Decorate Your Soul

So here we are...it's Friday morning, my back has been trying to go out since last night and I am fighting it with generic icy hot patches and Bayer Back & Body.  Maybe this isn't the ideal way to start a weekend.  Perhaps the fact that I woke up just after 7 in an attempt to get my car's oil change done at a place I ended up never being able to find also plays into the less-than-ideal start to the day, but I've decided the weekend is going to be good.

In a few hours I will be driving to Atlanta.  I'll get my oil changed tomorrow at a more reasonable hour than 7 at a place I know I can find.  Tonight I will go eat drunken noodles (hopefully they'll have tofu again) with Shelby at The Red Orchid and watch "Robin Hood Men in Tights" and laugh a whole lot.  I will stretch out my back, and I will keep moving.  I'm not letting Death Spine win this one again.  I don't have the time or the money to play games with my back again.  

I will find my beautiful sister-in-law the right copy of the children's book I've written so she can continue working on illustrations.  We will get that sucker published yet.  I will actually think about Nikky's question of where I want to be in 5 years because the more I think about it the more I realize, I've got no plans, and I'm no longer okay with that.  

What I know is this: I cannot wait for someone else to plan a life with.  I can't keep putting my future on hold because I'm afraid that if I go ahead and make plans, I'll be alone forever.  Maybe I will be alone or maybe this is just a long season, but either way, putting my life on hold because I'm scared of something I can't be sure of is not going to help.  I nearly died about a year and a half ago, and I think I've been trying to figure out how to live ever since.  I think it's time I work on decorating my own soul and making my world colorful and bright for myself because it's not anyone else's job but mine, and really, if I can make my world more colorful and bright, I think that color will spill into and change the lives of the people I love and meet.

Maybe I should be the one bringing flowers.

Dyed

by Robby Cavanaugh

“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”

-Marcus Aurelius

The past few weeks have been strange.  My soul is restless again and I think it's in anticipation of change; I just don't know what change yet.  

I hate the waiting and the wondering.  God knows I'm not any good at being patient though I guess I have gotten a little better with age.

There is a poster board covered with a very large Venn Diagram stuck on my bedroom wall at the moment. It has two headings: "Should I Stay?" "Should I Go?"  It is saying a lot about the people I love, the places my heart resides, and what I want to do.  There are a few things connecting them, and that tells me a lot too.  I need to take into consideration my health, my financial situation, the fact that I do actually have a small grey monster that is my responsibility, and my heart.  I still don't know where I am going to end up or what I will be doing next, but I do know that I am longing.  It is an ache that is permeating everything.

I know that I need to find a way to truly like myself.  I have said it a million times, and hopefully this will be one of the last times I repeat myself, I need to change this.  I am unhealthy physically on a number of levels, and unfortunately, I have a lovely talent for ending up sick when I am stressed or worried or frustrated.  Pretty sure this is one of the ways God reminds me to slow down, shut up, and listen.  I am home sick today for day two after wanting to strangle the whole of the world on Monday.  Now...I am trying to listen.  I don't want my twenty-sixth year to be one of giving up or shutting down.

I am pretty sure my soul is dyed a deeply morbid and whiny color as a result.  Ha.  Never the less, I am working on changing that.  I want my soul to be died a bright sunshine yellow and green like new leaves, the orange of sunset and the shimmering whites and blues of summer night stars.

Bring it on 26.  I won't be defeated this year.

Ps. One last thing, Favorite Things of This Very Moment (10:41 AM CST):

• This picture of my nephew, Xavier being his happy and wonderful self.  If only we could all be so much ourselves.  I hope you find your way to do that, I intend to.
• The coffee my mom left me this morning because she thought I might just want it.
• "Old Enough" by Jason Bruce because I'm pretty sure that today it is my life
• Forrest telling me he has an interview next week for a job and seeing him so happy about it
• Sweet comments, well wishes, belated birthday notes, and general kindness from the people I love most
• Death Cab for Cutie.  Always.
• The time between coughs when I feel nearly normal
• The gold sunshine that is bathing everything I see in its glorious summer-esque radiance, especially the young trees in our front yard that absolutely glow green in the light
• Summer breezes that carry the sent of my coffee and cool air across my face
• Comfy pj pants
• My anklet that reminds me of Shelby, Josie, Amber and CWS
• Joel arguing with Mira (honestly, mornings can be so silly here)
• Life.