strength.

Writing has been coming along even though my word counter is not moving. I will get it typed over I just like to procrastinate.

I broke down and started picking at the second story that is living in my head. It is much darker (apocalyptic) and I am finding on the days I can't concentrate on Valkyrie I can focus in on that one a bit easier.

We are still dealing with insurance and working on coming up with a price list of everything we lost. Just looking at the list overwhelms me most times but I am going to have to suck it up and get it done.

None of this however is what I came here to blog about though. I was complaining to a friend the other day and she made a comment about my strength that got me thinking. She said that she didn't know how I found the strength to go on when bad things keep happening to me. I have been hearing variations of this my whole life (what can I say I'm cursed) but I never really understood the sentiment behind it.

When things go wrong I do what I have to in order to survive. Bills still need to be paid, kids still need to be fed, husbands need to be yelled at for leaving dirty socks on the floor. As much as I would often like it to life does not come with a pause button that will allow me time to crumple on the floor in a blubbering heap.

I don't do anything that these people who comment on my strength wouldn't be able to do themselves in the same situation. This got me thinking that maybe it was not my strength that they were overestimating but rather that they were underestimating their own. Perhaps too many of us are approaching life with an 'I can't handle it' attitude. Many things in life are determined by our own attitudes so if we enter adversity expecting to be broken by it then it will become a self fulfilling prophesy.

I don't delude myself into thinking I will succeed at everything I try but rather knowing that no matter what I will come out whole on the other side. Well that or dead, I guess dying is always a possibility.

I may never make it as a writer but I will not let the possibility of failure cripple me. Like everything in life true failure for me would come from never trying.