Relax or Not

Alcohol can be a wonderful muscle relaxant. Problem with this is that the tongue is one of those human muscles that get relaxed after substantial consumption. And when one's tongue is loose I believe that the truth is spoken. "It is very hard to drink and lie at the same time (#1)."

It doesn't matter if that truth is harsh or not, because when alcohol is involved in large amounts all inhibitors are suppressed and tact, sensitivity and all those good things are out the window. It's not to say that the person being told the truth is not sensitive. They might not have consumed as much as the truth teller and therefore still actually feel something.

And once the words are out the mouth there is no getting them back. The recipient stews over them and sometimes cries over them. And the truth teller? Well most of the time they don't even remember saying what was heard. So for them, there is no stress and life carries on as usual, except they don't quite understand why the other person seems miff.

So should the truth teller be forgiven their drunken words? Should the recipient accept the honesty and look deeper and be less sensitive and know it's a truth they needed to hear, even though it should have been said with a bit more care? Do we all need to drink less, or be less sensitive?

A hard place

When looking for inspiration to write this post, I came across these quotes. There were many more, but these stuck with me:

Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.  ~Author Unknown

The inability to make a decision has often been passed off as patience.  ~Author Unknown

Indecision becomes decision with time.  ~Author Unknown 

Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions.  ~Brendan Francis

 

Life is the sum of all your choices.  ~Albert Camus

Decision making has always been a time when I wished I could go back to my childhood and leave it up to the adults. I think that I'm so worried about making the wrong decision that I'd rather not make one at all. But I do find, as Rita Mae Brown put it, "A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one." It's just the making of the decision that is so hard.

And again I find myself in that hard place today. Do we, don't we? Now I could pretend to make the decision and just follow what my husband decides. But that kind of attitude is what landed me with a career that my father chose for me. I can't complain, it earns me a good living, but it would have been nice to have had an idea a bit earlier in life as to what I, not my father wanted to do with my life. 

I believe that every decision, right or wrong (which is actually a matter of opinion), is made for a reason. If not to take us further down our right path of life, it's to teach us what we don't want and where we don't want to be. But among learning what I don't want in life, I've also learned that focusing on what I don't want will bring exactly that to me. 

So what to do? Decide what I do want, enjoy the peacefulness following my decision, focus on that and believe that Emerson was right when he said, "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen."

 

The House is not my home

I have all of the ingredients mentioned in my readings,

That are required to make a house a home.

But still that fuzzy feeling eludes me.

There is an abundance of love.

Family and friends come by.

The 'lived in' piles of things to sort are in almost every room.

The cozy blanket on the couch for cuddling under.

But still there is no homely feeling in my mind.

It's bricks and mortar that we've made look a little better.

It's comfortable with all the necessities.

But it's not my home.

Is it that the children have little grass to play on,

Or that my in-laws are living in a cave?

The fact that going to the car in rain requires an umbrella.

Or maybe the stairs that need climbing,

Or the fear of  a child to fall down them.

Could it be the chaos of our lives that has stopped us having time to feel at home?

Maybe it's all of these or none of them.

I'd thought a year was long enough for this house to have become my home.

Should I wait and make more changes?

Should I put up the for sale sign and pack my boxes?

Can this pile of bricks become my fuzzy feeling home?

I've put it out there and now I await the return

of the fuzzy feeling that is my home.

Have you seen them?

Boohoohoo (Sniff). Yes, I'm crying. I've had my first sighting and it's absolutely devastating. There aren't a lot, but just the sight of those few pink and white splashes is enough to send me into hibernation. If only I was a bear.

If you haven't guessed it I'm talking about the beautiful cosmos that has started springing up on the side of the road. Unfortunately, even though they're flowers, they don't signal the sign of Spring, but rather that, that, that.... I can't even say it. My lips already feel frozen together.

And we don't even get snow in Gauteng. Well, not very often. For me the snow actually makes that season better. I don't know about snow this year, but I'm betting this year is going to be freezing, considering all the rain we've had and not such a sizzling summer.

