By Kathi Hill
People talk about having a false sense of security, and I have a perfect example: If you are fortunate enough to have someone who comes in to clean your house, you have a false sense of security that your house is clean.
Then you go and do something stupid, like scoot the bed out when you drop a pen behind it. Then you realize you are living in pure-t nasty.
Here’s another example: Since we are now a nation of slobs, we have lived in elastic waist scrub britches for over a year. You feel pretty confident that you’ve not gained that COVID 10 pounds. Then you decide to put on your favorite pair of jeans and you realize that 10 pounds doesn’t even cover what you have gained.
Or, if you are like me, you think you’re a pretty fair writer. Then you go and read something that stuns you in its beauty. Every word is a masterpiece. You have to force yourself not to hit the delete button on your own novel in progress and forget about it. Maybe start collecting pretty rocks instead. (And don’t go throwing your rock collection at me for saying that. I’m just trying to write an article here.)
And speaking of writing, say you’ve just finished a novel. You’ve written many, many, many words strung together as sentences. Many sentences. Many paragraphs. Lots of pages. And you smile, knowing it’s finished and you can begin the great edit. Does it matter that your computer decides to crash? Yes. Yes, it does. (I’m having an anxiety attack just thinking about this.) *
Or maybe you’ve looked in the mirror and think, “I don’t look so bad for my age.” You even start feeling kinda puffed up about the whole thing. Then somebody asks if your young ‘un is your grandchild. Or you see someone you haven’t seen in 25 years and they really do look good for their age. You even secretly wonder if they’ve had a little work done.
Or maybe you wake up and it’s a beautiful day! You impulsively plan an outing. Say, a walk in the woods with a picnic lunch packed. You’re loaded down with a nice quilt in one arm and the basket full of food in the other. You’re almost there and you hear thunder.
Before you get home you know you will have to put the quilt in the dryer and yourself, dripping wet, will try to get the food put up so you can dry yourself off. You hope pneumonia is not developing.
I guess what I’m trying to say is life throws you, maybe more than once a day, and the way we do more than just survive and dodge bullets is to have a little faith.
Some things we bring on ourselves. Sometimes we are blindsided and through no fault of our own our bubbles are popped.
I imagine that all of you can recall at least one instance in your life that you made an almost fatal mistake and, though you may have been injured in some way, at least you ain’t dead from it. You also know some who did die from a stupid mistake.
And then you may also have had experiences that something really good came out of the blue. Maybe a financial boost that you weren’t expecting or a baby or even the best pet ever that just showed up and spent 10 years with you.
Life has ups and downs, that’s for sure.
I just try to be thankful for the ups and learn from the downs. Because that false sense of security I’ve been talking about?
The key word is false.
*Yes, I back up my stuff and save.
ALWAYS.