another me

I have the window opened a little more than a crack, and the faint smell of cigarette smoke is snaking its way into the room. I imagine our neighbor next door standing on her deck out back to keep the smell of smoke out of her house and away from her little boy. Growing up, my father smoked like a mad man. There are pictures of him, at thirteen years old, sneaking a smoke in the back of a building somewhere. When we were little, and would go through old photographs, my siblings and I couldn't get over how bad he must have been to be smoking at thirteen. We couldn't even imagine.

Our house smelled like smoke--the curtains, the furniture, our clothes--everything. When my father turned forty, his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer--from being a smoker her entire life. Her ugly, painful death from this disease made my father give up smoking. He simply stopped one day and never smoked again.

Although I've never been a smoker, there are times I get the urge to buy myself a pack of cigarettes. It's the strangest thing. I imagine myself in some secluded spot, sneaking a cigarette or two then coming back to a life where that's not something I would ever do in a million years.

Not stopping

"One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eye."~The Little Prince


I waited all morning and half the afternoon for the rain to die down to a drizzle so that I could go outside and do my run. This blog is becoming monotonous--I run, and I talk about running but I can't help it--it's what makes me happy and feel at peace. This was the second day this week that rain was trying to take away my fun. I was impatient for it to be gone. But then I went out there with a hat on and a SWEATSHIRT! and my music in my ears and I ran. I loved everything about the drizzle hitting my face, keeping me cool. I loved the clouds in the sky and the trees turning beautiful fall colors and the stream of water rushing down the street beside me. I feel closest to God--with the divine greatness of the universe--when I am outdoors. I never, ever in my whole life took the time to look around and really appreciate all the natural beauty around me, so it's like I am making up for lost time.

I spent the last couple of weeks getting my house in shape for a visit from my in-laws and then at the very last minute they decided that the trip was just too long to make. At first I was like---huh? But then I remembered how miserable I feel when I am in a car for endless hours--how my body aches and how bored to death I feel. And I thought about how they're so much older and shouldn't have to do anything they don't want to do and then I was ok with it. It's not like getting angry would have changed things anyway so I didn't bother wasting the energy. My house is looking spotless and organized, so in a way, I am thankful for the little push to get things in order.

Believe it or not, I think about writing here a lot, although it's clear that I do not actually come here and write very often. There really isn't much going on in my life that's interesting from the outside looking in. I've been going through some internal changes that are difficult to articulate. All I know is that I have searched tirelessly for truth and peace and God---and after all the searching, I found them all inside me. I was looking outside when I should have been looking within. I'm rejecting fear and choosing love. As much as possible, I am trying to send out into the world good energies so that good energies come back to me and it's working. I am being pleasantly surprised by the power I have that I did not know I had. I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life. My life is truly what I make it.