No More News!

 Nipping the News Bud

For many years, I paid little or no attention to the news, to politics, to the global economy.  When something truly major happened, I would learn about it, but the variances of the day weren't my concern.  I was caregiving for my mother, and attempting to learn some of the lessons for which I was placed on this earth. 

In the past few months, however, I've been swept into the constant news cycle.  I've decided this is not in my best interests. It simply makes me agitated and worried to know that the Dow Jones is dropping, the latest lie a politician has said, that the price of soybeans is reaching record highs, the number of victims in an auto accident in Outer Mongolia...I'm sure you see my point.

I can't do a thing about any of these. But knowing them, and seeing them updated hourly on my Google News ticker, makes them assume an importance in my life that they don't warrant. It's not that I don't care about the economy or who will govern the country or that people have died in accidents.

I do.

I care too much.

I was trained as a journalist and so each of these enters my subconscious as a story that should be pursued, no longer for publication, but simply because one should get to the bottom of all news stories.

 
The result is that I feel a constant state of anxiety about the future, which often prevents me from focusing fully on the present. I feel like deer in the headlines, so to speak, paralyzed by what might be coming next.

So I'm going to stop checking the news.  I'm going to ignore all the siren calls of hourly updates and in-depth analyses of current events. (At least I'm going to try!)

Instead, I'm going to focus on figuring out what the next right thing is in my life. I don't know what that is...yet.  I have some ideas and some options, but the for now I need to listen to the small, still voice in my heart that is my godly compass, pointing me in the direction for this, the next chapter of my life.

I'm anxious enough about what lies ahead.  I don't need the gaping maw of the insatiable media to munch on me as well. Instead I need to make the most of whatever days I have left on this earth..to fulfill whatever mission is left to me, to use whatever gifts I have been given, to become the person God wants me to be so that someday I might hear, 'Welcome home, Good and Faithful Servant."

Griefwalking the Unexpected

This month, which contains my birthday, my grandfather's birthday, my cousin's birthday, the birthday of my childhood friend's first child (on my birthday), and several significant personal anniversaries is always a bit hard.

But this year, add in a visit from my son for the first time since my mother's death and meeting a once very significant person in my life from whom I've been estranged for nearly 15 years and I've been sort of flattened by it all.  No blogging.  No writing.  Not much of anything.

I've learned these past months that grief and the subsequent changes just have to be lived. You can't plan your reaction and you can't plan your feelings.  You just have to see what comes and adapt to it along the way. Especially when it's a month that is already filled with major emotional events.

I've been adapting with chocolate and staring blankly at walls.

But now summer is drawing to a close and fall always feels like a new beginning. May it be so.

Sunday Gratitude

1. Corn on the cob.  Not genetically altered.

2. Coffee with cream, preferably iced.

3. The beginning of healing of old wounds and old estrangments.

4. Answers to prayer.

5. Apple right off the tree.

Answers to Prayer

With August nearly over, I've been slack on recording answers to prayer, but so far this month, I have 18 prayers listed in my journal.  I've probably prayed a lot more but didn't record them.  For reasons, see above.

Not answered yet--10

No--3

Yes--4

Sort of yes--2

The sort of yes deserve an explanation. One involves a health issue that seems to be improving, but it isn't fully clear what the result will be.  The other one is number three in gratitude: healing seems to be happening, but it's a long way from being a full "yes" to the prayer.  So they are "sort of yes."  Certainly not "no" in any event.

Sunday Gratitude August 5 Edition

I would rather have a Sunday crab-fest session since many things aren't exactly great...like the garage door opener is refusing to work.

But Sundays are for gratitude:

1.  Red polish on my toes!
2.  A bumper crop of apples on the tree outside the garage (and the door opener that won't open).
3. A decent fan since we've finally had some warm weather.
4. Basti is healing.
5.  A new pair of pants from a friend.

July Prayer Results

I've been recording the results of my prayers for a few months now and as July ends, here is the month's tally.

