Barriers

Today, I biked into work.

When I bike into work, I don’t ride the bus and when I don’t ride the bus, I don’t read like I normally do, which means that over the Spring, Summer, and Fall months, during which time I am more likely to bike instead of ride the bus, I don’t have a plan for fill the annotated reading list coffers.

But the reality is that there are always barriers to the good stuff, the most rewarding tasks.

My wife asked if I wanted to do some landscaping this summer—“heck yeah I do!” should have been my response—and instead of seeing her vision, I saw the barriers, the responsibilities, the hardships that go with setup, care, and maintenance of such a task. These barriers are admittedly not insignificant, but the outcomes are what make the hardships worth it.

Choosing to be a parent involves interrogating that notion frequently. I didn’t sign up to have a baby in perpetuity; I signed up to have a human being that I could help steward in this insane world of ours. The barriers, responsibilities, and difficulties could have lead (on any number of occasions) to a different decision than to become a parent, but the rewards are too great to be concerned with how hard things are.

Sometimes, you just have to show up. Sometimes, it takes more than that, potentially a lot more, but in every scenario in which I have had to work for something, the finish line is that much sweeter, that much more important to my story.

I hope to be able to conquer the barriers that have led to a two-week writing hiatus; we shall see.