Against the Wind

The years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again
Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind

Well those drifter's days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out
Against the wind
I'm still runnin' against the wind
I'm older now but still runnin' against the wind
Well I'm older now and still runnin'
Against the wind
Against the wind
Against the wind


Ah, good ol’ Bob Seger. This song caught my ear on the radio last Thursday, as I was driving to Killeen. I went for the express purpose of seeing one friend with whom I’ve been trying to find time for the last few months, and managed to also get a chance to see another, and visit with him and his lovely little girls. I’ll be taking another trip out there later this month, and we’ve already both expressed an interest in making sure his daughters (and his son, if his son wants, but he’s a teenager and might be too “cool”) get to spend a little time with mine. Actually, all four of us expressed that interest – when his girls found out they were so close in age to mine, we all really wanted to make a little Family Day of my next visit. Maybe this time I will even get to meet his wife, who wasn’t feeling well that day.

Back to the subject at hand, good ol’ Bob Seger and his good ol’ song that seems to express the way I’ve been feeling more or less constantly for the past, oh, 8 or 9 years. You see, my life is busy. Really, genuinely, crazily busy, all the time. As if that weren’t enough, I seem to manufacture extra busy-ness and drama in the few places where organically there is none. I have absolutely no time-management skills and no real commitment to developing any. No organizational skills. A good 75% of the clutter in my life could probably be cleared up (and heaven only knows how much money saved) if I could just get my act together. But it’s more than that. It’s the general sense of unease. The recognition of approximately when my life went so far off-course, combined with the feeling of helplessness because I can’t seem to get it back on track, at least not in the way (or at the speed) that I want to.

It’s not all bad news, mind you. At least one of the ways in which I went “off track” led me to the career path I was born to take. Two others gave me the three greatest blessings of my life. Still, I can’t help but look at all these people who really have their act together, who never veered far off their life path, who always seem to know what they want out of life and how to get it. I fully acknowledge how hard many of them work to have things as good as they do, but at the same time it’s hard to see the people that just don’t have the obstacles I do (some self-created, others I have through no fault of my own), or worse, the ones that don’t work as hard as I do, don’t struggle as much, and still have it easy. To twist an old adage, here but for the grace of God go they.

I work hard. In school, at work, and as a mother. It hurts me when people look down on me for the way I’ve had to raise my children so far, and it’s hard for me to keep quiet about the changes that are coming, when at times all I want to do is shout, “See? SEE? I have a plan, I’m making a change, I’m going to do this right!!!” It hurts, too, when I struggle and struggle to make things better, and just feel like I’m treading water, like nothing I do is ever enough. Ultimately, I know that the only person I have to justify anything to is myself, the only people I have to take care of are my daughters, and as long as I can face the woman in the mirror, everything else is just so much white noise. But it gets discouraging sometimes… and more often than not, I just get the feeling that I’m running… Against The Wind.