Frustration is so real.

Today at 1:30p.m. I was STILL in sweats and trying to get something accomplished-- get the bills paid, get some paper work done for work, get the house cleaned. Just get SOMETHING from the "to-do" list moved over to the "done" list.
And yet the harder I worked, the more setbacks raised their ugly, lerking heads up from the corners of my day.
I finally shut my briefcase, shut the doors to the rooms I wanted to clean, even put my phone on silent, loaded my niece up and just drove. I listened to Shawn McDonald and realized it's okay--

Nothing deep and profound-- just simply that..."It's okay."

It's okay that my show won't get entered until tomorrow and that my bathroom won't be cleaned before I go to sleep and that I haven't completed that powerpoint (yet). It's even okay that I just had a funky attitude today because (thank goodness) one day of me being/feeling behind will not void any hope of me being successful. It won't curse me with a ten year jinx to a nasty bathroom. It won't even make me a terrible, pessimistic, ungrateful, lazy person for having a bad attitude this day.

Grace is a good thing.

And tomorrow I get to try again without the weight of the world on my shoulders.
It's a good feeling.

Attaining the greater.

This feels like a foreign place. Or like a tree I climbed in when I was young-- such a familiar feeling in revisiting but somewhat of an awkward fit as I've grown since the last time I perched on this branch.

Life is so fast--
I still feel slightly turned around, but I am coming to a place where I am at peace with feeling slightly turned around; perhaps we will always feel a little turned around. May as well come to peace with it early on in the seeking of feeling "rightly directed," lest I have gray hair before I'm thirty.

But notice I said in the seeking--
I have always had one of those guilty personalities-- I felt guilty for calling, for interrupting, for someone having to walk around because I laid my bag in the floor, for choosing the prime spot on the beach, for wanting security when hundreds of thousands of good people will never know security of their own.
But I am realizing that in settling, I merely allow myself to relate to the good folks who need. I don't even begin to approach a position from which I may actually help them. And beyond that, I, myself, in being a fellow struggler of that degree, become exhausted and have little energy and encouragment to offer.
So I am trying to breed in myself and those around me a new sort of lifestyle.
That of consistency and preparation and thinking big.
That's where the seeking comes in:
Oh, have I learned about contentment and peace in rough spots! But I have also learned perhaps not to use the "Peace of God" as a crutch, as an excuse to not work hard or dream big or push the envelope or even to fail!
It's so easy to say we have a "peace" about the way things are, so we will remain here-- here struggling to pay our bills or provide for our families or think open-mindedly about our desires because we are satisfied merely making it.
I think truthfully that is no peace at all. We lie awake worrying and fumble the bills and stash them in the backseat and feel a lump in our throats when they resurface after the weekend. What we are calling peace is, in actuality, relative EASE. It's easy to stay put, although long term it takes a harder toll on us. It's easier to work 12 hour shifts making pocket change and just clock in, clock out, than to sit down and consider our finances, our goals for ourselves and our families and our world and make a pro-active plan to MOVE FORWARD, not just maintain.

In the last few months, things have changed for me at work. But in turn, I find myself remembering how to dream again-- and not just those kinds of dreams that you hoop and holler about on a kick in high school, the kind where you feel a quiet, burning passion for and can visualize yourself executing in the next ten years.
I always thought I really liked working long hours. I liked the idea of being single the rest of my life. I liked the idea of living in a little one bedroom safe spot. And I do to some degree.
However, I also love the idea of being a mom. Of having time to live my life. Of romance and companionship. Of a home where neighbors and strangers and friends alike can slip in and be cozy and let their hair down and have a drink.
It was just easier earlier on to say I dreamed of those small things-- it was easier than risking the disappointment of not being capable of attaining the greater.

Currently Some Mad Hope By Matt Nathanson see related

So shine already.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented, and fabulous."
(Who are you not to be?)

You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that
other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us -- it's in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.

-Marianne Williamson

I have lived so much life in the last two years.
So much life.

