Life's Challenges, Take Two
I know I can love you
much better than this
Full of grace
~*~
I am grateful for my job. From my second trainer, Patti, who is an amazing teacher. For Jennifer, who literally makes me day with jokes, honesty, book reading, and plan making. For coworkers, who I don't mind talking to and have a good work relationship with, where I can laugh at their jokes and ask questions about my job. For it being twelve minutes from my house, in the morning, without traffic. For being ten minutes from the airport, even in traffic.
For keeping almost all the my earlier coworker Kelly Girls. For the care the company shows, in food and activities and the whole Fish mentality.
I am grateful for my game. For a million friends who write with me and take part in my real life. For a place to play, to take a break. For the fact so much is happening in my Sparkle corner right now, with so many different people. I am beyond proud of how this book is coming out in the Bar, that I am a part of something so world-hated being so well-shown.
For the hardest pressed friends of last year, who stayed into this one. And of having a brand new game for the first time in two years, with people who want to put in effort and talk world-building, to be serious and cute all at once.
I am grateful for traveling.For living only three to six hours away from every person it is important to be visiting right this second. For plane tickets that aren't two thousand dollars. For the love of people who have gifted me with their benevolent grace in the means of whole trips and scholarships.
For the ability to have religious outings with a religious community. For trips with friends. For trips with loved ones. For trips to visit to family members.
An Important Interlude
The three above were written at work, as was a fourth only started. About my relationship. But then my work day ended and I tore the pages with this out of the steno pad I take notes about customer service calls. And I got in my car and started driving to the place my RCG Weekend Retreat is, and I started thinking about how this explosion of bleck on the universe yesterday was about three four topics. And a fifth that couldn't be done.
The fifth being myself. And why couldn't I just figure out how to deal with 'myself.' And even more why couldn't I just have the grace I don't ever have with myself, to talk to myself the way I talk to every single other person who'd tell me anything like the thing I did recently. Or anything monumentally better or worse. And I all but felt the whole universe around/in me question why I was questioning why i couldn't and why I wasn't simply doing it. Now.
With a few second hesitation, I took my right hand off the steering wheel and put it over my heart, trying hard to envision myself as any of those other people before me. That sharp shard of pain. The ball of that so obvious embarrassment, shame, desperate need in eyes. That endlessly, untaintable beauty of that being, and I thought, I forgive you.
And went from blandly calm and tired to in tears in less than two seconds. Color me shocked, but I didn't let go. My fingers digging into my skin and my clavicle and shoulder, as I just kept talking through 'The Blower's Daughter.'
"I forgive you," I said out loud then. With a sigh. Through the tears.
It's okay.
Really.
You fell down? Really hard?
That's okay, too. We do that. Everyone does.
We can get up and try again tomorrow.
You still want to walk? Fly? Still love her?
You don't have to carry this anymore.
Not tomorrow. Not today if you don't want.
Keep the lesson, but give up the pain, the wound.
Give it up. Give it to me. Give it to the universe.
It's not a magic cure-all for the ball of what sits on me. Of course. We're told to love ourselves first, but we are the harshest critics of ourselves, never taught how to heal ourselves only expected to. And, especially, since returning home I have been a strict critic of choosing who I'm willing to be and who I'm now in entire life. Especially things I know that I should not be doing.
But I rode about the next ten of fifteen miles with my hand clutching over my heart.
And I've tied a White string around my left forefinger for the first time in my life.
To remind myself. Of these words. These promises to myself from myself.
I am grateful for myself.
For my fear and my courage, for the enthusiasm and love that is behind my choices, for grace and laughter and the willingness to do hard work. For my not wavering in regards to my morals. For the dedication to telling the truth. For going at my own pace. For trusting my intuition and my heart.
For all the hard work. For not being perfect. For being uncertain. For listening when my body or my mind or my heart needs my attention. For trying to be and do the very best I can.