Nobodies even going to notice the few kilos I've lost, because when they see me I'm going to look like a marshmallow with all the layers of clothes. It's wonderful to lose even 2 kilos, but the more you lose, the more you seem to feel the cold.

Hibernation is really looking appealing for Winter. There I said it. Get ready, it's on it's way.

Reliability dies

The Oxford definition for reliable: of consistently good character or quality; dependable. Anybody know where you can genuinely use this word, or should we be requesting that it be removed from the dictionary? Just try and do renovations to a house where people do what they say they will when they say they will. I'd love to hear from anybody that has had this happen....

The silence is deafening. Just as is the silence in my house which should be filled with people cutting through the roof to install skylights and other people tiling and painting. Alas the painters and tilers are reliable, but the people who should have installed the aluminum doors and windows only got the sizing and opening direction right on one out of four of their master pieces. So to them we owe our 2 to 3 week delay. As the builder said, the suppliers will promise anything to get the deposit, but once you've parted with that you are at their mercy. 

I try to be reliable. I can be relied on to be late for almost anything. Oh hang on. The definition says a good character and I don't think being late counts. I do score on the reliability count when it comes to being there for my friends should they call. I wonder if people who don't regard reliability as a quality they need to have, expect it from others. I can almost guarantee that they do.

Just checked my watch and it's 9:15. Maybe that's the installers for my kitchen counter tops at the gate, who were supposed to be here at 9:00. Nope! Disappointed again. I'm told that this is how the building industry works, but I have my doubts that this is limited to this industry alone. I've had other experiences which lead me to believe that reliability is just not important to everyone anymore.

Heart attacks and many other ills are the result of the stress caused by these inconsiderate individuals. Then again, it's not always one person, but a culture bred in companies, where the bosses have no regard for it. And do they even realize the pain and stress they cause. Do they even care that somewhere down the line they could or maybe even have killed? Yes, their lack of consideration causes the heart attack of someone who has been let down by so many. And that person dies. So combined they are responsible for the death. The death of the person and that of reliability.

Could kill

It twists and it churns,

And it writhes and it burns.

It constricts and it squeezes,

And it hurts and it seizes.

It pounds in your head,

Makes you sometimes wish you were dead.

Wound up as tight as a spring,

It's the power of this thing.

It brings shouting and screaming,

A kettle over steaming.

It's trouble with a capital T,

And it has engulfed me.

When gone unchecked,

Lives it has wrecked.

It brings with it disease,

And not just a trifle sneeze.

For when it boils,

Beware it's coils.

For let me tell you this,

Anger could kill!

Good luck or not

It is Monday morning and I’ve just opened the back door of my car to help my toddler climb out. Aaaah! I jump back in fright and then look down to see what had just landed on my hand. Thankfully I moved, because the dove sitting on the wire above continues to unload a whole lot more onto the pavement. My first thoughts are yuck, this is gross, get it off me. Then my mind is jogged to the age old superstition. What good luck is in store for me? Will I win the lottery? Wait, it was my right hand. Maybe I’ll get somewhere with my writing. Maybe my good luck was in that it missed my freshly washed, still wet hair.

My research brings up varied opinions on birds pooping on you. There are those that say it’s good luck when it lands on your head. So what about the rest of the body?  Then there is the popular opinion that it is just disgusting and there could not be any possible good luck in such a thing happening. Further to that good luck is offered just to make the person feel better. A little more complicated is the theory where the type of bird will determine the type of luck. Unfortunately dove wasn’t one of the birds mentioned.  And there are the true stories of luck that followed such an incident. But for these true stories there could be hundreds more that did not result in anything.

On the other hand we have those who don’t believe in luck. You were where you were supposed to be at that time. Living in the Present it was just something that needed to be wiped off my hand to continue with my original goal of getting my toddler out of the car to deliver her to her nursery school teacher.

My conclusion is that I’ll be the optimist in this scenario and wait for good fortune to find me.