And a hush fell on to the crowd

I have no idea what is going on with me but lately I've felt the need to just be quiet. I haven't been returning many phone calls or e-mails. Those I have been connecting with have been getting the bare minumum. I got an e-mail from an old friend today that simply reads:

Why is it so hard to get you to email or call me back?

I don't even know what to tell him in answer. It's not hard to answer or call back. I just haven't. And it's not that I'm pissed at him or have been hurt by him or even that I'm intentionally avoiding him. I just haven't called or replied. I know he needs my friendship and caring right now. I know that he's struggling with some things in his own personal life and that as a long time friend I should automatically feel compelled to reach out to him. But I don't.

There are a lot of things going on in my life with people I love that have brought me to my knees lately. He's fairly far away and has lost his job. My sister has been having the worst of relationship luck and survived having her ex-husband get her vehicle repossessed. Another far away friend is starting to find their way through life after a diagnosis of bipolar disease. And, just today, my aunt had lymph nodes in her arm biopsied for lymphoma. It's not really an understatement to say that I've felt immobile, physically and emotionally, and unable to feel enough to be of any support. As best I can put my finger on the issue directly, it's as if I'm watching those around me that I love deeply from inside a glass box. Like their situations are so big, that I can't even make a first move.

Yet even before any of these tough situations started brewing, I felt a quiet come over me. I haven't been able to wrap my brain around why either. It feels as if I'm waiting. Waiting for something big or small or nothing at all. Waiting for instruction. Waiting for something of profound meaning to be said that will charge me to action. Waiting for my greatness to begin.

My greatness?

Isn't it true that we are all born destined for greatness? That we've all had a path laid out in front of us that will lead us to greatness if we just take the steps each day in our words and actions? That the only thing standing in the way of greatness, mediocrity or worse is in the decisions we make in the what we do and how we treat others every day?

If that is the case, I'm left to ask myself in echo of the question presented by my friend: What direction have the decisions I've made recently and the inaction I've been frozen in taken me?

Guess it's time to unstick myself and find out.