Ever feel like you're not where you need to be?  And not for lack of trying?  I feel like that every time I'm stuck in traffic on I-40.  I felt like throughout high school (and then again during graduate school).  Not there yet.  I'm prone to that inkling halfway through any workout regime or craft project. And I feel it today.

What I'm saying here is, I am often confronted with the sense that I've not yet "arrived" at the place I long to be.
The conviction that the tunnel's end is not near, as hoped; this feeling  follows me.  I try my damnedest and come up short.  One moment there is triumph and the next feels like I've scraped my knee... anew.

One step forward, two steps back.  Sometimes it feels like I'm standing still but, upon closer analysis, I'm actually further from an endpoint.  All of these sentiments are intensified by the pressure I feel to be formidable and quickly come out the other side.  A responsibility which no one can appropriately bear.  Least of all me and my fairytale-loving heart.