The Great Persuasive Lie

She cornered me at the front door.  Her words slithered over my skin and into my mind, but the alcohol fumbled their intent, and she stormed off.  I stumbled down the hall, my shoulders absorbing the walls’ sturdiness with each wayward step, until I reached the bedroom door.  Hands on hips, she yelled at me to take the couch.  My body trembled at the idea of walking a few steps more then I collapsed face first onto the embroidered, couch pillows, blackness descended.

Kitchen cupboards slammed again and again, and for a moment I knew not what sounded, only that my head pounded with every bang. 

“Stop all that goddamn noise,” I said and pulled a pillow over my head.

The banging continued and then the clang of pots and pans joined the symphony of anger I knew was my wife's, another morning of hate and reproach.  I rolled off the couch and worked my way to the kitchen.  I poured hot coffee in a mug and two fingers of whiskey and leaned against the counter’s edge for my inevitable talking to.

She watched me, so intent I thought if she could manifest fire I’d be a goner.  I almost wished she could.

 “I’m leaving you.”

“What?” I said.

“I’m leaving you.”

“I’ve heard it before, and you never left.”

“This time is different.”

“How’s that?”

“I’m already packed and loaded, Dan.  This is just me saying good-bye.”

“Good-bye then,” I said.  I swiped the whiskey bottle from the counter and headed to the couch.

Time slowed.  The whiskey bottle sat on the coffee table; I watched it watching me.  My mind struggled over her leaving, so silent in the house now, and her anger and why she left.

I loved her.  I hated her.  I wanted her.

 

The bottle felt cool in my hand and smooth to the touch.  I set it back on the coffee table, pushed it further from me.  When was it going to end?  Lost my job, my wife, my family, no one would have anything to do with me.

“What the hell happened to me?” I yelled.  Desperation filled my gut, my heart.  My head lolled on my chest and the house's silence darkened and tangled its tentacles around my limbs.  I felt hopeless.

The bottle shimmered with light like it held its own inner source.  I didn’t need any of them anyway, right?  But I wanted them.  I felt lonely, at a loss.  My eyes edged back to the bottle, so inviting.  Naw, I'm better off without them.  My hand wrapped around the glass, and I tilted the brown liquid back and swallowed.

 

Yeah, I didn’t need any of them or that stupid job.  I was fine.  I was good.

 

Another swallow.  Complete oblivion.

 

Letting Go of the Darkness

The morning is light blue and promises bright, warm sun, once the horizon lets go of its hold on the night.  The birds twitter and sing for me, and I breathe clean air like my lungs have never breathed before.  My children are still asleep, along with my husband, and I turn on the stereo and put poppy Bluegrass on to wake them from their deep slumber.

There was a time, even when the sun shone, only darkness enveloped my morning, my afternoon, my night.  The reprieve of living, of feeling what life had to give, did not enter my heart or my mind, and today the grace of what is lives here in the here and now, where I am if I choose to stay.

The promise of the sun is not the only promise I can capitalize on today.  What's my choice to be?  Mmmm... today the choice is not difficult to make.

Each Moment's Potency

I walk each morning with my dog Stella at the local dog park.  I chat with the other dog owners, and Stella smells the other doggies, and we all get along quite well.  Then we move on down the path to wrap around the circumference of the park and enjoy the brisk air and the limited rays of sun that grace us with their presence every few steps due to the clouds' wayward movements.

I find peace here and connection with the silence of the morning while we distance ourselves from others and climb the rolling hill and disappear behind leafless trees and spindle-like-brush.  Whatever needs to be decided for the day seems doable and unimportant in the moment, like all things have their space and time and none of them reside in the moment I walk in, except walking.

Stella runs ahead and runs back with her medium-length ears flopping about her head, and I see enjoyment light up her furry, burnt sienna face, and I laugh and breath deep.  I listen to the birds chirp and sing and watch the fat squirrels scurry up nearby trees with Stella on their tails.

Time has convinced me of the necessity of quiet and calm, of leisure and gratitude, of walking and breath.  Our world feels hectic to me most of the time, and I can feel swayed by it's urgency and even begin to think I need to be fast to be more productive.  I have not found this to be true, more like my productivity is attached to my efficiency, and if my efficiency is lacking, it won't matter how fast I go my productivity will falter.  My efficiency comes from being and then doing and being requires me to experience the present moment now not two days from now in hindsight.

