Cocking my ear, listening for that thunk
I don't know exactly when it happened. All I do know is that it did. Sometime between the time Dave left to move back to Dallas and the present, I've become a person that has an ever-ready ear listening for the other shoe to drop. Maybe it isn't fair to say it's been since Dave left. My cynicism has gotten a bit too strong in the last few years to not pinpoint the time period. It's been a slow, cumulative process, not something that's come to me randomly out of the sky, nor something that I've always had.
I've been fighting this tendency for the last year or so, after I found myself miserable and desperate at the end of last year. I've always maintained that happiness comes from the inside, and often, so does unhappiness. It's safe to say that I'm the source of my own misery. I also hate blaming other people for things, because it seems like such a cop-out.
Recently there's been something rather happily astonishing happening. Staying within this self-created character limit, I've found myself waiting for the bad news, the bad side, the typical flakiness and disappointment that I've become accustomed to unless I settle for something I don't really want. Of course, that in itself is ironic, because it means I've been settling all along, anyway. And ironically, I've been finding myself disappointed over and over by the lack of disregard, disinterest, and general laziness of attitude toward myself. You may want to re-read that last sentence, by the way.
Every day, every evening, there has been surprise, and a deep sense of pleasure that I am wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How often can anyone say they get a sense of satisfaction and happiness out of being mistaken. Here is where I may lose some of you, or perhaps, not. I ... pray. A lot. Daily. Multiple times daily. Unlike many Catholic School graduates, I did not rebel against what I was taught and decide I was atheist or church-hater or worse. I did and still do embrace the idea of religion and spirituality. I would feel awfully empty and searching without that part of my life. I toy with the idea of becoming practicing, but I need to go take counsel with a priest or someone of the sort for a while so I know it's what I want. The point is, that lately my prayers have centered around controlling this tendency. To find understanding, balance, hope and faith in the general goodness of things. To stop looking for the wrong side, and to revel in my slowly dawning joy that yes, I was right, originally, for all those years. Good is prevalent in most things and people, and most of the time people will tend to the light, and that internal darkness that's always peeking around the corner of my psyche is temporary. Apparently my parents and brother have been right about me; I'm a stubborn cuss and sometimes I need repetition to beat in a point, even if it is a happy point. I think God is finally getting through to me, but He's had to keep poking me on the forehead to get my attention. Sometimes I get subtelty as well as the drunk at the end of the bar at the end of the night that won't go home. Repeat the obvious. A lot. Loudly.
Don't get me wrong, I still have that cynical side that has that ear at the ready. Maybe I'll luck out and that side of me will finally give up and go get a cup of coffee.
I've been fighting this tendency for the last year or so, after I found myself miserable and desperate at the end of last year. I've always maintained that happiness comes from the inside, and often, so does unhappiness. It's safe to say that I'm the source of my own misery. I also hate blaming other people for things, because it seems like such a cop-out.
Recently there's been something rather happily astonishing happening. Staying within this self-created character limit, I've found myself waiting for the bad news, the bad side, the typical flakiness and disappointment that I've become accustomed to unless I settle for something I don't really want. Of course, that in itself is ironic, because it means I've been settling all along, anyway. And ironically, I've been finding myself disappointed over and over by the lack of disregard, disinterest, and general laziness of attitude toward myself. You may want to re-read that last sentence, by the way.
Every day, every evening, there has been surprise, and a deep sense of pleasure that I am wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How often can anyone say they get a sense of satisfaction and happiness out of being mistaken. Here is where I may lose some of you, or perhaps, not. I ... pray. A lot. Daily. Multiple times daily. Unlike many Catholic School graduates, I did not rebel against what I was taught and decide I was atheist or church-hater or worse. I did and still do embrace the idea of religion and spirituality. I would feel awfully empty and searching without that part of my life. I toy with the idea of becoming practicing, but I need to go take counsel with a priest or someone of the sort for a while so I know it's what I want. The point is, that lately my prayers have centered around controlling this tendency. To find understanding, balance, hope and faith in the general goodness of things. To stop looking for the wrong side, and to revel in my slowly dawning joy that yes, I was right, originally, for all those years. Good is prevalent in most things and people, and most of the time people will tend to the light, and that internal darkness that's always peeking around the corner of my psyche is temporary. Apparently my parents and brother have been right about me; I'm a stubborn cuss and sometimes I need repetition to beat in a point, even if it is a happy point. I think God is finally getting through to me, but He's had to keep poking me on the forehead to get my attention. Sometimes I get subtelty as well as the drunk at the end of the bar at the end of the night that won't go home. Repeat the obvious. A lot. Loudly.
Don't get me wrong, I still have that cynical side that has that ear at the ready. Maybe I'll luck out and that side of me will finally give up and go get a cup of coffee.