Skater kids. Batesville kids. Batesville not-so-kids. Oxford. Painting. Condo. Cico's boothing (ha!). Time at home for "a time for mourning." Emotional roller coasters romantically-- unfortunately I was/am generally the roller coaster operator with all innocent intention.
English, Nursing. Working at a bar. Becoming very tired from working at a bar. Working at the compound. Patch Adams. Field lying. Romeo joins my life. Mmmm. That's the best part, undoubtedly (no matter how many pillows I sacrificed and will surely continue to sacrifice.)
Austin marries. Ava is born. Move to Hattiesburg.
Gaining friends. Losing friends. Not knowing how to not lose friends I've gained. Not being sure if I want to gain friends. Not being sure I want to lose them. Reading, writing, playing, humming.

Forty thousand miles later, I still drive my Honda and sing Mindy Smith; at least something's the same.
But I feel as turned around as ever.

I, cozily tucked into my heavy white robe and sandals, scurried around a spa today as I prepared for my turn to be spoiled-- put the hair up, make-up off, jewelry hidden safely in my locker, bottle of water at hand.
A petite young lady, twenties or so, was already in the locker room when I arrived. She, too, wore a white robe--the "wrist band" of spas which tells the world "we belong here"--she had small blue eyes, slighly unfocused, and notably round glasses.

I felt like she belonged there more than I.

Several other spa-ees floated in and out, and no one spoke. Finally I killed the silence and approached the round-glassed lady and revealed my weakness: "So I have no idea how to lock these lockers. Looks like a bunch of crazy buttons to me-- what happened to good ol' keys and combinations??  I suppose I can give up, but I'd rather you show me and I won't have to chase my stolen stuff down later."  She giggled and fully embraced the opportunity to teach me something.

I quickly realized she thought I belonged there more than she.

We made small talk: she married just Saturday and is now on her honeymoon. Her husband is in the military and found out today he will be deployed soon. Not overseas but out of state with no access to her for awhile.
She had no appointment at the spa. Her parents had put them up in the hotel. She just wanted to wander around and, let's be honest, feel like a woman for awhile, like I new bride-- somehow the whirlpools and steamrooms and white robes and flops just help.
I wanted to give her my massage appointment, and perhaps I would've had it not been a gift.
Or at least take her with me and split it.
But I didn't.

We just talked awhile longer, and I put her at ease by making fun of myself in the over-sized robe and telling her I slipped on massage oil earlier when no one was around. I asked who could possibly pay 25 dollars a bottle for hairspray and how on earth we were supposed to relax when we knew our legs would be prickly in those cold rooms before the massage even began! What a shame.
We giggled at ourselves and all of femininity, and I felt dual emotions--
I could be silent and not speak to a soul in there and lay my head back and soak and steam and be massaged 'til I felt like a noodle and ease my way back to my room and take advantage of the full bar and apply my make up and take home the robe for a splendid deal of only eighty bucks and enjoy myself entirely.
Don't let me fool you folks; I am that selfish.
But I also thought about her the whole time during my massage: what about her? What about other folks like her who couldn't come here today? Who wouldn't if they could or did and felt so out of place? Who want to feel like beautiful women and can't get to a spa or resort or make up counter? And here I am...drinking my mini-bottled water, being treated like a regular because I'm a good faker at seeming comfortable and must look like I belong in a bathrobe.
And Little Miss Round Glasses is just scurrying around the same beaten path in and out of the locker room hoping Indulgence will pick her up but the nape of her neck and sweep her away at some point if she can only keep seeming like she belongs there 'til she reaches some level of belonging that will allow her to feel whatever it is these other women are feeling which inspires the ease with which they float in and out, wet hair swept up.

So I spend lots of time knowing I want to "have things"-- stability, a steady job, education, hobbies, relaxation-- and feeling guilty about doing so and ending up without much to show for it but lots of deliberation.

you're right.
i'm afraid of everything you've ever been.
then again--
would you be something for me?
i'm turnin' a deaf ear, a blind eye
to stories that i hear, warning signs.

here's your
                                     clean slate
        some people wait 
                                              a lifetime for.

show the world with me
people change,
love drives out fear.
are you strong enough to hold my hand gently?
if you're too weak, I understand.
here's your chance.