what matters most

... i couldn't beach-comb as planned today, had to stay close to my own yard since i'm still coughing my butt loose--yeah, a person can cough their butt loose, not kidding! but did find this grouping of pictures, a lovely reminder of the summer of '95 when the girls and i made as many healing trips to this same beach area as possible "when mom's work was done" for the day.

’95, was a summer, and ensuing time, where i (and sometimes "we" on the whole) was told (a time or too often) that things looked "too easy" for me, or that i "didn't appear" to be taking things too hard. these guesstimations and critiques burdened my shoulders, stabbed at good portions of my backbone and threatened all i knew to be strong and true in my heart, as far as health and wellness.

a person's truth is their always known, and a person truly always knows how they are feeling, what it’s like on the inside even if there is not blood on their shirt, or a heart left dangling on their sleeve. just because they “clean up well,” doesn’t mean they weren’t nearly shitting themselves moments before over their predicament, or crying their eyes swollen shut the night prior and wiping all that snot on the bedcover! we all question, “what next? now what? well, this certainly didn’t work out quite right, now did it?” no one is perfectly put together, head to toe, not really.

and these times of trouble, hello?!, THAT IS, when “letting a joy keep you” comes into play. no one really wants to see you dying your “little deaths” all day long, living out your bellyache; that’s life, on the inside, pulsing through us, it means we’re still breathing! if the blood and guts were supposed to be on the outside, we wouldn’t have skin, thick as it needs to be most days.

so when things really do get tough, and a person is trying to handle a difficult situation, and is also well aware that they are looked upon by those in their care as someone “in the know,” as someone to trust on how to handle things, well, a level head is needed, with more than a dash of perseverance, the hope for grace and guidance and that person damn well better have a Rubbermaid laundry basket and cooler, packed the night before, “just in case” there’s time to get to the beach!

because life can be a b!—no kidding and sometimes there are those days where you are all, “OMG, my head is going to fly right off its axis,” but a head has a better chance of righting its direction if the body it’s attached to comes home at the end of the day with toe sockets and pockets full of sand, eyes ready for the nod off to sleep and a mind too full of the day’s memories to start the he-said-she-said-you said-they-said-whatever-it-was-that-was-said-was-your-fault-and-you-suck-anyway blame game.

those critics that ride your shoulders, real or imagined, even the ones that have been trying to bring you down since childhood, they get tired! they don’t wear sunscreen, they can’t swim; they shrivel up and blow away, take on water, choke and die! they can’t compete with the sound of the laughter and love you are trying to keep solid in your life.

“what matters most is how well you walk through the fire” ― Charles Bukowski
journal-03-14-12