The Lens Is Out Of Focus

Sometimes I feel like a camera.
I lose focus and suddenly everything around me seems blurry. Some days, all it takes is a 20 minute yoga practice or dancing around the living room to The Grateful Dead and I'm back in the game. Others, it takes a bit more humph to get me going again and no matter how many times or how often I try to readjust the setting on my lens, everything still seems completely out of whack and the picture comes out all wrong.
I am trying to focus on being more positive of late. I somehow lost site of that somewhere in the past few months and though I usually adorn a cheery disposition on the outside, it sometimes doesn't seep through the rest of my skin and my insides are found wanting.
One day at a time, I have started to set new goals for myself. I find I get bored way too easily. My brain never stops thinking and my fingers never start wriggling throughout each task I feel the need to finish within a day. I make to do list upon to do list and feel guilty when I can't accomplish everything all at once. Then I get frustrated because the day is over and I have no time left to do something enjoyable.
I'm learning to make time for fun.
I'm also learning how to breathe. Maybe it's just me but I have made the observation that when I get particularly flustered, I hold my breath. Having no air circulating in and out of your lungs is not a good thing. I guess that's why you always hear people saying "take a deep breath before you do or say something that you're going to regret." There really is some truth to that. If you take the time it takes to breathe in and out one good deep breath, it may stop you from completely forming negative emotions and letting them pass through your body, causing more stress than is needed. The more I think on and practice this frame of mind, the more I am able to let go.
Letting go is never easy. I am often guilty of holding back and not finishing something because of my fear of rejection or not being liked. The past few days, I have been writing about a time in my life that I truly struggled. I was concerned that in writing about and revisiting these events, I would come out blotchy and crumpled like a roll of film being over exposed. The truth is that I need to get it out and it's OK to be exposed. That's what writing a memoir does to you. It reveals the insides and outs of one's life and I can't be too afraid or hold back too much. If I do, this great work that I am trying to create will never be formed into the something I want it to be.
Reading back over the sentences I've written this week, I have found that it's not quite as painful as I thought it would be. The words are beginning to flow and make sense. I have some gaps to fill in but I'm still in the very beginnings of what I hope becomes a great piece of art. I'm letting go and letting the blank page in front of me be the canvas for the photograph I want to create.
Even if it's a little bit blurry right now, I guess it's a start.