Yes--8  They range from "minor" like being able to get a certain thing done on time to moderate. Nothing big or critical received a "yes." And they included getting an answer, even if it wasn't the one I wanted.  For instance, I prayed that I be shown clear direction on a project and the door slammed so hard I barely got my fingers out intact.  Now it was something I really wanted to do, so it was disappointing, but I have to be honest and admit the prayer was for direction...and I did get that.

No--7 Just straight up NO!!! Some big things, some smaller ones.
--
Still Waiting--9  Just what it is.  Things I've been praying for that I'm still waiting on. No indication of anything.

Mixed--2 These are odd ones. Not really sure how to classify them.  For instance, let's say you prayed (and this isn't my prayer, but an example) that the front tires on the car don't need to be replaced.  You take the car in and the front tires are fine, but the back ones need replacing. So how do you classify that answer? Yes? No? Gotcha?  I'm not sure, so I consider those "answers" as "mixed."

Sunday Gratitude

It's an overcast day here in Oregon, but it's not raining...so that's the first thing on the list today.

1.  No rain! I suppose my plants might like some rain, but I'm just as glad not to have it for another day.

2.  Basti is healing from her burns. 

3. The prayers of friends who help sustain me when there are hard things to be endured.

4.  For being invited to a waffle party!  Where waffles were served with wonderful things like avocado and bacon.  Everything is better with bacon!!!

5. For one more day, to heal, to grow, to hope, to pray.

Six Months of a Death Remembered

It was six months ago, to the date and the day of the week exactly, that my mother died.

It has been a hard day, not because I am still wrapped in acute grief, because I'm not.  But because the body remembers what the mind seeks to forget and I have been weary and foggy all day.  My mind refuses to concentrate on details, like turning on blinkers and fastening seatbelts. Like recognizing that I might just be hungry.  Like remembering to turn off a light.

I have been griefwalking all day.

But six months have passed and, as I said earlier, I feel like I'm on the brink of something; a something I know not what. Perhaps today will be the turning point and I will begin to see what lies ahead.
Until then....

De Profundis

Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice.
Let Your ears be attentive to my voice in supplication.
If You, O Lord, mark iniquities, Lord, who can stand?
But with You is forgiveness, that You may be revered.
I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in His word.
My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
More than sentinels wait for the dawn, let Israel wait for the Lord,
For with the Lord is kindness and with Him is plenteous redemption;
And He will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

A Very Odd Thing

Today something odd happened.  I've had my share of odd happenings, so saying something odd happened means it was SOMETHING ODD!!!

What made it so odd was what happened to Bastet, one of the Royal Pair of Aby cats that allow me to live in their domain.  Basti is a little butterball of a cat with enough curiosity to, well, kill a cat. She was being her usual self, a little aloof but eating, drinking, sunning, sleeping. You know, normal cat things. As is her wont, she decided that perhaps a wee bit of petting might be in order, so she jumped on my lap.  I sort of absent-mindedly scritched her head and then my hand hit something rough.  I looked down and her face was covered in what looked like second-degree burns!

She didn't act like she was in pain but her face looked like raw meat in place.  So we hustled off to the vet who said she had never seen anything like it in her years of practice.

Now here's the odd part.  There wasn't anything burning in the house.  No candles.  No incense.  No fire.  No heater.  The only thing that I can think of was that I had a pot of soup boiling on the stove and she might have put her face near enough to get splashed.

But you'd think she might have made a sound if that had happened. Or acted hurt. Or something.

Nope, not a thing until I saw the absolutely horrendous burns.

Very very odd.

God, Give Me a Sign

I know that we aren't really supposed to ask God for signs. That trust thing and all.

But this morning, praying about something that has been on my list for nearly five months, I couldn't help myself.  I said, "God, please give me a sign that you have at least heard my prayer." I then pointed out to God, just in case God had forgotten, that even some of his great saints asked for signs.

I mentioned that Francis of Assisi opened the bible at random three times when he was first discerning his life work, looking for a sign of the path he should follow. And I pointed out that St. Francis Loyola asked for a sign when he was recuperating in the hospital from a war wound.  I even reminded God that I seemed to recall St. Francis Borgia asking for a sign as well.

