556: Hope

Every day, I hope.

I hope it will get better, that it won’t hurt so much.

I hope that I will be able to slow down and not be at everyone else’s beck and call.

I hope that I can say no. And mean it.

I hope that I can sleep until I want to get out of bed, instead of rolling out every morning before dawn because I have obligations to meet.

I hope that I make it through the next six weeks of no-money until I get paid again (a yearly problem, and January has thirty-one long, cold, and dark days).

I hope that Christmas will again just pass, without requiring from me efforts to be social that I just do not have the resources for.

I hope and I am chagrined that I still hope.

I hope that the house I currently am spending all my free time remodeling (paint smears in my hair and decorating both my forearms, random punctures, scratches, and broken nails) soon will become a respite and sanctuary – a place of peace and repose.

I hope that it will get better – that it won’t hurt quite so much.

I hope, even when it appears fruitless to hope.

I hope.

 

 

555: Not now

Not now.

On some other day, I will listen to your frustrations with a sympathetic ear, but not now.

Later, I will hold your hand and weep with you, and then laugh that our problems seemed so important, but not now.

Tomorrow, I will start fresh and try again, but not now.

I will grieve for now.

I will remind myself that I am not divine, but sadly human, now on this day.

It will be better, and we will rejoice together again.

But not now.

554: Funny

It is funny how most outspoken people are convinced of the rightness of their views. Those who are less outspoken generally are more willing to consider someone else’s point of view instead of being so busy proclaiming their own. People who see only the rightness of their own views are tiring people. They do not allow for different circumstances, or different experiences in their view of the way the world should be. This is not an indictment of liberals or conservatives, Americans or any other nationalities, religious/spiritual/non-spiritual people, environmentalists or hunters, pro-choice or pro-life, or any other of the labels that serve mightily to divide people and stratify humanity on the side of one fence or the other.

It’s funny how every single person has things, issues, behaviors, and actions that they consider to be right, wrong, and proper, or socially acceptable. And in holding those views, often we slight someone else who has different circumstances, and/or different experiences that have shaped THEIR right, wrong, and proper.

It is funny how even within a single country, a single state, or a single town, there are different sorts of people, from various backgrounds, with different life experiences. Factor in different countries, different cultures, different languages, and all those other differences that make up the people living today, and you can begin to understand why one view of right, wrong, and proper does not fit everyone.

Yes, I have some views of what is right and what is wrong. And I try hard to live my life in accordance with those views. But I can live peaceably among people who do not share my views, my precious views, those things I consider right and wrong. It is possible.

It is funny how that is actually possible. The sad part is how few are willing to try doing just that.

553: Images rule

A picture is worth a thousand words. Yeah, right. A memory picture is worth the Britannica Encyclopedias worth of words. There are some memory pictures that are painfully, vividly, acid-etched into permanence in my brain. Getting rid of them, or at least their continually constant reminders, is difficult.

I understand the concept of moving on. I understand that I am not a perfect creature, and that everyone makes mistakes, has bad things happen to them out of the blue, has people treat them unfairly, has misunderstandings (both ways), has crap, has bad habits, has……ya know? I know that. I try to be forgiving of my former self, who actually has evolved into someone else, someone not the person she was before, when those things, actions, people, emotions happened. I see those images too frequently in my mind’s eye.

I said I was different. In some ways better. In some ways not better. I am realizing that a lot of that joyful innocence and enjoyment of life that I used to have is just GONE. I am, sadly, less in that department. It makes me less than I would like myself to be. My image of myself is not the person I have become.

Even so, I do not want to allow the very vivid images of old hurts, or new ones, for that matter, to rule my thoughts and influence my actions. Yeah, right.