At one point today with windchill, it was hovering around -40C. Too cold to go for a walk. It's been too cold since I last wrote. We're getting another dump of snow, too. I have been selectively using spoons the past two days, taking time off work because I haven't been feeling too good. Tomorrow it will be back to normal, snowfall and all. I feel like whining and moaning but who wants to read that? Even I don't. Sure, I want to know someone is human, and I rarely trust someone who is happy, happy all the day; you know that false niceness that seems too good to be true? I guarantee there is a wack of anger buried beneath it. I speak that from personal experience of having people tell me I had so much patience with my kids when they were little only to go behind closed doors and fly into uncontrollable rages with bruises to show for it. (That haunt me still.)
Someone I admire said not too long ago that he'd rather be honest than positive. I will take honest over anything else any day. There's no guess work with honest. I love this story of honesty. Love it.
I don't know where this post is going, if anywhere, so you'll have to bear with me and see.
Last week the topic came up with a group of friends about times when God made a way clear or not for us. I used to think that the goal was a straight line from here to heaven called Doing God's Will. I spent some time thinking, Oh, this must be God's will, it's exactly what I would do! to thinking "this must be God's will because there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'd choose it for myself."
Today I just try to do my best to hear God and go about my day. I don't trust my own motives because I can make just about anything sound like God, or not, when I want it to. Or as my sponsor says, sometimes you have to call bullshit on yourself.
A friend gets a chuckle when people ask her how they can tell if they are on the right path. She tells them to look at their feet.
Yesterday I spent the day in solitude, in quiet, on purpose. Dearest one was gone for 24 hours and it was just me and the Puglies. They must have sensed I was sick because they stuck to me like glue and were a real comfort.
Having one day of intentional silence a week is something I'm experimenting with this year. I spent it reading and writing and puttering. I had bigger plans than that but when I woke up feeling wretched I had to gear down my plans. I am grateful to be comfortable with silence and my own company.
It hasn't always been that way.
Addiction is all about looking to be anywhere except where one's feet are. I have relatives who live every day with intentional silence, their homes devoid of radio, tv, computer. I thought about them this week and realized it's really that internal silence that I'm seeking. Although being where my feet are without external distractions, is a good place to start.
Photo Credit(taken by someone doing my dream trip)
