Full of "Grace"

So here’s the thing … I really have nothing to say today. I’m not down or blue or sad … but I’m not feeling particularly inspired or clever, either. However, as is my habit when I’m at work, when I logged in today one of the pages I pull up happens to be this one … and there it is. Yesterday’s entry.

I’m very uncomfortable with leaving yesterday’s entry as the first thing folks see … and, as such, the first thing that I see. Now, each time I come here, it’s just sitting there, staring me in the face - the very thing I’ve tried to maintain a significant personal distance from. Even though I am surrounded by it at my every turn, and even though I have no desire to make this space about illness, or pain, or terror ... there it all is now bright and electronically glaring back at me. Of course, I realize that something will come to me soon, and I will again feel compelled to write. My March 31st entry eventually will be further pushed down this page and, ultimately, available only if selected from the list at the right. I would just like for that to happen sooner, rather than later. I’m selfish that way, I suppose, even though the entry itself was MY doing and important (to me anyway).

Ya’ see - it’s plenty disheartening that I find myself absorbing medical terminology and methods between the hours of 9pm and 6am four to five times a week as I sit in a hospital chair NOT sleeping, but there’s the added benefit of the tasks that ARE my job. Most people have their personal lives to offset their professional ones – but that’s been turned inside out for me. So I drive to work hoping for a distraction from my personal life and find that the proposals I face asking for donations are from all KINDS of worthy organizations and supportive charities including, of course, ones for every KIND of disease. (I don’t have to be specific on WHICH disease … and honestly, would it make any difference? How many GOOD diseases are there????)

Last year, I found myself repeating “this, too, is manageable” whenever I felt a wave of too much crashing over me. The details of my Biloxi experiences and the self-assigned guilt I felt for feeling as though I wasn’t doing all I could for my friends in Mississippi? The upheaval and betrayal that blindsided me in my personal life? Manageable. Even things that were POSITIVE – the new friendships formed, the warmth, passion, incredible support and amazing openness with which I was accepted into a new family, the details of switching from a job focused on what I could get vs. what I could give … all these things were met with my attitude of “this is manageable”. My father’s heart attack, though deeply jarring, was also manageable. Chaotic, for certain but … yes, manageable.

This year, thus far, I find myself repeating a two quotes. The first is widely attributed to Mother Teresa of Calcutta: I know that God will not give me anything I cannot handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.

And if I’m gonna have anything staring me in the face, any message bright and electronically glaring back at me, I think we can all agree it should at LEAST be a positive one. Don’t be confused - I ain’t no Mother Teresa by a LONG shot, and I am NOT making any comparisons between her life, behavior, compassion or dedication and mine at all - but if she allowed herself moments to make the request of “slow down, I’m not readyfor this yet”, then I can feel a little less guilty asking for the same kind of slack.

Oh yeah – the second quote that has been in my head these days is by a different amazing woman. The quote is “Never place a period where God has placed a comma”, attributed by none other than Gracie Allen. Talk about graceful women ...