Aim Right For The Can

I’ve been quite positive and happy lately.  Strangely wonderful enough to raise the question, why?  I don’t believe it’s because massive amounts of fortitude magically appeared.  I wish it was because I ran into lots of good stuff lately, or even because life hasn’t been spewing, but in actuality, it’s been just the opposite.  The opposite, not just here to test my will, but enough of it to quickly arrive at and, more importantly recognize, overwhelmed; enough to realize I can’t, so I won’t, plunk myself in the middle of the opposite and gather it up.  I’ve parked the garbage can right next to the refrigerator and instead of stuffing the refrigerate full of all kinds of questionable leftovers, and throwing away the inedible later, I’m choosing to aim right for the can since it doesn’t take much effort to keep replacing the bags.  It’s no longer “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” but tuning out the squeak.  It’s no longer waiting for the water to boil, but turning off the heat.  Being able to divert a bombardment, showed me I can also divert a trickle, especially because trickles always appear insignificant.  Hey, but don’t floods start with a trickle?

Glorious Neutral

Neutral.  Colorless; walls painted neutral colors allow accent pieces to be added or changed without repainting the room.  Motionless: put a car in neutral, step on the gas, the engine revs but doesn’t engage the tires.  Decision-less; somewhere between black and white, huge and tiny, very important and doesn’t matter, always and never.  Restfulness; a place without self-applied pressure, where decision or answers will have to wait a bit for a bit of pondering.  Indecisive-ness?  Nope, just haven’t chosen yet.  Boring?  Nope, it’s the jumping off point of well thought out, more certain than uncertain, arrivals.  It’s the best place for getting my feet under me, delving into consider, stomping on hurry up and can’t delay, shedding any immediate fear, worry, doom, or certain failure.  Grief is such a place.  Idle; not as in lazy, but inactive, at rest, still, because grief isn’t a four way intersection, or a round-about; it’s a dead end.  Not the best place to immediately spin around and step on the gas, but instead apply the break, put my life into neutral, consider possibilities while facing what happened, before turning around, moving my foot to the gas; off and running towards, quite possible, arrival options.

Trampoline Approach

I miss all my husband added; his foundations, patches, bridges, and the special ingredients and spices only he possessed.  I miss his sense of humor, candor, stories, and solutions.  He added a huge amount of bounce!  Fall off a cliff – bounce!  Slide into a wall – bounce!  Let go – bounce!  Step off a curb – bounce!  To bounce – hit something, but instead of landing, it’s off you go, straight back up, or up in any multitude of directions.  He sometimes enlisted the help of “Elijah”, the whiskey, not the biblical character, but more often than not it was just something he could easily do.  I haven’t been much of a bouncer, but I’m starting to embrace the usefulness of a trampoline approach to hurtful, difficulties, and brick walls.  Starting to understand the uselessness of wandering around the edge; creating circular motion – motion, yes, but back to the same beginning, never to new directions.  Figuring out how to stop the slow decent into the middle, each step emphasizing the weight I’m carrying.  Seeing the immediate benefit of ready, set, jump – one big leap, deeper decent, but right back up, higher than where I started.  Can’t keep me down; not when I can bounce!

Nope, I Won’t

Just can’t do it any more.  Nope, I won’t gobble up everything being dish out, hold onto negatively charged people, sip from every cup I’m offered, jump along with anyone into bitter waters, stand passively by while being pummeled by judgement or disappointment, absorb “gloom and despair” brain waves, or allow anyone to squeeze out my optimism, clip my wings, or pop the happy balloons keeping my chin up.  Fling away, but I don’t have to catch.  Get ready to pounce, but I’m quicker than I look.  I’m tired of letting others make me unhappy, tired of feeling like I must taste their anger, opinions, frustration to understand, to empathize.  Nope.  If it looks like my eyes are glazing over when the spewing starts, guess what, that’s exactly what’s happening.  I’m learning to quickly question the direction words are taking using the filters helpful, positive, supportive, or uplifting.  Nope.  If miserable isn’t the direction I want to take, I’ll choose to head in a hopeful one.  Nope, I won’t be sucked into fear, worry, or pessimism.  Nope, I won’t alter my positive focus, because whatever the outcome, I’ll have a much better time getting there than those with grumpy tummies!

More Fluff!

(Somewhere, continued) Giant, white, fluffy clouds, and foreboding, gray, stormy clouds, describe just about everything that life sends my way.  Unfortunately, life isn’t concerned with balance or even-Steven, the weight or the impact.  It divvies out all sorts of stuff to me, and everyone else on this planet; what and where fluff and stormy lands, nobody knows!  I love to share my “giant, white, fluffy clouds” moments; but I’m questioning why spreading doesn’t help accumulating?  I don’t love sharing my “foreboding, dark, stormy clouds” moments; but I’m questioning why spreading stormy never seems to hinder accumulating.  How then to keep, how then to toss?  I’m aware of many ways to toss – self-examination, confiding in close friends, working with a therapist.  But we don’t see a therapist to share the fluffy, rather the stormy.  We don’t consider the effects of fluffy, only stormy.  We don’t question or blame fluffy, just stormy.  It’s time to start giving fluffy the attention it deserves.  Time to discover how to keep it from evaporating, and how it can be used to coat, balance, squash, or over power stormy.  Time to let stormy bump into fluff; not cotton ball fluff, but the peanut butter kind of fluff!

