And the night has slipped by without me realizing it.
I was just saying to myself, "Stephanie, you haven't written in your blog for a while. You really should."
So that's what I'm doing. Writing in my blog.
I waited all day to write. Now it's tomorrow. It's dark outside. Everyone else has gone to bed. So here we are, you and I.
Me drumming my fingers on my keyboard while I listen to melancholy music, and you reading my words.
My room is hot and stuffy.
Why don't I open a window?
Good question. No reason really. Maybe it's because I think somehow by opening the window it will make me cold. And being hot and stuffy is sometimes better being cold and shivery.
I've been a bit of an airhead lately. Setting items in random places, and then forgetting where I put them.
Makes me feel a little stuck in the twilight zone. I'll attribute that to the fact that ever since I went to the dentist a month ago, I've been suffering from a toothache.
The irony of that just irritates me.
I haven't been to the dentist in several years. And I have had no throbbing toothache that I can account for in all that time. Then, after I go visit the dentist, I get a toothache that keeps me up at night.
It seriously was not fun. And it is not fun.
I went back to the dentist to find out what the problem was and he couldn't find a thing wrong.
Three weeks later, I was still in pain. So I went back.
Still same thing. But he decided that I might need to replace an old filling. So he did that. Then he said to come back in a week if my other side of my mouth was still hurting. If so, he'd replace the other old fillings as well.
I was kinda like, okay??? I hurt...but whatever, you know what you're talking about. You're the dentist.
That night, I was kept awake all night because of the pain. When I did finally fall asleep, I dreamed that I went to the dentist and he pulled out all my teeth. Yuck. I only had a couple teeth dangling by hairs.
It was a terrible dream. Very unsettling.
So the next morning I was determined to get to the bottom of the problem before my horrible dream came true.
I went to a different dentist, only to find out that the tooth the other dentist had put a filling in had abscessed. This was a tooth that hadn't even bothered me before. Grrr.
(I'm thinking of a bad word, maybe two or three)
Sorry. Not to give you negative vibes. I just was and still am ticked.
After that, the dentist had to drain my tooth of the infection, and stuff it with medicine.
So now my breath smells like a hospital. Yum, yum yummy. And a root canal is in order. I can just hear the cha, ching, $$ every time a dentists finds a problem. Or makes one. I don't know.
I'm beginning to wonder....
But I am glad that this other dentist found the problem. I like him because he at least didn't make me feel crazy for having a jaw ache. Minus the fact that he's rather pricy. But what can ya do when you have a toothache?
Awe, now that I've got your jaw throbbing, maybe I'll change the subject. I hate it when people talk about their dental problems. It always makes my gut feel terrible. You might as well put the word dentist, alongside the word, horror movie---they're the same in my mind. Just saying the word---dentist gives me a sour taste in my mouth. I'm so yellow when it comes to having my teeth worked on I have to have my mom come with me when I go.
Yes. I know I'm an adult. But sometimes it just helps to have someone there to give you courage when you feel like you have none.
So what is on my mind right now besides being irritated at dentist?
Spring!
That is what is on my mind.
If I could make those words any bigger I would. How long I have waited for it.
Spring!
The last two days I actually believed in warm, in green, in planted earth, blue skies and sunshine. I didn't even have to wear a jacket. It was so nice. Yesterday I even got a sunburn. There are some that wouldn't appreciate a burn. But after all the winter, it marks a very important passing of time---of spring of being outside, of being alive!
I love spring. It is my favorite time of year. I love poking around my yard scouting for bulbs. To me it's like magic to see green stems poking out of the ground, even when it's very cold. They are braver than myself. If I was them, I'd wait just to make sure the frost was really gone.
I love the smells of spring. I love to go sit outside and breathe in the sweet honey smell of our flowering bushes. There is no manmade smell that can compare to the wonderful smell of spring, the smell of damp earth, of new flowers, of clean air, and warm clothes dried on the line.
I do believe that the green of spring is the very greenest of all the greens on earth---the green that appears on the trees, and the little buds forming on all living things. It's so gradual that it feels like it happened overnight. Yet I know it really wasn't gradual. No. Winter has had it's day, and it's Springs turn to work her magic.
In celebration of spring, and the fact that our lawn looked thirsty already, yesterday my sister and I were irrigating our lawn. We started the a high powered pump, and pumped water from our irrigation ditch into our yard.
The pump pumps the water into a large hose, which we then move onto the lawn. However this way isn't the most efficient way to water the lawn because the hose is only so long, and it doesn't reach everywhere we need it to reach.
To make it so the entire lawn could benefit from the water, we got a bunch of odd-shaped pipes and pieced them together as best we could----and by pieced together, I mean kind of pushed against each other to let the water flow through. They really aren't even connected.
