The Future: a blank canvas or a black hole?..

The last couple of weeks have been intense and painful, but today I feel better. Peaceful. Free. I slept for 6 hours last night, which is a lot for me. I've spent the day by myself, but instead of panicking about endless hours to fill and crazy thoughts bouncing around my head, I've felt hopeful and optimistic about the coming months.

I figure I can look at this in two ways.

1) Everything has fallen apart, I am leaving my friends and the city I love, to be, essentially, homeless. No job, no friends, nowhere to live, nothing to do. Feeling lost, hurt, angry, resentful, lonely.

OR

2) I am leaving one life, and have a blank canvas in front of me to start another. I have a few different choices about what I'll do, but there is no rush to make any decisions. I'll wait until I am back, then see how things pan out...do what I can with what I have. There ARE options for me- I just need to find the path I want to walk down, and somewhere along the line, I'll find a place to call "home".

There are facts to consider about the coming months, which influence which view I take depending on whatever mindset I happen to be in. It's not all doom and gloom...it's far from peachy either. There are very valid concerns about the choices I am going to have to make. Lots to think about, lots to research, and a little too much reliance on others (I am NOT comfortable "needing" other people).

I think what I really need to do is sit down and figure out where I want to be in 6 months/a year. Not physically, but what I would like my life to LOOK like. What I want to be doing, where I want to be in my recovery, what shape I want my world to take...then backtrack and figure out the best plan of action to get from here to there.

Without doing what I keep doing, and falling into the hole where I do nothing but panic and the prospect of "life" is too overwhelming to even consider being a part of.

Whatever I think, say or do, time is going to pass. This is going to happen. I am leaving New York. I am going to have to make decisions, compromises, sacrifices. I am going to feel a sense of loss. The sun is going to rise and fall, regardless of whether or not I want it to. I want to make the hands of time STOP until I can think things through, but really...I need to get to work on accepting what IS, rather than wishing for what ISN'T.