Thursday, June 30, 2016

Scratching my head at disbelief, I really do wonder about life.  I am fairly certain people plan their lives with a path flowing to ultimate success and accomplishment.  One, two, three.  Sequential steps.  That’s how it works, right?

If I left you with the impression that my post-mini vacation experience propelled me forward into the nirvana of ever logical, increasingly clear steps towards my goals and bliss, well that is ultimately true.  But the days following my three hours by the lake seemed anything but.  When did I finally take the oversize suitcase back to its storage spot?  Today!  

Today I finally breathed.

I scratch my head, rub my eyes and pause because the week following the taxes and after my purse being stolen, I found myself a bit lost with the rearrangement of the old clutter into new stacks of paperwork (although somewhat reduced and halfway filed) and my dog, my Wally, became increasingly ill.  The peaceful joy of returning home was coupled with the startling realization that I had entered into my own self-made alien territory.  Not quite to the summit of business savvy and an assembled-feeling home, but also not in the dark of all around chaos. I was truly in the middle.  Still am.  Now I realize that it took days of returning home from work, an uncomfortable comfort to knowing I had my taxes to the point I could, to come to grips that I was okay.

During the week I also emotionally navigated through a particular rough memory of my marriage.  Thankfully, both my son and my ex-husband were away fishing.  I was sad with the memory, but then I grew angry.  During my walks at work, sure it began as an internal rant towards others who had done me wrong until I realized this:  I am not an option.  How dare I – myself – treat my life as an option.  I am not an option.  How dare I keep wasting internal ranting.  How dare I slither to the thoughts, feelings and whatever.  G~d did not make me to slither through my life.

I also began to wonder what I really wanted.  What kind of life do I want?  What do I really want out of my life?  What is my purpose?

So I sat down with myself this past weekend, a meeting of “What do I want?”  Or, better: “What is this path of this big crazy dream? What do I feel is my purpose for being on the path?

Which led me to “If you are going to follow your heart, what would you want, Steph?  What is your big crazy dream?

I did not come this far on the path just to slither, to try to do my dreams.  No!  If there is one thing I am trying out, is the notion that G-d made us bold.  Life is to be lived boldly, truly, to ones heart. (Or, even better, to be lived boldly, with G-d’s heart, in the manner in which the world exists).

I have one shot.  How do I want to do it?

So I mixed up one of my favorite brews.  Yep.  Hot chocolate in June.  It’s a particularly gruesome mix of whole milk with a bit of water, nonsugared cocoa mix, a heaping tablespoon of Nutella, and…. red cayenne pepper for some zap!

So I held my second planning meeting with myself, complete with two notebooks – the beautiful gold-foiled “special” notebook alongside the black collegiate-ruled version, my planner and all the rest of the office supplies I could possibly drag outside.  My one-liner statements of goals came to me fast.  I think I still thought that lightning would strike the earth around me, but of course, that did not happen.  In fact the hours and days that followed were unremarkable except that they did become pretty remarkable.  No, I did not solve all my problems.  

But Monday came.  And it was a Monday.  After work I mowed part of my lawn until the evening drew away the last bit of sunshine of the day.  The next day I worked, then set aside an hour to continue painting a wall I have been dreaming about.  Wally, after several trips to the veterinarian, has been getting well.  I also talk to my ex-husband differently.  I decided that as Wally gets better, he can share responsibility.

What a very strange blend of the past, the present and the future.  I had been lost and had been bouncing off the walls a bit and still scared of everything, only to find myself now stilled.  I scratch my head at the process of a very non-process process.  I could not even feel the direction of my heart for awhile much less engage my head into it all.

Then, it happened.  I am not sure how.  I am sure there is a reason, a very clinical cause and effect to it all.  But I, being in those woods, can only see the trees of the forest.  And for right now, knowing there is a forest is the point.  Knowing I do not know the whole forest is an even bigger point.  And the best point of all?

Enjoying those trees…

 

 

 

 

My life plans belonged in the basic black collegiate ninety-nine cent notebook….with a purple pen – of course! (I will save the gold-foiled polka dot notebook for another day..)

Hot chocolate in June:   May you find such comforts too within your soul…

Love, 

Steph