Close your eyes and sleep to dream

I've been reading a lot of political blogs lately and what I've found is that they tend to depress me and make me lose hope in everything and I think hope is important to have. It makes getting up in the morning worthwhile if you believe that there are positives to counter all the negatives, that there is light somewhere within the darkness. So I decided to stop obsessing over wanting to read everything and know everything because what can one person do with all that knowledge anyway? I want to know what is going on, but I need to continue to have hope that things will be ok. I'm not sure if I'm just fooling myself or what. I've become somewhat jaded about everything and I am not exaggerating when I write this. I'm like the dark cloud over Eyeore's head threatening to rain at any moment and spoil everyone's day. Tell me something wonderful and I'll be able to root out the evil that's lurking beneath the all the wonderfulness. I've turned into quite the killjoy for sure.

I was talking to a friend of mine the other day and we were both lamenting about how our lives did not turn out the way we had dreamed they would--how things happened that we had no control over and how we had to adapt to a different life plan. There isn't a place to go where we can just cry about the losses that probably aren't significant to most of the outside world but still feel huge to us. There's this fear of expressing dissatisfaction when you know that mostly your life is blessed, because the rule is that you count your blessings and you do not ask for more than enough when you have enough. And so we discuss this with each other and tell each other that we're lucky because we are. And the speaking of the words that feel like a betrayal helps for a while. We hang up our phones and get on with the lives we have and we feel less alone knowing there is at least one person walking the earth who feels the same things.

I'm on one of my cleaning binges again. It's always all or nothing with me and I tend to disrespect housecleaning now that I have been doing it more than half of my life. There's nothing rewarding about it but I get to the point where I feel like I need control of something, anything, and so I clean. Even when I know that tomorrow at this time everything I've done will be undone there are at least a few moments when things are in order and that gives me a little peace. My gravestone will probably read something like, She lived, She cleaned, She saw her cleaning come undone, She died.

I'm almost done the Bible and know that I will have to go back and read it all again because there is just so much to take in after just one reading. My mind is filled with all the stories and all the questions I have that I am afraid I will never get the answers to--at least not in this life. I've found some of the most beautiful prose inside the Bible and I wasn't expecting that. And I've also found that while there were things I did not understand, I did get the messages of love that were preached throughout, and the messages of forgiveness. Life is so complicated, and people make it more complicated than it needs to be. The message of loving one another is such a simple thing, yet most of us can't sustain that sort of love long enough to make a difference. There are too many outside annoyances calling our attention away from what is most important and we simply allow those distractions to steal the gift of love away and put it on a back burner. I start off each day swearing to do better and by noon I'm off track. I'm not sure good intentions count for anything when good intentions are all I ever end up having.

Watermelon is great this time of the year...and air conditioning is the greatest invention of all time when it is 100 degrees outside. I feel alive when I go outside and within a minute am covered in sweat. I feel alive when I come inside and am met with a wall of cool air. I am here in this corner of the world struggling to make sense of everything that doesn't make sense. I turn the page and think about all the things I need to put down in words so that I will not be forgotten. I scream inside my head, don't forget me.

Into the light

Over the weekend, I had several moments when I had to actively fight being hateful, and I lost. It's not my nature to be hateful. I think I am the exact opposite of hateful, and because of that, it's easy for other people to view me as a doormat you stand on to wipe away any dirt you might have picked up on the bottom of your shoes. The people who love me think the well of my giving is bottomless--that I exist for that purpose alone. I think when it gets to be too much I have to scream for them to hear me, see me. And then they behave for a couple of days like I am a queen and then after that we repeat the whole process until I get hateful and start screaming again. I've never mapped out these episodes but I'd estimate a guess that this happens every couple of months. It's good to know that I can count on life never changing.

I think I mentioned before about how I decided to read the Bible and it has been a very sobering experience for me. Being raised a Catholic, I remember most of the stories, but what has surprised me is how much I missed as I left it to other people to interpret for me. I don't want to sound fanatical or anything, but I feel as though the experience of reading the Bible has changed my life. The messages of God in the Bible are very clear but they get lost in man's translations. Furthermore, God stresses that man should NOT translate his words because God says what he means and means what he says, so no translation is necessary.

The Catholic church has done lots of rewriting of the laws of God, and this is not something I recognized until I took the time to read the Bible. I followed where I was led and never questioned anything. This is just one more example of how I went along with what other people said to me or wanted for me. I have a long history of doing that and I am not sure why. I'm the "go along gal" even when there is voice in my head telling me to run in the other direction. It's not that I like sabotaging my life, but you might think so by some of the choices I have made.

Anyway, without going into a whole big spiel, I think I am finding truth inside the Bible, and the truth I am finding is throwing my life into a bit of a turmoil. I have to wrestle with the fact that I have been deceived by a church that has moved away from serving God. I mean--I didn't even realize that the Catholic church had changed God's ten commandments! But they did! And I just followed along reciting the Catholic church's altered commandments as if I was speaking the truth. And I felt self-important and superior to anyone who did not have the same beliefs. I did not know any better--but is that really a good enough excuse? I don't think so.

No one really likes the new me who keeps quoting God's words and telling everyone that the truth they believe is a lie. But it's like I can't stop. I want them to see what I see. And then I'll panic and think that maybe this new truth I'm believing is just another deception, another way that I'll end up being wrong about everything. That's what finding new truths has done to me--it has made me question everyone and everything.

I feel like the story of all of our lives has been written already and our purpose is to try to make the best choices that put us in the best position for peace in our next life. Obviously I have some things to work on. I am a work in progress. I am potentially awesome.