Tag: Changes

Categories
Changes Inspiration Meditation Musings Pondering Reflections Uncategorized

You’re Welcome?!

I have a new friend.  I’m not sure if I like her.  She shows up when she feels like and she affects the way I behave in the world, the way I feel, and how I act with others.  She wears a pink skirt and combat boots.  You’d think with the pink skirt that she’d be nice, but those damn combat boots give her so much attitude.  I don’t know if she is a friend or not, but what I know for sure is that she is not going anywhere.  She’s made that abundantly clear.  

One minute I’m fine. I’m living my life and doing my thing and the next minute there’s a furnace in my midsection that decided to turn itself on high heat.  I didn’t make any requests. I didn’t over-exert myself.  In fact, I was keeping my mouth shut and minding my own business.  I very politely disrobe, if I’m alone of course, and I stand in front of a fan. Five minutes later it’s over and I hear Perimini’s (that’s what I’m calling her) quiet cackle in the background.

Was it something I said?  She’s persistent and quite capable of kicking my a$$. She’s made that abundantly clear.  I don’t know.  Do I love her?  Do I hate her?  I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about her.  I find myself wondering how long she’s planning to stay. Here I am looking at cute babies in the vicinity and cooing over cute cartoon and commercial children.  What did I do to you Peri? 

On days when I feel like I’ve had enough, I think about how I can get rid of her quietly without her knowing I’m plotting against her.  I still don’t know if she’s a friend yet.  Would she answer me if I asked her how long she’s planning to stay?  She’s not very forthcoming, and even if she knew, I’m not sure if she’d tell me.  What does she want?  It can’t be just to torment me.  What’s her message?  Can she possibly deliver it in a much easier way?  Maybe without all the hot flashes and the night sweats.  She’s not the one who has to wash the linens after all. 

Does she know she’s the reason I have a thousand and one new fragrances? This situation is throwing my Ph balance off.  I’m not saying I stink.  I just don’t smell quite like myself, and my skin is dry from sweating all night. So, not only do I have to spend more time doing laundry, I have to spend extra time looking for a variety of fragrances that I wouldn’t normally wear, fragrances that work one day and other days not so much, which is the reason why I have so many now.  First world problem, I know.

I want to make friends with her, but I also want her visits to be as short as possible,  If she can’t do that, maybe she could just not be so disruptive.  Is she saint or is she sinner?  Does she love?  Does she hate?  Is this what neutral is?  Can I request a different comforting angel, a less intrusive one?

   It’s hard to explain if in the middle of a conversation, I start dabbing my forehead with one tissue, then a paper towel, then several paper towels, when there have been no outward signs of a significant temperature change or exertion. You didn’t see that part where I just finished a HIIT workout, but that’s what happened…just not on this plain of existence.  Does that sound like a reasonable excuse?  No.  Okay.  I am still sweating like I just finished that HIIT workout though. Just sayin’.  It’s possible.  Wait!  Does it count as a workout?  The steps were done in spirit.  Does that mean anything?  I want it counted somehow.  

  I drift off to sleep and I’m fine. I’m in Goldilocks territory, not too hot, not too cold. Then Peri makes an appearance.  My sheets are soaked.  My hair is soaked.  I’m wide awake trying to find a dry spot on the bed.  Why isn’t anybody else awake for this? Should I take a shower now or wait til the morning?  Am I going to towel off? Rub myself down with one of my many new fragrant oils?  Will I be able to go back to sleep?  

  The philosophers and spiritualists say that if you wake up in the wee hours then spirit is trying to tell you something.  OK, first can they talk to me at a more reasonable hour?  Second, does nature’s alarm need to be so darn dramatic?  What about a feather or a gray cat walking across my path at noon, and not like 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning? Can Peri relay that message to the spirits for me?  Is she one of those whispering spirits, that someone gave a sledge hammer by mistake?  

 

I appreciate that she’s here to usher me into the next phase of my existence.  I really do.  There’s a horizon over which I look and she’s right next to me pointing and letting me know that’s where I’m going.  Then she pushes me out into traffic.  You’re welcome?!

Categories
Changes Inspiration Pondering

Broken things.

Broken things are beautiful too.

Breaking up is hard to do…wait.  No it isn’t. I broke a plate a few days ago.  I live in one of those households were the dishwasher has a name.  It’s mine.  I wasn’t upset. In fact, it gave me a sense of satisfaction, not because I was angry and it felt good to break a plate.  The broken plate gave me a sense of satisfaction because seeing something broken always feels like there’s a possibility for something new.  Out with the old, in with the new as the saying goes.

