Today I am grateful for rationale/tricks of the universe. Yesterday my husband asked if I wanted to go for a ride and I know when he’s restless like that he wants to go out and spend money, discharge some energy through impulsive decision making.  It can be fun—stressful at times and hard if we’re fighting the urge to fall into old habits—but it can be fun to spend time together.  When he asked, I was in the middle of doing dishes and we somehow ended up talking about flooring and tearing up our carpeting and the general discussion about continuing to make this house ours.  We had some brief back and forth about cost and wanting multiple areas of the house torn up at the same time and agreed we’d do something at a later time.  So we drove out to a liquidation store that always has some really cool finds and they had some things we’d been simply throwing back and forth about the house—a shed for the yard, a different TV to swap a few things out for our son in his room, an electric fireplace for the basement, plungers, some hair care.  It was a field day.  Well, low and behold they have a pallet of flooring (which they never have—this is a seasonal store etc. etc.) that was pretty damn close to what we had been talking about wanting for just over $2k.  That’s an awesome deal.  No, I hadn’t been prepared to spend money but this isn’t the first temptation of the universe—I’d been talking about wanting to make the house ours and, while this wasn’t exactly what I wanted, it truly was very close.  We spent a lot of time discussing it—we’d left the floor plan at home so we couldn’t quite be certain there was enough flooring, It wasn’t quite the color we’d been discussing, if it wasn’t enough we weren’t sure how we’d finish it, because it was at a discount place, finding trim and transitions could be rough, and it came down to whether or not we wanted multiple areas of the house torn up.  I know this was a test.  Breaking the habit of being afraid to let go of that money at once and diving into emotion, or for once really determining what I want and not just jumping in and settling for something that’s almost-not-quite what we wanted just because it’s there.  Logic prevailed and I didn’t buy it.  Yes, I want to make all of my home my own, but I don’t want it to be almost what I want—I want it to be what I want.   

Today I am grateful for intention.  The dynamic has shifted in my home over the last several months, specifically with more focus toward our family and my relationship with my husband.  I will say that it has made more difference in the last few months than it has for much of the span of our relationship.  I feel loved and cared for and heard in a new way.  I’ve learned to spend time doing what I need to do and allowing him to be himself without worrying about what’s going on inside his head.  I spent too many years trying to decipher what he really wanted and thinking I was always a step ahead, predicting any movement he would make.  But I’ve learned a lot about us over the last several months and the focus needed to be about each other.  Finding ourselves as individuals, yes—but to spend time as a couple learning what we like again, having fun instead of constant worrying about what needs to be done, and remembering to appreciate everything about each other.  Looking at he relationship as something to work on together.  We have the intention of doing better by each other, for each other, with each other and having that shared focus has changed the dynamic to a more equitable and peaceful arrangement that allows us both to get what we need.

Today I am grateful for promises.  I haven’t always kept the promises to myself.  Even now when I’ve made a promise to keep my focus on the life I’m trying to create and to shift toward more time doing what I love, I find myself drawn back into old habit and routine, allowing the old frustrating feelings devour me.  Perhaps it’s comfort and familiarity, but I feel it’s more about habit—and the fear isn’t so much about doing something different, it’s about believing I can sustain myself.  Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is only one way to find out if something is going to work and that is to try it.  it’s to give up all fear and just do the damn thing to see if it fits.  I made a promise to give up fear and try to commit to that and that means I’m going to have to let go of the fear of the unknown and do what I say I’m going to do.  Not everything will go exactly as I planned, this is new territory after all, but until I release all the old fear patterns, that life I’ve envisioned will never have the chance to manifest.  I need to keep that promise to myself in order to see what I can make of it.    

Today I am grateful for the opportunity to slow down.  My mind never stops. I know in the most literal sense our minds never stop, the creative instinct, autonomic functions, interaction with others, and basic thought patterns ALWAYS happen. When I say I’m operating on different tracks at all the same time I mean that as soon as I sit down to work on my writing, I feel like I have to pay bills.  A story will set me off and I’ll have to search a particular celebrity or fun fact before I forget—even if it’s not relevant to what I’m doing.  I can be on a creative roll and suddenly an impulse will come through and my other screen on the computer turns into google or I’m remembering I need to pay a bill, some thought about my family’s safety pops in, I realize I need to start the garden I was planning, but to do that I need to clear out space in the basement, the basement is all torn up, I need to finish the plan of the basement… For me, it’s a very real reality that any one of those thoughts crashes into the other and short circuits the whole thing and instead of doing something, especially what I had already been working on, all focus goes out the window and suddenly the process, the feeling of the process is gone. So, I consider myself blessed that in this day and age I am able to focus on hobbies if I want, I am able to begin my other ventures outside of my 9-5, I can make my house my own, I can start my own business(es).  But I can’t do it all at once and I recognize it is also a privilege to choose to slow down, take my bearings, and make a plan.  I have been gifted with  intent and purpose and focus and slowing down allows me to hear that and heal the fears I have and to follow a single train of thought at a time—or at least get one train moving at a time rather than fight for it.  Slowing down brings attention to my breathing and my connection to where I’m at, with spirit, with emotion and I do not take that for granted.

Today I am grateful for seeing patterns and mistakes.  We just had time change (Spring ahead) and it’s now super dark again in the morning.  I enjoy having the illusion of a longer day, but it has always wrecked me for a day or so.  I understand what that is now: I want to be in line with my natural rhythm and doing my own thing and when that is changed on a national level (with global impact because people have to adjust when we speak now by an hour) it feels wrong.  Instead of being nearly 6AM, it’s now nearly 7AM and it’s disorienting and frustrating; frankly there may have been a time and purpose for that but I feel like it’s still some last ditch attempt at holding onto things past.  So as I’m presented with the same patterns and mistakes I’ve made, I realize that it’s me holding on to things past.  I’m doing what I’ve always done because it’s what I’ve known, and I often fall into it before I even realize I’m doing it.   But the more awareness I bring to those things I want to change, the easier it becomes to see where I need to change, or at least shift, to get to where I want to be.  Talk is cheap—only action moves us forward.  That is a pattern I need to break: stopping the transition while it’s happening. Allow myself to simply breathe and do something new.  We can always go back to how it “used to be” but we can never erase the regret of not at least going for what we want when the opportunity presents itself.  Welcome the gifts of the universe even if it feels like the wrong time.  Enjoy.     

Wishing everyone a wonderful week ahead.