitely teetering on the brink of something. I can feel it in the air. I can almost smell it.  You know how change has that particular smell? That whiff of promise mingled with just a hint of uncertainty? I can smell that right now all around me, just as surely as I smell the sharp, bracing scent of rain-washed air after a summer thunderstorm.

I can only wait, at this point, and hope that the "something" we're on the brink of holds promise and happiness, rather than disappointment and fear. We've surely had our share of disappointment, just as we've had our share of luck and happiness. The older I get, the more I realize that life...LIFE...is a peculiar mix of those. You never really know when you're going to get luck or when you're going to get disappointment, but they usually seem to balance each other out pretty steadily. Except for those times when they don't.

As I sit here and wait to see in which direction my apple cart will tilt, I can only hope for the best. I can only hope that my apples land on soft, sweet-smelling grass and roll gently to a stop, rather than bouncing harshly on rough concrete which rakes at the tender apple skin, and leaves scars that won't heal.

 


- posted by Perpetually Romesick @ 6:58 PM