Somewhere

I watched a storm roll in, preceded by giant, white, fluffy clouds.  I immediately asked those clouds, please take me away to somewhere like you – soft, white, beautiful – before another storm hits.  Riding on a cloud; carefree, relaxed, happy, light as a feather.  I thought, those rides don’t come along very often, but that’s not true.  It’s more like, for much shorter periods of time, than the gray accompanied by all the variations of stormy; never seeming to last long enough to create a long lasting impression, never long enough to counterbalance the gray.  I asked, where would that somewhere be, would I want to stay?  Is staying even an option?  I believe it depends on the somewhere, and I don’t believe somewhere is a physical place.  Where I live, isn’t the somewhere; surround by too much reality!  It’s not away on vacation; only temporary!  It’s not hiding under the covers; not waterproof!  So where is it?  Inside of me, in the exact same places where gray clouds enter and storms accumulates.  In my mind, heart, soul, and breath.  Behind my eyes and touch, inside my ears, under my skin.  Now, all I need, is to create some sticky! (to be continued)

Cheese Curds

I’ve watched jugglers juggle all kinds of things; fire, knives, plates, but never cheese curds.  I don’t juggle, literally, but I do when it comes to life.  Why juggle?  Why hold more than I can handle?  Because it’s not always up to me.  I can’t tell life to take a number, get in line, or stop already I have enough, therefore I need to do something when life starts tossing curds.  It’s not collecting, stacking, shuffling, or arbitrary tossing.  It’s taking the time to consider deserve, regulate, allow, endure.  What deserves my time and effort?  Life’s curds may want my attention, but that doesn’t mean they deserve it.  Regulating the arrival temperature.  Just because curds come in hot, doesn’t make it true.  Give or withhold my permission.  As curds jockey for position or start acting up, it’s time to decide what’s allowed and what isn’t.  Choose to endure.  When curds manage to avoid resolve, it can be beneficial to temporarily reclassify them as endure in order to address other curds.  Life has plenty of cheese curds to toss, often full of self-importance, but remember, letting cheese sit a while, a process called aging, is often used to enrich the flavor.

The Piers of Works

“It’s quite a feeling when it works!” (Daisy Jones & The Six)  I imagine all the “its” I want to work as shoreline piers.  I’m not a short pier kind of person, so when I arrive at the end of a pier, I’ve either worked out how it will work, or decided it won’t.  Won’t means turn around, start again on another pier.  Will doesn’t mean absolutely, but probably.  If it does work, I’ll take the refreshing leap, and if not, impatiently dabbling my toes in the water, while applying the force of my will.  It’s also been refreshing to grasp, maybe it’s not meant to be, therefore I’ll let it be, accepting whatever outcome arrives.  The refreshing leaps had been plentiful, mixed with turning around, dabbling that worked or didn’t, and now, come what may.  It was pier after pier, until I found myself in a place with no piers, no idea of what “works” meant, or even imagining a single “it”.  No “quite a feeling”, no disappointment either.  It wasn’t until I realized I was wandering the wrong shoreline – ours, not mine – that I started searching for mine, finding one pier, and another, and another, waiting for my arrival.  It’s quite a feeling!

Unicorns Do Exist!

My granddaughter, who is 7, proclaimed she’s part unicorn, which explains why she’s special and has magic powers.  I hope she holds onto the belief in special and magic powers forever.  What does, believing I’m special, have to do with reality?  Thankfully, nothing.  What does it have to do with self-esteem?  Everything!  Special doesn’t need a reason why, like a virtuoso on the piano.  It doesn’t mean amazing, gorgeous, or “an Einstein”.  It doesn’t mean deserving or entitled.  It’s something I shouldn’t have to be told.  It’s not because of anything I do, but who I believe I am, therefore the basis for how I should be treated.  What does, believing I have magic powers, have to do sanity?  Thankfully, nothing.  What does it have to do with my capabilities?  Everything!  Magic powers aren’t referring to x-ray vision, the ability to fly, or more powerful than a locomotive.  They’re being capable and stronger than I thought possible, not just survive but thrive, generating happiness from within, bend so I don’t break, tears so I don’t drown.  Magic also lives in the powers of wisdom, patience, grace, hope, and understanding.  Special?  Magic Powers?  Unicorns do exist!  It’s why I can fly!

Now, Later, Never?

When will I?  When do I?  Questions I ask directly relate to me that imply, what’s wrong with me, when is it my turn, when will it be my chance?  When, a single word regarding, not if something will happen, but how about disclosing the timing.  When our daughter was little, we didn’t reveal any plans until the day of, otherwise, the question when, would pop up daily, along with, it is today?  Today, or even better, right now, is so often, music to my ears – no line, no waiting!  When can I retire?  When you’re 62.  Not too many years from now if I’m 60, but 22; that’s 40 years!  Yup, sounds like a prison sentence!  I never asked when, after my husband died.  Whatever it was I would face, I had no concern about when it would be over; too much now to consider later, even a little bit.  Would it have been helpful?  I believe not.  While we were married we had no concern about when it would be over; too much now to consider later, even a little bit.  Would it have been helpful?  A plan for the one left behind?  I believe, very much so.