All I wanted was some sort of sign that my prayer had been heard. I mentioned it would be lovely if I got an answer to this prayer, but I sort of figured that wasn't going to happen.

So I wanted a sign that at least the prayer itself had been heard.

And not one of those "Maybe it was a sign and maybe it wasn't" sort of things.  Like seeing a rainbow or having bird fly by the window.  I wanted someone more than flowers and hearts.

I wanted a sign. A real, honest-to-god sign that God had heard my prayer.

I got nothing. Not even one of those crappy "Could this be a sign or not?" things. So I went to the movie with a friend and forgot about the prayer.

When I got home, I did up the dishes and messed about for awhile. Then I noticed the light blinking on the answering machine. Since 99% of the people who want to talk to me use my cell if I don't answer the landline, I figured it was a sales call.  You know, one of those, "This is Rachel from credit cards services.  There is nothing wrong with your account, but this is your last chance to lower your credit rates" calls that I get despite having put my name on the no-call list.

But something made me stop and listen to it anyway. It was a call from someone I had never in 1000 years expected to hear from on a Sunday afternoon.  I had to listen to the message three times before it sank in...you see, it was the sign that God had been listening to my prayer.

The prayer still isn't answered and I am no closer to knowing when or even if it will be answered.

But at least I know that it's been heard.

Sunday Gratitude and Answers to Prayer

On an overcast Sunday, I am grateful for:

1. The fact that I am (sort of) caught up with deadlines. I think I see light.
2.  I find watching the squirrel annoy the cats to be highly entertaining.
3.  I got a new Netflix film this week, after finally deciding I wasn't going to watch the one I had.
4.  We had a huge rain storm, which gave the plants a dosing, but it didn't herald a week of rain like it often does.
5. A friend of mine who went in for numerous lumps in her breast learned they were all benign.

And the prayer report thus far for July:
Yes--6 with 2 of them that aren't cut and dried.  But they seem mostly yes.
No--5
No answer--9

And so it goes.

No Rest for the Wicked...or the Weary

If I were a housing loan, I'd be underwater at the moment.  I have too much to do and not enough hours in the day and night to do it all.

Now some is work, as in stuff that will bring in money to pay the bills, but other parts of it are leftovers from mother's death as well as just an accumulation of things that I had been waiting on...and which all came about RIGHT NOW.  Some I have been waiting on for more than a year and all of a sudden, they have to be done RIGHT NOW!!!

Now I know all about prioritizing and making lists with the most important things first etc. etc. (Cue the King from the King and I about now.."Etcetera, Etcetera.) But everything and everyone on the list firmly believes that his or her project/demand/need is the number one and I need to do it RIGHT NOW.

I have been, literally, working for 12 to 14 hours straight and the moment I get one thing crossed off, the next one surges to the top like a maniacal rabid rat.

Which brings me to the point of this entry.  When I do get something crossed off the list, instead of being able to take the time to celebrate the accomplishment, I feel the need to move immediately to the next thing on the list. 

No time to rest.
No time to waste.

I wonder if any of you feel the same way?  That the only function of the "to do" list is to show what you have to do RIGHT NOW!

Can you tell I'm getting tired?  I keep hoping that maybe, through some miracle, I might actually get caught up and can...rest?

Who is God?

On my way out of Trader Joe's with my Kashi Go Lean and fresh peaches,

I was stopped by a young boy who said he was doing a school project and would I help. I said, "Sure," and his dad filmed us as the boy asked," What are three words you would use to describe God?"

No time to ponder.  Just answer.

Ineffable

Transcendent

Omniscient

 I asked him if he knew what the words meant and he said he did.  I just smiled and thought, "Well, maybe you do.  And maybe you don't."

Because, despite their being the first words that sprang to mind when I was asked to describe my vision of God,  I'm not entirely sure what I mean by them myself.

Oh, I know the definitions.  What I'm not sure is why those three words sprang off my lips in 15 seconds.

On the drive home, I wondered about them.
As I peeled the peach and poured the cereal I was having for dinner, I wondered about them.
As I ate my summer dinner, I wondered about them.