A broken plate felt like the symbol of transition, a change is coming.  I didn’t fear it.  I relished it.  It was a beautiful plate.  It still is in its brokenness. A previously complete set isn’t complete anymore.  I  could go to the store I bought it from, get a replacement and put the set back together. Do the same old thing, but I knew I wasn’t going to do that.  Truth be told, I already gave the cups to the set away several months ago. I felt the winds of change even then, so no, there would be no repurchasing of the same plate.  The breakage puts me at three plates from a set of five, five salad plates, five bowls,  and zero cups.    I guess I only break plates…and those cups I broke before I gave the remainder away:-)

  I came up with a clever plan where I would buy one place setting at a time, each with a new pattern, complementary coloring of course.  In the end, I would have eight new place settings with different patterns with similar color schemes.  I thought it would make for an eclectic table, and my dinner guests would always have something to talk about…and I would be entertained.  It felt like a neat way to live life as well.  I wouldn’t conform to the same old pattens everyday.  I could live an eclectic existence, and do something different on a regular, not quite daily basis.  It gets me out of the same old routine and I get to explore new ways of living.  Change is inevitable.  We can be as careful and cautious as we want, but breakage is bound to happen. No need to fear it.  Let it take you on a new journey.  Buy a new plate.

Categories
Changes Pondering Uncategorized

Ch. Ch. Ch. Choices

The best thing about life is also the scariest thing.  You get to decide what you want to do with yours.  We always have choice.

I remember back in college. I met this kid who knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up.  He was going to be a small town doctor.  He was going to be a doctor in his hometown in Georgia and make house calls just like his father did, and his father before him.  Boy, was I envious.  Growing up I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I’m not even sure I know now.  I liked lots of things, and despised just as many.

The running joke when I was in college was that I changed my major every week, or at least quarterly.  I only changed my major once officially, from civil engineering to rhetoric and communications(true story).  I was however in constant discussion about a new class or idea I was exploring.  Did I have a love for civil engineering?  Nope. I was however very good at math in high school and I had a guidance counselor who was completely absent of guidance.  I think I may have met with her once.  She saw a kid with stellar grades in math, so engineering was the major for me, or so she decided. I got to pick the discipline.  I wasn’t completely oblivious.  I chose the college I wanted to go to for all of my own reasons, one being if I didn’t like civil engineering, they had other majors I was interested in.

In between civil engineering and rhetoric and communications, I went from landscape architecture to plant science to physical education to a love for marketing and chemistry to anthropology and many more I probably don’t recall.  At one point I was going to design exercise wear for Paula Abdul or work for a cosmetics company like Revlon.  My plan was to formulate my own lipstick colors of course.  I loved chemistry.

From the first day to the last I took a wide variety of classes: anthropology, engineering basics and calculus.  Every time I’d take a class pointing to a career I was interested in, only to be bored by the class.  It was quite the adventure. I would never trade it.  Economics, art history, a smattering of everything until I started to take rhetoric classes, then literature classes, and communications classes both interpersonal and organizational.  That’s when I started to light up.  Lots of writing in there, which I wasn’t so great at in the beginning, and found to be drudgery.  But, I felt its importance immediately.  Self-expression, the communicating of ideas, I loved it.  I wanted more of it.  I wanted to be better at it.  I even learned how to give a speech. 

What I really learned is that my ideas and opinions were valuable and it was okay for me to express myself. 

I interviewed for a reporting job after I graduated and got it.  Here’s the kicker, it was as a sports reporter in a city so small I don’t even remember the name of it.  Oh, and there’s the fact that I didn’t know ANYTHING about sports.  Apparently, I was the only one who interviewed for the job…clearly. 

I love Bob Costas to this day, but I cannot do what he does. He is a sportscaster as well as a writer.  He group up loving sports.  I did not.  I was not a sports loving kid.  I can’t state the truth in that enough.  I was NOT a sports loving kid.  Like a lot of girls I took the occasional dance class and watched gymnastics during the Olympics.  That’s the end of that sports story.

When you’re young, having to find your way in the world and discover who you are can be quite scary, actually as an adult too, but when you have some years on you, you realize that change happens all the time and it’s not as scary as you thought it would be; in your youth, not so much.

“Change is the handmaiden Nature requires to do her miracles with.”

                                                                                    Mark Twain

Change is inevitable.  Choices are always available.  One day at a time, one choice at a time, that’s how I’ve decided(see that choice there) to live my days, me and nature creating miracles together, or at least a life of my choosing.