The end of the flood story

I do not recommend that a highly stressed person (namely me) be locked in a car for 20 some odd hours by herself. Since I felt odd having conversations with my imaginary friend, I opted for “imaginary” conversations with real friends; so if any of you found yourself psychically drained…apologies.

In youth we seek excitement. The big dreams, the ambitions. I wanted to be an anthropologist but didn’t know how I’d pay the bills. Then I wanted to be a knitwear designer whose originals went for thousands. (Hey it was High School). But mostly I wanted to be safe, warm, dry, and fed.

As we age, we realize that excitement is usually something bad. Something that breaks, goes wrong, hurts, or crushes us---becoming one more bead in a rosary of sorrows, delicately slipping in place, counting down the experiences of a lifetime.

And, as you finger this Rosary, it’s easy to count how life knocks you down, you get up, knocks you down, you get up, knocks you down…you think “perhaps if I stop getting up things would change”. But you stagger drunkenly up and go forth.
Why the continued getting up?

Because all things of beauty require balance and space. And in order to have a balanced life with freedom to love, you have to form other beads in the design. Beads that shimmer with a glow from the heat of a passionate heart, or beads that twinkle with the crystal clearness of laughter. Even beads with delicate facets that reflect contentment.

At the end of the drive, I found that obviously since neither of us was dead, nothing was lost that we couldn’t live without. Some furniture, some yarn, a fleece, things from the kitchen that had been stored during the floor remodel, most of the books, and weirdly the lawn tractor.

It was going to be a week before they replaced the furnace, so we decided to ignore the stresses, and go on our vacation. Because, in the end, I did grow up to get exactly what I wanted--- I am loved, safe, warm and fed.