LTMOD Part II

As soon as I clicked “Publish Post” on Left to My Own Devices (LTMOD) I began writing corrections and addendums in my head and on little scraps of paper and in e-mails to friends.

Part of that reads: The direction I ended up taking was not really where I meant to go. Or where I thought I meant to go. I thought all of those things at different times; the collection just didn't come together as I'd imagined.

I'm a huge procrastinator. I know I have a huge list of "shoulds" that I'm avoiding. Eventually, they're going to bite me in the backside and I'll have to confront them. That seems to be the story of my life. At least I'm seeing a pattern. And usually, while I'm “frittering away” my time reading, blogging, joyriding around Facebook, watching YouTube or whatever ... I'm thinking about how I'm going to do what I have to do. And I do it eventually.

Perhaps it's the baby sister/practically-an-only-child mentality I've grown up with. I'm selfish. I want to use "my" time my way. (I generally don't like being told what to do. I say "generally" since there are times I very much do want someone else to make the decisions!)

This past year has been a rocky one. With my dad passing away February 18 and my daughter going off to college in the fall. At the same time, work demands were out of control, off-the-scale nuts. So not only did I have huge stressors in my life, I didn’t have (or take) the time to really deal with them. Now, with economic slowdown I have more time to think. Or I'm taking more time to think.

I’ve suffered from information overload. And analysis paralysis. And have a lot of elephants to eat. I’m still only snacking on the appetizers, but I’m munching away, bit by bit.

About 5-1/2 years ago, I made a conscious decision to work on my spiritual life. This is part of another story, but let's see if I can stick to my point. E and I were visiting Aunt Linda. At this time, E had just finished confirmation and was heavily into the "God thing." We were in a good place - literally - to be into the "God thing" as God and Jesus are huge in Aunt Linda's life and in the lives of her family and friends. So we were immersed. But more important than that immersion and being surrounded by believers - I think - is that we were both beginning to look very carefully at our own personal relationships with God.

We did a lot of reading about prayer and faith. And did a lot of introspection.

And I thought about the things that bring me joy. Not just a little bit of contentment (even though that's OK too) but real joy. Soul-filling, chest-bursting, cartwheel-turning, jump-up-and-down JOY. And I also thought about and made a personal commitment to seek out, pay attention to and appreciate the simple joys of things like hanging out with kids and being completely silly or hearing a joke that brings about giant belly laughs. Of seeing all the miraculous detail in a beautiful flower. Or feeling the delicious warmth of the sun on the top of my head. Of losing myself in something for a little while and then emerging with a new awareness of the world around me.

And I realized that's what I need to fill my life with. Because when I'm filled up, it spills over and I have to share. Sometimes life fills up with stuff we have to do and there doesn’t seem to be room for joy. Some people have that wonderful gift to bloom where they’re planted and find joy in everything they do. That is a truly amazing gift. I know I don’t have it exactly right, but I’m working away at filling the spaces – and at using the devices I alone was gifted with – to make room for all the joy I can contain so the chances of it spilling over increase every day.