November 21: And on the Seventh Day...

One of the many beautiful sculptures in downtown Cleveland...


Heaveno!

... even daddy rested!  LOL.

Man, the last two weeks really caught up with me pretty much as soon as Angelique picked me up from the  airport last night.  It was like I knew I had crossed the proverbial finish line, and my body finally got to let me know how tired it was.  Guess I had the mute button on!  LOL.



This guitar is 10 feet tall in the mall in downtown Cleveland...


Angelique was an angel today; she let me sleep in for as long as I wanted!  Well, I think it was 10:00 am when she sent in Ali to do her bidding and wake me up technically.  I must have slept 12 hours.  I am so grateful.  I really needed it.

Unfortunately the grief caught up with me today, too.  My heart hurt so much at one point today that it literally felt like heart burn.  At several points throughout the day, I would actually jerk from the pain... not unlike a shiver from the cold, or when you are slipping off to sleep.  It was like the pain was electrocuting my entire upper body.  It would start in my heart and shoot out through my arms, up my neck, and down into my hips.

Not fun.

I curled back up in bed with Ali to watch Toy Story after a little while downstairs eating and playing.  Ali also wanted to watch 101 Dalmations, and we started that one as well, but I finally managed to get back out of bed and drag myself into the shower about 2ish.

We went grocery shopping and stopped in Lowes for a couple of home improvement items.  Groceries were procured at Whole Foods, thanks to a generous gift card from 2 of my fellow board members from the regional music therapy association.  It was rough there.  When Bella was born, we went on a strict vegan, alkyline diet to try to cleanse Ang's breast milk of as much excess sugar as possible, since sugar is poison to the body, particularly to the skin.  We started shopping at this same Whole Foods, and hadn't been back in months.  It brought back a lot of sad feelings.  I don't know if I really knew how terrified I was for Bella after she was born at the time.  Now, looking back, I can honestly say that while I was courageous for her, I was also terrified.  I was so scared of EB.  It seemed like the most diabolical disease I had never heard of.  Now, when I go somewhere I used to go with Bella, the feelings of fear and terror pop up, and I am startled by how intense those feelings were, and still are.  I am really grateful to go through these experiences, because if I didn't do it now, those buried feelings would lie dormant, ready to pop up at the next available chance.  At least now I can meet them head on, face them, and process them, as painful as it may be.



They were just putting up their lights in the square yesterday morning...


I have to tell you about the latest revelation I had today.  I have been dwelling in "Happiness is a choice regardless of circumstances" for this past month, and it has been extremely helpful for me.  Well, I saw today that I was in a lot of pain, and that I was really crabby.  So, I looked at the two.. the pain and the crabbiness.  What I saw was that I told myself, "The pain makes me crabby."  Then it hit me.

I make me crabby.

I make me crabby, and blame it on the pain.

This was very profound, because in that moment, I stopped being crabby.  I still had the pain, but the pain was no longer a requisite for crabbiness.

If happiness is choice, regardless of circumstances, then so is crabbiness.  Two sides of the same coin.

I hadn't explored the other side of the coin till today, and found under investigation that if I truly believe that events don't cause outcomes, our response does, and that we can choose our response to any event life throws at us, then I am choosing to be crabby just as much as I am choosing to be happy.

Here's the kicker... I tell myself "it's understandable," and after all, who would argue?  It's reasonable, right?

I told my wife this revelation, and she basically looked at me like she was happy I finally figured it out.  Glad Ang is so patient with me.  See, Angelique already knew all this and practices this daily.  I TOLD YOU that she is the stronger of the two of us.  In fact, the entire reason I began exploring this distinction was that she is in the same pain I am, but she chooses not to be crabby, and in the presence of that level of mastery, I HAD to figure out why I was letting it work me over so much today.

Angelique inspires me to be the best version of myself I can be every day.  The best part?  She simply does it by example.  I have to upgrade my game just to keep up with her, without her ever asking me to.  Man, am I blessed or what?

Key point:  While I look closely at whether I am being "too hard on myself" or something to that effect, I find that the study of philosophy has always led me to knew levels of choice in my life.  As Socrates said, "the unexamined life is not worth living."  That is true for me, at least.  Many people live in blissful ignorance, and that is their option.  I am just too interested in seeing just how high a vibration I can get myself to within this lifetime.

New topic.

If you are at all like Ang and I, you have found great joy in doing more and more Christmas shopping online.  It is simply THE most efficient way to purchase items for the holidays.  Don't think any less about what gifts to get anyone, just spend less time trying to find them at the mall.  Save your gas, save your time, SAVE YOUR SANITY!  Shop online this year, and see just how easy it is.

If you choose to do this, please use www.igive.com as the portal to your holiday shopping.  Why?  You can pick PUCK as your charity of choice, and every time you purchase anything through that site, igive.com donates to PUCK!  PLUS, if you use it as your home page, PUCK can get $$ every time you log on and every time you click on something on the page!

This one is a no-brainer.  If you use the internet, you have a starting point... your home page.  You open your browser, it opens your homepage, and you then go off to wherever else you go.  Why not let PUCK earn a few cents every time you browse?  You do it anyway, might as well contribute a little along the way!

Remember, enough snowflakes cause an avalanche.

God night.