The first was ineffable, too great to be expressed, too sacred to be uttered.
Yes, that is my first thought about God--a being so far beyond our comprehension that mere words cannot express the magnitude of being. God is the ineffable mystery of the universe. Now this doesn't mean that I don't think we can approach God through prayer. It just means that in the core of my being, I must truly believe that God is, above all, mystery.

The second was transcendent, beyond time, space, and limits.
For me, God is indeed transcendent.  Being raised Catholic, teething on stories of saints and miracles, how could I not have transcendence as one of the core characters of the Divine? Although I don't always see evidence of miracles, I continue to believe in them.  If I didn't, I would never pray--an experiment in answers, notwithstanding!

Finally, omniscient, all-knowing.
Although it was the last word, perhaps it lies the closest to the heart of my theology. I truly do believe that there is an all-knowing Divine that isn't just "out there," but "in here," as well. In our world, in our lives, in our beings.  Now I don't believe that we are all gods (remember ineffable and transcendent came first and the people I know, myself included, are hardly that), but I do believe that in some mysterious way, we are all united in and through the Divine; in and through God.

Catholic teaching calls it "the body of Christ" and that terminology is the one that is the most deeply rooted in my being, but however you want to express it, the reality of Donne remains:

No man is an island entire of itself; every man 
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; 
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe 
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as 
well as any manner of thy friends or of thine 
own were; any man's death diminishes me, 
because I am involved in mankind. 
And therefore never send to know for whom 
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.  

Maybe the question wasn't so much "How would you describe God?" as it was "Who is God?" In the end, the answers would be the same.

Ineffable.  

Transcendent. 

Omniscient.

Divine.

Premonitions?

My mother loved the book, "I Heard the Owl Call My Name."  So much so that I buried a copy with her. I have to admit I've never read it, but she used to tell me that she felt she would know when "the owl was calling her name," i.e. that death was approaching.

I'm not sure she did.  Maybe in the very last hour or so before her death when I wasn't with her, but prior to that, I don't know that she heard the owl call. She certainly never mentioned it.

Wondering about that got me thinking about premonitions.  I don't know that I have had any.  At least not as in some foreknowledge of something bad happening.  Or good for that matter.

But lately I've been having the sense that "things are about to change."  I don't know what that means. I don't know if it's a premonition or lack of sleep or griefwalking or hormonal imbalance or....But I keep having the feeling that I'm on the brink of something.  I feel both on edge and on the edge. Like I'm on the cusp?

It's a very odd feeling.  Not excited like a kid at Christmas feeling. Not dread-fillled like waiting for a diagnosis that you already know is going to be bad feeling.  Just sort of...brinky, edgy, cuspy feeling.

I would dismiss it as the fruit of an overactive imagination and an overtired body and mind, but it's not that easy to shake. And it's been with me for some time now.  Several weeks, as a matter of fact, along with the verse from Scripture that says a thousand years are like a day to the Lord and a day like a thousand years.

I know God's time and my time aren't the same.  Many years ago, in a difficult time, I prayed and know I heard God say in the stillness of my being, "The answer will come soon."  I thought "soon" as in tomorrow, but it was another year before that prayer was answered. Later, I realized then that "soon" meant "soon enough."  It was "soon enough."  It was before disaster totally took over, but it wasn't exactly what I thought of as "soon."

So I'm not really sure if this feeling is a harbinger of something imminent, or something "soon," or something distant, for that matter. All I know is that it's an odd feeling...and it might be a premonition.


Or not.

Sunday Gratitude on Monday and Answers to Prayer

I have been neglectful of the blog this past week. I could offer reasons, but they are merely excuses.

So here's Sunday's Gratitude on Monday:
1.  Blueberries.  A friend let me pick a gallon-sack-full of her luscious berries. Big and blue!
2.  Sunshine.  Here in Oregon, it's always important to acknowledge the sun.
3. I've been dealing with some health issues and I think some positive progress is being made.
4. I had a skin "spot" removed and it was taken care of before it developed into something.

5. I put out a bird feeder and while the squirrel spotted it, he didn't figure out how to get to it. He will eventually I'm sure, but for n11ow it's Me 1, Squirrel 0.

