if i were a horse...

I've been writing in my journal again. I do it because my brain races at an uncontrollable pace and I need to put my thoughts on paper just so I can sleep. I know that sounds bad. I'm working on that.

It helps, for the most part. A few pages - and I feel like I've written something, that I've cleared my mind. I should probably do it more than I do. I have a journal that filled up quickly with passages and phrases and thoughts scribbled in it both randomly and symmetrically. I remember one night during one of our long visits/talks, I showed it to Rachel. She flipped through it, the black ink bold against the white paper.

"Wow," she said. "This is how your brain works."

The other night, curled up on the chaise and writing calmly - for the first time in a while - I stopped suddenly.

It was such a simple sentence. And it came out unexpectedly. And I stared down at it and wondered...how we can hide or deny certain things about ourselves...and then they just pop out. Unprovoked. Unexpected.

I don't believe in myself anymore.

That was it. That was the sentence. To think that 10 years of therapy is what it takes for some people to say that out loud...

I should clarify - that belief is a funny thing. I have immense faith - when it comes to my religion. And while I know that this blog can seem choppy from time to time and I know that a feature on Mortgage Brokers can only be so interesting - I'm a pretty good writer. I know I got it in there - in me. I sometimes read other people's stories and think, "I could do that...better." I know that.

And I know that I am fully capable of doing anything I want to do. I may not want to do it - but I think I'm capable. Able.

What I'm driving at is - please don't think me as sitting in the corner of my room feeling as though there's no point in going on. I'm not Winona Ryder in "Girl Interrupted".

But if I were a horse - I wouldn't bet on me.

Belief really is a funny thing. How is it that we can believe in something we've never touched, never met, never actually come face to face with - but we can't believe in the person staring back at us in the mirror? How is it that we believe in so many other people all of the time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week - but when it comes to us - we think twice. We doubt. We second guess.

I smiled at the sentence. Maybe the road to reinvention is paved with unexpectedly candid admissions. Maybe that road is a track - and we are all horses - running around seeing how fast we can go, sometimes wishing we could start all over out of the gate. Maybe I don't know what it takes to make a confident bet on a good horse - or even know a good horse when I see one... But I think, if I try - I could learn.