This idea worked quite well for our needs. But if you have ever held a high powered water-hose (one that is super pressured and spastic) you'll know that to direct such a hose into a pipe, and to keep it there, is kind of crazy, if not impossible.
We spent the day lining the pipes just so, and wrestling the hose, like it was some kind of powerful snake. Every time we would finally get the hose where it was supposed to go, we would have to rearrange the pipes. Water then began spraying up from all ends of the pipe where we had channeled the water, dousing our faces and clothes with water. We would wrestle with the pipes, and then slowly step back, dripping wet, but glad that the water was flowing where it needed to be going---albeit not perfectly.
Then with drenched clothes, dripping faces, and shivering bodies, we would retreat into sun, only to find that the hose had kinked and was spraying water at alarming rate digging up the lawn, and being cantankerous.
Seriously, we had interesting times with that water hose. If we moved the hose an inch from where it was used to, it would protest and kink, and spray us and the world. The strength and power in that hose was like wrestling an anaconda snake, and expecting it not to bite you.
It wanted to be the boss. We had to keep adjusting it. We had to keep an eye on it, keep on fixing it.
Life reminds me a lot of that high-powered pump and water hose.
You are just a normal person just trying to get by, and then life hands you a uncontrollable high powered water hose, with a powerful stream of problems that you have to fix.
Half the time all you can do is hold on, and hope it doesn't spray you in the face. Other times you just barely manage to direct it where it needs to go. It isn't perfect. Not all the pipes fit together perfectly so the water sprays out through the cracks.
But it's the best you can do.
You wring out your clothes, and ready yourself to sit in the sun. At that same moment, the hose kinks, and water sprays everywhere and digs up all your hard work.
So what do you do?
You take the hose, and hold on.
And if you're lucky, someone will help you hold onto the hose too, and you can get the hose working again.
The end result may not be perfect.
We may think that others are holding their high powered water hose better, handling the leaks, and sprays better than you.
But no matter how skilled you or they are.
No matter how strong. With water spraying out from the end of a large hose, with that force, someone is bound to get wet.
I think in life we get handed these high powered problems, and we struggle to hold on, to maintain control, to direct the flow.
But in order to get where you want to go, you must learn when to hold on, and when to let go. When to say, this isn't perfect, but it's the best I can do. I hope things work out.
Water might spray back at you, and it will.
But what matters is that you tried, and maybe had some fun along the way, laughing at your drenched clothes, and soggy hair.
Yes. Life is like being handed a high powered water hose.
But really living is learning to play in the puddles created by the flood. It is learning how to accept that perfection is not what we are striving for. To let the pipes leak, because they aren't always going to fit perfectly together.
And that's okay. You might beat yourself up and think that other people have it all together.
But no one has it all together.
Maybe they have a better way of hiding their struggle. Maybe they have a high powered blow dryer so it doesn't look like they've been through a storm. But deep down, those people who look like they have it all together are just as imperfect as you are---maybe even worse off because no one knows that they need help. Maybe their basement is flooding away.
Life is a journey.
We all are imperfect.
We all make mistakes.
We all have different ways of dealing with problems.
We all are afraid of something.
Not everything will piece together the way you want it. People may disappoint you. The force of the hose may cause water to spray everywhere but where it should.
Plans may get dug up.
Ideas may have to be replanted.
Things may spin out of your control.
People may try to steer you in a direction you don't wish to go.
But the beginning of peace, is to do your best with what you have, even if all you have is a bunch of leaky pipes, then stand back and surrender your control to a higher power, and hope that things will work out.
You have done your job.
Well that's my bit of wisdom for today.
Well, I think I'm off to bed.
Night ya all. I've rambled long enough. My brain is fogged, and I think I'm very ready to sleep. If my words are jumbled, I hope you can translate.
Stephanese is sometimes a hard language to decipher, especially when one is speaking it when one is tired.
Below are some random pictures that I thought were interesting enough to share.
Actually....I had a bunch more pictures I was going to share, but blogger is constipated, and won't let me share them. So I'll just go to bed, and you get what you get.
Hmmm...blogger won't even let me post this post. Maybe I'll try again...some other time.
Yes, life is like holding a high power water hose. Sometimes you have to redirect your plans, because of a flaw in the space time continuum.
Even posts you write, don't go in the direction you want them to. But eventually....
Everything will get where it needs to be.
We may need to look for another way.
It may not be easy.
But there is always a way.
It might not be in the way we want.
At the time we want.
But when the time is right. We will be exactly where we need to be. But only when we are ready.
No sooner.
No later.
Cheers,
Steph
p.S. so I guess this post has now published like 200 times. :) Thank you dear blogger for the blast. wow.....ha sorry about that.
And this. Well are some mushrooms. My mom was growing some vegetables indoors. A whole flock of mushrooms of all shapes and sizes appeared overnight. They look really cool, but it's kind of creepy at the same time. My mom is convinced that the potting soil is to blame.
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