This Moment

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment you want to pause, savour and remember. “This Moment” is a ritual found on Sarah-Jane's almostthere.biz; inspired by the Wee Man adopted from SouleMama.

Morning Muse

Coastal Clothesline by Fiona Whyte

It's a wee bit after 7 a.m on a wintry, morning and the hot java is percolating even though I burned the midnight oil.  I'm a night owl but greet daybreak with "morning bird" appreciation as I tend to miss sunrise and his grandiose opening each day.  All is well minus the alleged icy transformer that fried an entire grid leaving my neighbors without electricity this morning.  Ah, thank God for back up generators.  Well, before I go off on a rant let me get back to my initial thought - laundry.  No, not the kind you drag downtown with a Zip-lock bag full of quarters but the other kind.  

I stood by the window to catch the first rays of sunlight and sipped my brew. I enjoy a quiet moment of Zen like the next geek... but find turning the big 3-0 on the cusp of this prophetic new year has left me all too aware of myself, others, the world around me, and my role in it.  Perhaps, a fringe benefit of the approaching Age of Aquarius or because I've survived the dark ages (twenties) and hit the magical age of enlightenment...thirty!

Oddly enough, before I could slay dragons I had to first draw the sword upon myself. 

After years of ambivalence the simmering came to boil over.  In my case, the most difficult situation to resolve was my co-dependency. Again, latent emotions are certain to come out in the wash and sadly my ex-boyfriend (who'd tried his luck one too many times) was not spared any expletives.  We tolerate a lot from the people we love.  It's why they say, "it's the people closest to you that hurt you the most".  Unless we stick to our boundaries -- by the time we say enough is enough we are either livid or indifferent.

In a previous post I aired some "dirty laundry" and let it hang out on the line for the whole world see.  I'm a private person aka Scorpio so that seemingly harmless admission was kind of a big deal.  Needless to say, holding onto grudges, hurt, anger, and distrust is toxic and was slowly but surely bringing out the worst in me. I once vowed that I never wanted to look in the mirror one day and see the stereotypical  "angry black woman" staring back at me!  Yet, there she stood.  How did she manage to get here? How could I have let this happen? I wept hard. I screamed into thin air at God...then for God.  I could no longer ignore my own harsh reality, pain, anger, guilt, disappointment and frustration.  I felt as if I'd been mindlessly sailing in the Bermuda Triangle, hoping a good wind would eventually come along and turn things around but I was the only energy that could get me out of the loop I was in.  He said with the faith of a muster seed I could move mountains (Matt 17:20).  I had to take responsibility, surrender and forgive.  Eventually, I got my compass (mind) right only to realize that I was on the wrong boat to begin with!  What a mess!  I decided to stop clowning around and left the Carnival if you catch my drift.  It didn't happen overnight but years to build up enough confidence, consciousness, and courage to let go of bad habits, frenemies and all manner of co-dependent relationships. Oddly enough, before I could slay dragons I had to first draw the sword upon myself. 

Well, Lancelot here is not out of the woods yet.  It's no shock that I currently find myself in what a friend coined as a "timeout" period.  Little did he know that he spoke of the very awkward yet purposeful predicament Iyanla Vanzant wrote about in her book In the Meantime: Finding Yourself and the Love You Want.  I read the book a few years ago and cannot recommend it enough.  However, I think I may have to return to its pages.  I cannot say the author did not give a caveat to her readers. She explained that these timeout periods in life are to be expected from time to time as we are forced to change, grow and evolve.  Perhaps, my timeout has manifest by my own sub/conscious design, fate, the Heavens, or a combination thereof.  I have no idea but am thankful to have washed ashore.  And the journey continues...

I Confess...

(James 5:16) Confess your offenses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. 

A dose of equal parts indifference and self-righteousness is a homemade pain killer that will leave you high and mighty. Albeit, mine was subtle but I've been preoccupied with how I've been hurt for so long that I failed to see how I've hurt others and also fell short.  We don't always realize how or when we've cause someone pain.  Sometimes we're too caught up in our own mess to care or do anything about it.  Sometimes when hurt we strike back but two wrongs never made it right -- only hardened hearts. I figured if I didn't let anyone get too close to me then no one could really hurt me.  Who could reject me if I rejected them first?  I didn't want to know another sorrow and at all cost. Well, it is impossible to be in a state of love and fear at the same time.  Holding grudges only filled my heart with distrust.  I hurt myself b/c I forgot how to forgive. Lord, forgive me. Amen.