And now an update on the Prayers.  I have 19 things on my list right now. (Okay, so I'm needy.  And your point?)

At the moment, the "answer" count stands at:
2 maybe 3 Yesish.  
7 No
11 No answer.

Yes, I realize that doesn't add up to 19.  That's because a couple of the yes answers could be either a "yes" or "no" depending.

For instance, the skin spot.  I had prayed that it would be "nothing."  It was a "something," but it was found early and removed. So it that a yes or no answer?

Another one had to do with some direction in life. I wasn't really clear in my prayer...asking merely to know what to do.  I had a definite preference, however.  If I had prayed for that, the answer would be "no."  But since a door was slammed shut and bolted with about 50 padlocks, I did know what I had to do.  Not what I wanted, but I no longer had a choice.  So is that a yes or a no?

The final yes was a deadend in a road.  So I got a sort of a yes to the prayer, but it also was another stop sign. So is that a yes or a no.

You see my problem with the yeses right now.

As for the no's, they were generally very clear. No. Nada. Not at all. Not happening.

And the remainder go on as they have been since I started this project. Prayers for a future, for resolution, for restoration, for healing, for wisdom...and a couple of right now things that will either be a yes or no.

And with that....

That Damn Cat!

I swear I'm never having cats after these go to the great litterbox in the sky.

First Basti kept drinking out the desk fountain so that it would constantly splutter and hiss.  She would sip, listen and if it wasn't hissing enough to suit her, would lap a bit more.  I had to unplug the fountain because she was DRIVING ME CRAZY.

Now Nefer has taken to licking the George Foreman grill.  After I've washed it.  I wash it and let it dry on the rack.  Nefer leaps up and licks the whole thing so that I have to wash it again.  And then he jumps up and licks it again. 

I read once that cats are the only other creatures on this earth besides humans that have the capacity for deliberate sin, only cats will never admit to sinning .  After being driven to the brink of screaming bad words at these two, I believe it. 

Sunday Gratitude

Sundays, as I've said before, are hard days.  I used to spend at least part of each Sunday with my mother (in addition to many other days, but always Sundays). About this time of day, late afternoon, I would be with her, bringing her her favorite ice cream or, when she was able, taking her out to get a dish of plain vanilla.  And so when the slant of light takes a certain turn, I feel a twist in my soul and a wave of what is no longer acute sorrow, but a gripping of my chest and a clenching of my heart, sweeps over me.

It's a gorgeous day here, finally.  With a bright blue sky and a slight breeze. I'm working on an article about a favorite saint--Hildegard of Bingen--and I've talked to friends. Despite some frustrations that loom for next week, things are okay for now.

And yet...and still...all of a sudden, the wave rises and I feel that melange of loss, anxiety, and emptiness that is so much a part of my griefwalking. It is as if the sun suddenly dims and I wonder, will this ever end? Will I ever feel "normal" again? And what is "normal" now anyway?

It is precisely because Sundays are hard days that I chose them to post my gratitudes. By making myself see what is good and blessed, to seek out five things that remind me God has not forgotten me, I get through the hardest part of the hardest day of the week.

So this week I am grateful for:

1. Giving away some things I didn't use to someone who will use and appreciate them.

2. Sunshine and warm enough weather to wear a sleeveless top. (Everyone who has been sweltering in the heat, trust me, it's been frigid here in Oregon and this is something to be grateful for.)

3. Work.  When a free-lancer has work, it's always cause for gratitude.

4. Conversation with a good friend who reminded me that some of the decisions I made in the past and now sorely regret, I made with honest intent and with all the information I had available at the time.

5. A weed in a pot that has such lovely flowers I'm pretending that it is a flower and letting it stay.

Finally, one more thing to be grateful for.  Now and then I get those forwarded e-mails that tell you to send to 10 people because God has a blessing blah blah.  I got one today and, for whatever reason, the idea that God might just have a blessing waiting for me was a message that I needed to hear. God does sometimes speak in mysterious ways and I'll just take that e-mail as a message.

