Morning thoughts

"I am brave enough to live the life I want and not the one I expect"

This is the thought I woke up to this morning. Which is odd considering that yesterday we were blindsided with the news that my wife did not get the job after all. It was a very stressful day and my heart broke for her. She did not take it well at all considering her former manager encouraged her to apply and made many references to how interested she was to hire my wife. I don't think it was done with malice. I think the manager was surprised when another employee applied who had more experience. I don't think she was expecting this particular scenario. But what a let down for my wife.

I've been trying very hard over the last two years or so to stop living from crisis to crisis. It's hard to do when, frankly, my life is a series of crises (ha). It's hard to view it as living from opportunity to opportunity. Yesterday could have put me in a real tailspin and I won't deny the fear and anxiety I felt. At the same time I knew that we had a plan that gets us through June financially and this unfortunate wrinkle doesn't change that plan. I decided that this was the universe's way of having my wife push her boundaries but still point out she's not yet ready for prime time. I am gladdened to no end that this manager still thought highly enough of my wife to invite her to apply. I have to remember these facts and not focus on the bad.

Anyway, I woke up with that thought on my mind and just wanted to share. I feel so incredibly empowered. I did not binge yesterday. To tell the truth, I was so stressed that I had lost my appetite. Still, when did appetite or lack thereof ever stop me from literally swallowing my emotions? I was clear headed enough last night to remember to live the life I wanted.

All my life I've heard people say I can do it if I just put my mind to it. I've always taken that to mean willpower wins over circumstance. What if "putting my mind to it" is less of a pounding hammer on nail and more ... searching for appropriate metaphor ... more of a gentle brook. Perhaps willpower isn't bending my will through the brute force of my psyche but instead a flowing stream looking for opportunities to erode the banks of my unwanted behaviors and breaking through to new places to flow where my behaviors are more healthy. And where it doesn't erode quickly is acceptable too. Just be open to the idea that it can happen; that it will happen eventually.

Ok, I'm getting a little deep for even me. I've said it often and also recently--my life is not an afterschool special. But I'm in a pretty good place right now. Soon this moment will be in the past and new situations will present themselves. I will do my best to remember that I was once in this place.

Morning Peace

I got up this morning at 6:00 am, then again at 6:09 am, to go out and have a morning run.  My plan was twofold.  First, to beat the heat (which I did).  Second, to shave off at least another quarter pound before going in for my weigh in at the hospital (don't ask).

Wow.

To my best recollection, I have never had a morning run.  Usually it is my way to wind down and burn off all the hassle and bother of the day.  Plus, I am simply not a morning person.  I did have an image in my head as what it would be like: peaceful, empty, water sprinklers everywhere, quiet.  And it was all that, plus one thing I hadn't expected.  It was beautiful.

The moon was a sliver of a white crescent placed above a cotton gauze cloud stretched across a sky of dark azure.  The land was still, with the cut hay lined in rows in the field, and the aroma of grass wet with dew filled my senses.  The expected water sprinklers were on as I turned into the neighboring subdivision, but even they seemed to passively go about their business in graceful arcs of water. As I made my U turn and headed back home, I was greeted with a golden sun not too far above the horizon, and the sky was turning a brilliant blue.

It was a world at peace.  It was a me at peace.  

I want more.