The Letter Z...

It's here, the end of the alphabet challenge.  "Z" closes us out with Zenith, the highest point or the culmination of something.   This will conclude this particular challenge.  I may do the alphabet challenge again someday, but this round ends today.

Many of us get through life focusing on the zenith of things.  A lot of us never focus on the actual journey to the end of the road, we just want to get there.  That really is a shame, we miss a lot when we approach life in that manner.

Being a Virgo & feeling a need to control things, I've learned some coping techniques to get me through life.  I'm actually very good at getting through stuff in my life as long as I know there is an ending.  I could handle late night classes, even if they were three class periods long.  I just focused on the fact that meant there were 150 minutes in the classroom & each minute that ticked away put me closer to the end of that particular class period. 

I handled long drives the same way as a kid.  I'd watch mile markers & let them be a countdown.   If the distance seemed to big to comprehend, I'd break it down into smaller chunks.  My parents loved to drive.  We had relatives on both coasts.  Hell, is a non-stop car ride from northeastern Oklahoma to mid south Florida.  That's roughly 1,200 miles & 20 hours.  My parents would tag team the drive.  That was too great a distance for my little mind to handle, so I'd break it down.  I'd focus on how far was it to Joplin, then Springfield, then Memphis, etc...  I could manage the ride that way.

That's how I got by.  I broke things down into manageable bits.  Too bad that only works when there's an ending.  What happens when the task, journey or experience before us has no perceivable end?  Answer, I usually don't do very well.  That's the case when you're living with a chronic illness such as HIV.  There is no end.  The only finale is death.

It's very frustrating not to be able to control this aspect of my life, that the only zenith of this situation is terminal.  But, there it is. A point where my organizing & counting, won't help me a bit. I don't deal well with the infinite or unknown.  I don't like it at all.  I want something to measure against or compare to in my life.

Things without endings, like chronic illnesses, can wear on you in a way that nothing else really can.  I know there are good things in life that also seem to be without ending, but it's just an illusion.  Everything has an end, even if we don't know when it's going to conclude.  I like knowing there's a zenith, a point on the horizon that I'm striving to get to. What about you?  Do you want to see the finish line or you happy traveling without any point of terminus?

Cya