First Day of the New Year

“Dogs live most of life in Quiet Heart. Humans live mostly next door in Desperate Heart. Now and then will do you good to live in our zip code.” Trixie Koontz (from Bliss to You)

After 5 days of solitude in the country, I have returned to the bustle of city life. With all its hectic busyness, chaos and technological insanity, I find myself longing for the quiet mornings watching the bird feeder with my cup of hot tea. The working world is calling me back and I have to go.

I have been meeting with a counselor over the past month and have been doing my homework. I am supposed to journal my feelings every day (so I don’t stuff them) and I chart out goals for 2024. I also did something she didn’t ask me to do, I made a list of all the good things (blessings) God has done for me over the years as a way of remembering His goodness. This exercise has been the most impactful in helping me to know He is faithful and will help me to go forward.

Watching the birds at the feeder gives me peace (see the titmouse hanging out?)

I sat at the kitchen table in the country and was engulfed with quiet and calm. I remembered one, two and then twenty plus things. There have been so many times I was fearful about where God provided. Even now I remember times He helped me that weren’t on my list. There was that time my home was in foreclosure and He provided a job and I was able to save the house. Or that time I was grieving the loss of a close friendship and He helped me to forgive that person for ghosting me. I also remembered how addicted to sugar I was and how heavy I was and how He helped me to stop eating unhealthy food and start exercising. I know I’ve been writing about it for a long time, but this is a major blessing in my life that continues to bear fruit. I went to visit a neighbor in the country and she told me her daughter is morbidly obese and her leg bones are like Swiss cheese to the point she can’t walk and they had to give her stem cells to try to help heal the bones. I have aches and pains and arthritis, but at least I’m still able to walk. That is a MAJOR blessing!

The biggest thing my counselor tells me is that I am too hard on myself and I need to practice self-care. I am struggling in this area. I need to take care of my family and I need to stay healthy. I generally take care of everyone else before me. I feel the retreat was self-care but I have to live in the real world. Also, it’s really hard to not think about all the things I am afraid of. I had nightmares 4 out of 5 nights while I was there. I don’t understand how to stop having nightmares or how to stop being afraid of things that really are frightening.

I have watched several inspirational movies about authors – one being Charles Dickens, “The Man who Invented Christmas” and “Miss Potter”. These stories helped me to dream a little again. I want to find a way to start writing fiction stories again because that is when I really feel alive and happy. To me, that is the best self-care I can do. But it requires time, something that I don’t have a lot of.

I started the new year with a workout and lunch with an old friend. It was nice to eat in a restaurant (something I don’t do very often) and just gab about life. The one thing I noticed during our conversation was that several times I said, “In life, there is no easy button.” It occurs to me that I wish I had one. Or better yet, a button that says, “Problem solved.” Or maybe I wish I had a beacon to turn on at night like the light that comes on at the checkout when there is a problem with something you are trying to scan. The attendant rushes over and helps almost immediately and fixes the issue. I love that.

I have been reading Psalm 37 over and over. There is one verse in particular that has been helpful. “Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!
Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.” (Psalm 37:8) I can attest to the fact that fretting does tend only to evil, but it really is hard to stop.

I’m afraid of work tomorrow. I’m hoping things get easier. They may not. I need to accept the way things are and have courage to change the things I can. I’m not certain of anything anymore and in some respects I’ve lost my confidence. But day by day is all I can do. Sometimes the best courage we can muster is to just get up and keep going. Just show up. So that is what I intend to do. And when I take a break or eat my lunch, I am going to practice living in quiet heart.