Do you think there’s more than one we can choose to walk on in our lives? I was explaining to the DH that I think there’s the path with the nice cement sidewalk with pretty flowers growing along it, a few shady trees, with birds singing and squirrels barking. That’s what squirrels do, they bark. I love to go out when I see one in the yard and chatter at it while the squirrel barks back at me, like hey any chance you got any nuts I can have? So I go inside to get some peanuts in the shell I keep for them and toss a handful near it. A few more barks and it’s a happy little squirrel so I leave it to yum down. I used to have a tree right outside the window where I worked (I’m so sad it had to be cut down :( after being hit with lightening) and a squirrel would come on a branch near the window whenever it could hear me clacking away on the keyboard and bark away for food. Not good for when you’re writing and now have to stop and go feed that insistent little fur ball. It really kills the thought flow.
Back to the paths I was telling the DH about. There are these 2 paths, first the really pleasant one and somewhat easy one. Yours maybe a lot different than the one I described but say it’s whatever you think is really nice like a sandy beach; or a pretty flower filled meadow; or a calm stream where you’d need a boat or a large tube like water parks have; or a path thru the woods, just don’t make it a dark one or you’ll be on the other path.
Then there’s the overgrown, jungle like one he tends to take and always drags me along. It doesn’t matter that I’m bitching and trying to pull him onto my nice calm path, he just keeps on with hacking away at all the crap that comes along.
What I’m really trying to say is that I’ve learned to go with the flow and try not to stress out over stuff like I used to. Wow, if you want to see a really crazy path it would have been the one I was on in my early teens when I was not only housebound with agoraphobia but fighting to be home schooled. Did I ever tell you about the dr the school insisted I see that decided the best way to cure a scared panicky child was to scare her more by saying my parents would go to jail if I didn’t go to school? I spent days hiding under my bed only coming out to run into the bathroom, then run back to the bed. I can feel the emotions coming back as I write this. Now tell me who was more crazy, me a 12 year old or this so called dr?
Back to how I learned how to go with the flow. It all started with finding a book at a library book sale called ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff ... and it’s all small stuff’ by Richard Carlson. I’ve owned it for over 5 years and still haven’t read it all but what I have read helped me realize that all I was doing was making myself sicker and if I really wanted to change I had to let go of worrying over every tiny thing. You know it’s bad when you find yourself stressing over what you’re wearing and there’s no one around to see it. Or here’s a good one, when I was a child I didn’t think I deserved Barbie or her friends because I didn’t live in as nice of a house as in the commercials. Is it no wonder since I was always nervous and ended up agoraphobic.
It doesn’t always work, there are some pretty big weeds that show up on my path, and a rock or 2 (or a boulder) to trip me up. I’m especially bad at getting over stuff that happens or something I’ve said that I wish I hadn’t. I’ll run it over and over in my mind causing me to loose sleep. We’ve all done that ...right...? I hope I’m not the only one.
So if you find a copy of the book I recommend chapter 10 ‘Learn to Live in the Present Moment’. It’s only 2 small pages and it will speak to all those who worry about what happened and what may happen.
Love to all, I'm off to watch more of RuPaul's Drag Race Allstars on Paramont+. I never thought I'd get addicted to any reality show but this one got me. I'm rooting for Ginger Minj!
