Sunrise over NOLA 5 :30 am.Huey P Long Bridge 2015
The days had been running together and I’d been feeling wrung out. Not sick, just tired. I made a decision to sleep in today. 5:13 a.m. 57 more minutes should get me squared away, right? In a nutshell. It did not.
I hate when best laid plans “fail”. We all do. To not plan and fail, meh, expected. To decide to give it a go and screw the pooch seems like a “well what’s the point?” There’s always a point.
This morning around 3 something I started stressing out. Wake up, stress, “I’m missing something,” back to “sleep”, toss, turn, rinse, repeat. Finally when my alarm went off I got going on the usual. Feed the dogs. Start the coffee. Make a choice.
I decided I’d write later. That I just wanted to wake up and slowly allow the unwanted night anxiety wash away. Then i realized the dogs were out roaming the neighborhood. Coffee, flip flops, underwear, an alarming search party for anyone I’d encounter.
I’m not any sort of super hero, but maybe I know the secret. I could have let the poor sleep and running dogs ruin the rest of the day. Instead I made a choice. It’s the same choice we all get when things unravel. Tie off the rope or watch it’s uncooling accelerate until we can’t grab back a hold.
We all have that choice, multiple times a day. To get things back on the rails. As with most things it helps if we accept that “shit happens”. If we’ve learned nothing the last 3 (or is it 4) months it’s that things can and will change daily. Best laid plans get thrown to waste and it’s how you react to what’s left that defines your outlook.
I decided to tie off the rope. I smiled at the dog as the dog is just dogging. I opened a new page and I began to type. Slowly and surely the pulling in my chest lessened. Quiet slowly returned.
It’s these little victories that I forget about. It would have been easy to say “I don’t have time to write this morning”. To say “I’ll get it in later.” 87.4% of the time there is no “later”. I mean later comes but we’ve moved on and the window for ourselves has shut. You have to take them when they come or deal with the leftovers.
Those leftovers for me are always just an accumulation of more stress and anxiety. I (we) think I am buying time but the reality is I’m giving it away and getting nothing in return.
So today if it starts to unravel. Stop it. This is your time. Grab it.
#hugsandhi5s