The Next Right Thing

In the months since my mother's death, I've found myself inexplicably caught in moments that I can only describe as panic.  I will be doing whatever it is that I'm doing and suddenly I will be overwhelmed with a sense of anxiety and fear and heart-pounding loss. Now I've learned to control myself (most of the time) and  mitigate the feelings (most of the time) by doing the next right thing.

Now sometimes that means breathing more slowly, or. getting a drink of water.  It can mean moving around to change my physical being, journaling if possible, meditating and, lots of the time, praying.

What I do depends a great deal on where I am at the moment. Obviously, if I'm in the car, I can't whip out my journal. 

If it's midnight I'm probably not going to stroll around the block.

If I'm working, doing the next right thing means doing whatever task is at hand (while maybe getting a drink of water and walking about for a minute or two.) 

Sometimes, though, the only next right  thing that I can do is just leave where ever I am and whatever I am doing until the waves of anxiety pass.

Which leads me to today.  I work in a friend's law office a few hours a day helping create manuals. Today I was just finishing a set of labels when I felt panic creep in and slip behind my chair.  So I drank my water, completed the print job and set things up for tomorrow, believing that was the next right thing for me to do since it was nearly time for me to leave anyway.

After a quick trip to the bathroom, I was ready to run to my car! However, as I was leaving my friend asked me if I would go sit with a young woman who was having chest pain and wait with her for the EMTs to arrive.  All of a sudden, I had a new next right thing to do.

I went into the break room where the woman was seated in a chair, her hand over her heart. I took her other hand and began talking to her, telling her what I knew I would want to hear if I were in that place:  that the medics were on their way, that it would be okay.  I took her pulse and it was strong and steady so I told her that her heart was beating fine and to just breathe calmly. 

Then I asked her if she was spiritual and when she said she was, I asked if I could say a prayer for her. Her eyes welled up and she nodded, so I prayed that the great ineffable mystery of love that is with us at all times would surround us and then said, "In the words of Julian of Norwich, 'All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.'"  I had no sooner finished the phrase than the EMTs arrived.

I let go of her hand and slipped quietly out the door.

I couldn't help but reflect on the irony of it all.  I was dancing on the edge of my own panic when I was suddenly called to help someone else.  My own anxiety didn't subside as I was sitting with her, but I knew what I would want to hear and what I would want someone to do for me.  And I knew that this was the next right thing for me to do.


I've often wondered why I've had these waves of panic over the past few months.  As I was driving home, I heard in the soft stillness of my being: "So you could know."

Know what it was like to feel  surges of fear.
Know what it was like to be terror-stricken and, at the same time, be utterly mortified to be terror-stricken in public.
Know what it was like to not understand what your body is doing.
Know what it was like to want help but not want to make a scene.

To know what the next right thing is.

 

Sunday Gratitude, Prayers and There's Got to be More

I realized today that all I've done for the past three weeks, and I mean that almost literally is get up, shower, work, realize I'm starving, eat, work, go to bed, toss and turn about the work and/or lack of work, get up and repeat. I've been to the grocery twice, saw a friend for an hour once and made a few phone calls. Beyond that, it has been get up, shower, work, realize I'm starving, eat, work, go to bed, toss and turn about the work and/or lack of work, get up and repeat. 

 

This can't go on or I won't go on much longer.  I know I have to make ends wave at each other across the abyss, but something has got to change.  Not sure what, but that's my prayer this week.

June Prayer Report

Speaking of which, the final June prayer report is:

Yes 6

No 8

Not answered 10

The yeses had to do with fine points of restoring and healing the badly damaged relationship I talked about in the past, having more energy to get some of the house and yard work done, and finding a person to repair the gutters at a semi-reasonablfe rate.

The noes had to do with some personal issues, thorns in the flesh, that apparently are not to be removed.  I am persistent, however, and even if the prayers were "NO" in June, I'm moving them on to July.  I don't think God's mind will be changed, but perhaps something else will change that will allow the thorn to be pulled out.  By the way, did you know that the word for thorn also means "tent post" as in a big, honking thing sticking in your side?  I think my "thorns" are more tent-posty.

The Not Answered are things that I realize are longer term, but they eventually will have to be a "yes" or a "no" so I keep on prayer.

