Just Write {162}

Maybe meditation is best done in longer periods of time than 1-2 minutes, but honestly, it’s all I’ve got. And usually, it’s more like 30 seconds or less. Deep breaths.

Deep breaths followed by a moment or two of reminding myself to not focus on negative things, like having bats that don’t want to hibernate but would rather fly around my living room. And then I suppose reminding myself to not focus on these things is actually a way to focus on these things. heh.

What is this thing I MUST do, in the telling? I HAVE BATS, I can’t stop saying it. Like telling enough people will POOF, make them go away. I suppose this is part of why we repeat all of our hard things. Underneath, maybe it feels like it will take them away…I don’t know.

Habits are hard to break.

How are you?

Oh, fine. My car wouldn’t start. 

I have bats.

Sure is cold. 

The kids get up soooo early….

I’ve realized that these answers I give really are evidence of what I’m focused on. I mean, it’s super easy to focus on such things. But I really want to say,

I’m GREAT, and just mean it, because I work hard to focus on Elsie’s laugh and Asher’s jokes and Miles’ suddenly-so-grown-up calm responses to more adult-like questions. It’s so magical.

I’ve been thinking about the Order of Peace. I was reading Ellie’s words, about fear and acceptance, and hope. Then I was thinking about the bats, because it’s so easy to fall back into whatever big and small hard things are scaring me. I know gratitude plays such a huge part in this, and on Facebook I said,

I have…
a friend across the street that will have a baby on Friday. I will help, and do what I can to add some balm to the transition of bringing baby #3 home. It’s a beautifully messy transition. 
I have…
3 kids of my own to pick up at 3 o clock. They are such intense little glories, so full of light and an unsettling intention to keep growing up quickly. 
I have…
a gig tomorrow, in which I’ll speak about writing, to a bunch of women who clearly know more than I do, so the point will be to meet up and connect, and for me to learn from them. 
I have…
So much, right? So much to be grateful for, and I am. That’s often too easy to forgo, the gratitude. But I have it, underneath any strain, always. What a gift.

This is true. I strive to uncover the gratitude, but I often find myself feeling so swallowed by the stress and strain of everyday life. We all do, methinks.

So I was standing in my living room, and I was frozen scared, waiting for a bat to swoop. To take over my life. To KILL ME, and then my guinea pig…and possibly my children and yeah, that spiral…awfulizing…

ahem,

and it hit me that my joy is stolen so often by things I cannot control, and that’s life. It is a lie to believe that everything is going to be okay all the time, to strive for that, punching at things that aren’t right with the world. All is not right, big and small. Bats became the latest metaphor, standing there, about ducking for cover, wanting my head in the sand (or in this case, my head under all the furniture in my house and under a hood and under control.)

Just hide from the bats, but live with them? Sometimes that’s all we can do, but the hiding is either hole-filling or not. The holes that are in us are deep and wide and filled with self-medicating and staying too busy and numbing out and running. Or they are not. And running and numbing can be necessary, but they only work until they just do not. They only end up hurting us more, and the people around us.

Sometimes you have to live with bats, even though you could move out. I mean, you never know if there will be bats in the next house. Or the ghosts of things long past, or mice, just troubles that all houses, all hearts and souls stand vacant with, until they don’t.

I’m not making friends with bats, I don’t have to make friends with the bats, or even peace with them. I hate them. They swoop, yo.

I am making friends with having bats, not the evil creatures themselves. I’m adjusting to having them here, with us. They like the laundry room, so I think I’ll do my laundry somewhere else for a while. And my dad is filling holes to try to contain them to that one space. We all need help, people who fill the holes as best they can, no guarantees.

The rest? Maybe it’s up to me. The holes don’t stay filled. The bats don’t leave. The peace is in the letting go, for the filling up, with gratitude and that non-stop-never-gonna-quit hole-filler–grace.

(But seriously? These bats need to stay perfectly still all winter, never swooping, just hibernating thankyouverymuch.)

This is the 162nd installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {New here? Please see the details.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page. (Then link back to this post in your Just Write post so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.) (Any links not following those two guidelines will be deleted.)

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