I walk with Stella and look at the blue sky and languid clouds and hear the birds chatter and the squirrels skitter over tree bark, and I know I'm right where I need to be, for each moment's potency nourishes the well-being of Me, in my entirety.  My being now will bleed into the doing of my day, which will inevitably cultivate efficiency and therefore productivity will ensue.  And, as a bonus, I won't be a fretting, impatient, irritable mess by the time I meet up with my kids after school.  Life is simple if I treat it so.

Perfectionism

Perfectionism.  Mmmm.  Can I say that my little friend has dogged my days, months, years for a very long time?  Though I do have to mention, progress has been made in lessening its deathly blow to my spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical well-being, and yet it's still there periodically picking at me.

It rose its ugly head the other day with a decision I had come to, but I couldn't just accept that decision because I was fueled by grandiosity and approval seeking and just had to make sure I was doing "it" right.  Of course, my sound decision was thwarted with another idea, and I quickly implemented it because the quick decision has got to have more merit than a well, thought out one.

And once again there I was with my perfectionism-buddy.  I heard someone say that perfectionism is not  going back over something to make it better but only to find the for-sure wrongness of it all.  It becomes a negative excavation and soon I have dug myself down in a hole that has no light and I cannot see any truth of what is only the fear of what I believe consumes me internally, an awful form of inadequacy that can never be healed or made better because I am not perfect.

Can you imagine such a thing?  Me not being perfect?  This is a moment where I am definitely laughing because experience after experience with my imperfections shining through is flipping in my mind's eye like a slideshow.  I also can reference those times when my greatest growth occurred out of a mistake or what I considered a mistake or me not doing "it" right.

Does the appearance of my life represent the essence of my soul and what kind of person I am?  I believe not and yet sometimes I don't act like it.  Sometimes I bend over backwards to make sure everything looks good "out there" so you'll think I'm doing it right, when in all actuality I am withering away inside my skin-suit.

It is a guarantee that I will fall down and will have to get up again.  And in some ways that is the beauty of living this life.  To adjust to the fact that by acknowledging my limits, my humanness, I can be more helpful to others, more available to my children, more vulnerable to love and laughter, more concerned with walking in the sunlight, more open to what can be instead of devastated by what can't.

Perhaps, life is really simple, like stopping at a stop sign because there's a stop sign or eating because I'm hungry or laying my head to rest because my body is tired or laughing because something said or done was funny or hugging someone because I love them or moving on to the next thing because it is the next action to take because I've given it my all and need to be done, regardless of what my perfectionism-buddy says, which always seems to entail worry and over-correction and an angry voice telling me I should do better.

Exhaustion doesn't lead me to fresh streams and easy dreams.  Emotional blackmail and verbal abuse doesn't lead me to self-esteem and self-confidence.  Starvation whether emotional, physical, mental, or spiritual doesn't  set me on the right track for a happy life.  Working within my limits, loving myself as I am, letting go of what I can't do and nourishing what I can do, all these things and more, fulfill me with hope and grace and joy and freedom.

There it is, loud and clear.  By being imperfect I exercise the perfection of being human and seem always to have a bountiful well of growth, of change, of love, of laughter, of connected-ness with the human race.  There is such grace in letting things be as they are, in letting myself be who I am, and in letting the revelation of the simplicity of life wash over me like sun-heated bathwater.  It is a wonderment to behold.

Freedom's Echo

Emergence from the depths of the flu brings about a rebirth sensation, like the world is new and fresh and ready for the taking.  I'm not completely released from the illness' deathly grips, but I reside in the green grass of impending health, and it is a glorious thing to behold.

It's almost like my body had forgotten what movement without pain felt like or how the brain could think and create or the taste of a good, hot cup of coffee, and then my body and brain and taste buds stepped out from the caverns of darkness and there was the memory of what life had been two weeks prior.

A sigh slipped from my lips and my imagination fired with projects and writing ideas and walks with the dog and playing banjo and yoga.  Oh, at last, the freedom the small voice in my head had persistently whispered when I tried to sleep and couldn't, when the ache of flu seared through my skin and tissue into the core of my bone, when I thought the illness would never let me go.  Freedom's echo still reverberated in my heart's chambers and now I lay hold to the possibilities it bestows with every day forward.

I'm alive.  Phew!