Sunday Gratitude

 

Finally, Sunday Gratitude.  It' been a long, hard week with waves of grief and its companions anxiety and insomnia, but I am grateful for:

1. For an unexpected phone call from my son during the week.

2. For having won a first place writing award when I didn't even know I had been nominated. (On faces of homelessness.)

3. For a great write up on Catholic Moms.

4.  For little tiny flashes of grace and hope that come when I meet a friend in the grocery (on one of my two trips these past weeks!), when I get a text right when I need it most, for a word of comfort.

5. For my cell phone.  I really like my cell phone.  I can give up a lot of things, but I would hang onto my cell for as long as possible.  Literally!!!

My friends all drive Porches, I must make amends

I've been feeling rather envious and jealous lately.  Envious of what I see as much better and happier lives that everyone, everyone I say, has but me.  

It seems I'm not alone.  Joanne K. McPortland and the Crescat both express similar thoughts on their blogs today.

 I particularly appreciate Joanne's take:

I’m not coveting wordly goods, at least not more than usually. I can whip together a pretty good self-pity party on occasion, especially when friends are talking about their new vacation homes and their retirement adventures, but most of the time I have the ability to count my innumerable blessings. No, I will never be able to retire, or buy a new home (first or second), or help my kids and spoil my grandson the way every parent and grandparent longs to, but there’s nothing to blame for that but my own choices and their consequences. And all told, I am enviable in the gifts that God and life and people I love have showered on me.

Yep, I know the feeling of smiling through the talk of the new vacation home and month in France and the 10K monthly retirement income that is 100% secure and not being able to spoil the kids or retire or or or....And I know, like Joanna, that it's the result of the choices I've made and their consequences.

Damn choices.  Damn consequences.  Damn feeling jealous.


The one thing that neither Joanna nor the Crecat talked about, however, is the feeling of panic that goes along with my envy.  The sense that things might get worse than they are right now and right now they aren't really all that wonderful. It's a sense that perhaps God is going to let me down; that God won't answer my prayers; that not only won't I ever get the vacation cruise and retirement income and spoiled family, but that I might not even get tomorrow's dinner.

Like Joanne, I know that the best and perhaps only way out of the envy trap is to count blessings, but some days, like today, I just don't feel like counting blessings.  I don't even feel like looking for blessings.  I just want what I want and I want it now.

I could try to put some sanctimonious spin on this, but I think I'll just leave it by saying that for whatever reason it made me feel better that I'm not the only one suffering from a bout of jealousy or envy today.

I guess misery really does love company.

Sunday Gratitude

1. There was a strange yellow orb in the sky.  I think it is called "sun," but I'm not sure.

2.  I haven't been sleeping much since Mother's death or not sleeping well, but I slept slept for the last two nights.

3.  I got a lovely note from a friend that was encouraging when I needed it most.

4. My son.  Nothing more needs to be said.

5. The lavender is blooming.  I love my lavender.

And with that, may your Sunday be blessed.

Good Days and Bad Daze

I've read a lot of books about grieving these past few month and one thing they all say is that grief is not a straight line. You don't march steadfastly forward, making good progress each day until one day you reach the promised land of restored equilibrium.

No, grieving is more like dancing on the deck of a small boat in a rainstorm. Sometimes you are upright and feeling the sprinkles on your face; other times it's all you can do to keep your footing. Sometimes you are sure the storm is nearly over; other times all you can see is the looming darkness.

The other odd thing about grieving for me is that I don't always identify it as such. Certainly sometimes I can struck by the waves of sheer pain of missing my mother, but other times, I don't actually realize that what I'm feeling is probably grief. I think I'm feeling anxious, or tired, or depressed, or nervous, or worried, or lazy, or foggy, or distracted, or hungry, or lonely.  And yes, I am feeling all of those things, but when I stop to consider it, 9 times out of 10, the underlying emotion is grief, wearing a distracting hat.

Another thing that goes along with the many hats of grief is that I'm feeling impatient with myself.  I want to be done with this, have it be over, be back to some sense of "normal" again.  But dancing on the deck of a boat isn't predictable, even if I want it to be.