The Tender Awe

I place my heart back in its nest and will the doves to enter it.

There are things that detour us from staying positive and it is not THAT which caused it but WHY I allowed it too.  When we are casting out for lines to follow to our happiness, we can actually get distracted and force ourselves into positions where sadness and all the negative emotions become our focus.  Some of us who have made mistakes in relationships are good at this, I discovered.  The closer I get, the more comfortable I get, I can, and have, betimes, self-sabotage. 

Oh we all dream dreams, and wish wishes, and think we crave something, but, in all that is logic.  I have said, before, we cannot have what we cannot have and sometimes we have to learn to just be danged grateful for the things we do have.  Anything negative can have a positive spin.  Without comparing ourselves to someone else, dreaming someo0ne else's dream, wishing someone else's dream, what do we KNOW makes us happy?  

Yes, there are possibilities of many things, but are they all for you or something ego-driven?  As my girlfriend, in Maine, said, "Don't look back, you are not going that way!"  There are many things that I am glad did not happen.  I always said, "I would not want to win a million dollars because it would ruin me!"  I laughed as I said this, but it is true.  I am not meant to live that kind of life.  I might have put on airs at one time, but, thank goodness I was diverted.  It is much simpler to jsut live with what you have.  I am too old to want what I wanted in my teens, in my motherhood, in my retirement, and, after losing the absolutely love of my life,  and accepting it, I am satisfied.  I do not want anything good to be ripped from me again.  Enough is enough. 

I am enough.  I have grown and matured and been foolish and been wise, and learned my lessons well.  My skin has been stretched and scarred and marked and so has my spirit, betimes.  I can now focus on things that are important, and the latest clothing, hair style, make up does not beauty make.  Yes, I still like my daughter to do my hair in something new so I do not FEEL same old, same old, but I am not hiding behind it.  I simply need to take care of the body I have now and carry on.

I have learned you cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear.  Such wisdom that.  We can only change ourselves.  I am not going to worry about other people any more other than in compassionate, caring, nurturing ways that do not take away from me being careful of self, of nurturing, caring and being compassionate with self in equal measures.  I am going to be protector of my spirit as I always said I was doing in one area of my life.  I need to remember why I felt like that.

I have been conscious of things I say and what things I say might be racist or demeaning.  As I censor what I say, I find old exclamations that do not belong in today's language, my language.  I have to stop two sayings that never even entered my head as racist or demeaning.  Kaput!  They are gone!  Now to examine more of what I say. 

I am a hugger.  I am affectionate that way, but my daughter has taught me that not all people are receptive to that.  She is definitely not a hugger.  I am a hug and patter, like my mother before me.  I am a patter.  I guess it is my way of showing care, interest, and affection.  Perhaps it is that I, myself, want a hug, a pat, a hug and pat.  Perhaps it is a part of my happiness.

We are all Divine miracles.  We need to be conscious of the Divine in others.  Even our flaws are Divine.  Perhaps it is our very flaws that keep us humble and make us even more Divine.  Because we are Divine, we should seek the divinity in others.  We should be in awe of each other.

When we bypass the physical, intellectual and emotional, we come to the core of the meaning our living and our life holds.  There, in the seat of our soul, is our purpose...and, I should say, "purposes"  We have put effort in to becoming who we are.  We have been committed to being who we are.  Why, then, do we think we have no purpose?  Were we trying to live someone else's idea of what our purpose should be?  Sometimes, I think this is true. Happiness depends on satisfaction with who you are at this moment and moving on to the next moment.

What would a life on easy street do for us?  I think we are made by the difficulties we have created in our lives.  It is not simply that WE created difficulties for ourselves, it is more about what we did when we created them.  There is always something new to learn about ourselves.  We are not static beings.  Our happiness depends on our ability to change, to meet the challenges and to conquer ourselves.  

Our Happiness and Joy is always apparent and felt by those around us.  Our positives AND negatives draw others to us.  We are constantly in a war with what we want, need, wish for, hope for, and what comes of it all.  Sometimes we have to adjust our inner lenses and see ourselves as others see us.  Perhaps that glimpse will help us know what part of us rubs Mother Earth and the ether the wrong way.  The happiness comes when we surmount that mountain of Ego and take the easy ride home knowing we have won that battle.  It will always be uphill, methinks, but the downslide, easy flat ways of living are good for some.  For me?  Not so much.  I am always challenging myself.  Sometimes I learn the lessons right off.  Sometimes I am a slow learner.  But, when I discover something about myself, sometimes with prodding, I tender to be in shock and shiver and quiver in the foreign land of how someone else defines me.  It takes a long, loving, sincere, look within to discover the balance. I come to the knowing that I am who I am and that is okay to be that, just some fine tuning might need to happen.  I can do that.  I am worth it.  

I will look upon myself in tender awe!  I have been more courageous than even the most intimate others could even imagine.  I have kept much to myself, believe it or not. I have often restrained myself;  my joy, my sorrow, my happiness, my sorrow, so others do not feel the weight of what I am carrying.  I have let few all the way in.  I have been made sorry I let some in so far.  I will continue to hold even more of myself in because my happiness does not depend on anyone else.  I know I am my own hero.  I need no affiliation or affirmation.  It has always been there.  I have given enough.

I send you love and light.  I wish you peace and happiness.  I hope that we all know what is most important in our life.  We are!  I place my heart back in its nest and will the doves to enter it.

©Carol Desjarlais 11.30.19