a watched pot never boils

well, this isn't really true, since eventually the pot will boil, it will just seem like it took a lot longer to do so then if you had been busying yourself with something else besides watching the pot. but, i digress, for the sake of this post, we're going to say that a watched pot never does actually boil, and it is only once you take your eyes off it and trust it to do it's own thing in it's own time, that it will ever even start to consider boiling.

i've recently decided to stop watching the pot. it's for real this time. over the past, oh, i don't know, 5 years? 6 years? over the past 5 or 6 years, it seems i have been doing almost nothing but waiting for the pot to boil, moving it from burner to burner hoping one might work when the others haven't, often returning to old burners i thought had cooled off, and occasionally when i would get tired of doing so, i would throw my hands up in surrender and say i was really going to turn my back and stop watching it this time. and maybe i actually did a few times, but there would always be a mirror in front of me reflecting the still unboiling pot back at me, defeating the whole purpose.

this time, however, is different. i'm finally done watching the pot boil. what's even better, is that i don't care if the pot ever boils! at least not right now, anyway. for now, i am perfectly content with its not boiling and busying myself with other things. as much as i complain about how much homework or actual work i have and little time to breathe, it really is the best thing for me because then i am distracted so much from the pot that i can almost forget it's even still sitting there. in a horrible pun of sorts, that sara will love, i guess you could say i'm putting that pot on the back burner.

and i am rather quite proud of myself for doing so. i wish i could tell you what sparked the change (pun?) or made me realize it was time and of my best interest to walk away from the pot, but i don't really know. just one of those things i suppose, when you wake up one day and didn't even realize you began looking at things in a whole new way. change can be so constant, you don't even feel the difference until there is one. - life as a house. i think that something of the sorts happened to me.

the reason for this post now is to remind myself that i have once and for all chosen to step away from the pot and that that in itself is a feat of great accomplishment, one that i cannot just pretend never happened or fall easily away from, as last night has made me realize the tempting has begun...again. this wouldn't be the first time i had managed to stray from the pot, taken a glance back and seen that it had begun to boil, only to discover upon closer examination that it was just a mirage, an illusion, something dangled in front of me to get me back to watching the pot, waiting for it to happen again, waiting for the pot to boil.

and it's so hard not to, to keep my eyes away from the spot which they have called home for so long. the pot is like the one ring calling me and i am frodo [please refrain from hobbit comments - you know who you are ;-) ], in constant struggle between resisting and giving in. it's especially hard when the pot seems to have started boiling on the burner you most recently hoped it would. and i'm caught between beliefs: that this is once again a mirage and i should wait until i can hear the bubbling before turning back; or that maybe because i have stopped watching the pot, it's finally actually starting to boil.

so what do i do? refuse to turn back to the pot? or whip around and surprise it in hopes of catching something? because what if something is starting to happen, and i'm too stubborn to look back, so i miss it? i don't know. guess i'll have to just wait and see. (or rather not... but you get what i mean)