Precipice

School starts next week and I feel like I’m standing at a precipice. I’m working frantically to put up some guardrails but I don’t have the resources I need and the terrain is rocky and provides an unstable foundation. I know that whatever safe guards I put in place will be flimsy and bound to fail.

But I keep working at it, because what else can I do? A flimsy guardrail is better than none at all, right?

Or maybe not. Maybe it’s just something I need to see, even if it’s so ineffective as to serve no real purpose.

The danger is that it brings a false sense of security and eventually I forget how flimsy it is and when I lean on it, it collapses and I fall into the abyss.

Maybe, for this particular challenge, the fear of facing the precipice with no guardrail is what will keep me away from the ledge.

I try to plan to make this easier. To give myself some confidence that I can get through this. But deep down I know it’s going to come down to waking up every day and just making it work. There is no amount of planning or creative thinking that can keep us safely away from the precipice.

And that terrifies me more than the precipice itself.