A hundred thousand cuts

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I recently moved to Vancouver, WA for a job, and this town is desolate for my interests. Portland is better, but there is no easy way to get there without a car. I've been biding my time, trying to save enough money for a 4-Runner, but in the meantime I'm in a major rut. Cabin fever always seems to get me into bad situations.

There was a break in the weather, so I started exploring a nearby park. In the thick bush, there were some trails used by deer and fishermen. It was pretty cool to begin with. I saw some snakes, frogs, fish, birds, etc. It was clear I was the only one on my side of the creek. I pressed as far as I could go, pushing through thickets of bramble in my shorts and t-shirt. I tried to make a loop out of the end which was a bad idea. The bramble and other nasties were up to my armpits, but I kept going forward.

At first I was careful to minimize my contact with the thorns, but the bramble just kept getting thicker and thicker. I was getting hungry and it started to rain. After walking through a thicket of nettles the bramble became a minor concern and I just charged through most of it, trying to get out. It occurred to me that this was analogous to where my life is at. I try to move forward and the pain increases, but you can't just sit there; you have to keep going. You don't know where to go and there seems to be an endless number of false leads.

I'm always in pain, but I suppose the best way to deal with it is not to make it your focus. When it was my focus, I became suicidal. There may be nothing to set one's bearings; no way to define what progress means, but that doesn't mean there's no point to it. I may live in a world of pain and disaffection, but I may as well keep going. How can I be so arrogant as to know what lies ahead from here, just because the past has been so bad.

The thicket in life may be endless, but I managed to extricate myself out of the literal one. My legs are bloodied, my clothes and shoes ripped up, but I'm still here.

That's a cool analogy.

I can relate. I moved to Beaverton a few months ago for a job, but that famous Murphy's Law seems to have kicked in. I have had 2 vehicles that had freak mechanical failures that totally destroyed the engine, totaling both. I was fired from a job. One of my closest friends died in an accident. My lack of normal social skills and eccentric nature results in very few friends, and they all far away now.

Now my main transportation is TriMet, I'm so glad that the bus and train make it so easy to reach downtown Portland where I now work. Last Friday I went downtown to just explore, the first time I have left my apartment for any other reason then work in months. This seems to be a break in the depression and isolation I have been trapped in. I am diagnosed with low grade bipolar disorder and that does not help at all.

I find too that letting myself focus on the pain and losses is a very damaging thing to allow. So I must attempt to grow and adjust, perhaps just accept never fitting in. After all, who would want to be normal anyway?

Exactly. Progress I think in terms of the painful bramble, would be dredging on until your skin gets thicker and the nettles feel less and less painful. There are other sorts of progress as well, analogous to your example, like finding a clear path, making a tool to cut down obstructions, hell, burning down the forest

Wait... where are the cats?