You know sometimes when we feel something or get stuck on something, it is hard to get over, but yesterdays ride to Olympia really opened my eyes and made me see, life isn't all that bad and we are getting over some of the bumps and humps, just not as far over as I would like to be.
I am not really sure if I have been on the pity pot or the fear pot. My first surgery went well and when it all fell to poop, I think I began to get a fear mindset and that is never good. When we are fearful, we tense up, we become afraid to go outside of our own home & we become attached to things we really do not need (my walker for example).
Yesterday, I didn't use the walker at the doctors office or shoe store, but at the hospital I did as I was becoming exhausted and hurting. Not sure if it was the walking or the in and out of the car.
Today, for the first time since June 21st, hubby left me my van instead of taking it to work with him. I do NOT need it, but if I do, it is here for me!
Driving to Olympia is just wonderful and I love the drive through all the small towns and the trees, it just makes me want so much more to have a little piece of land in the trees for the children to play and raise some animals.
But what really got to me, was shoe shopping. That is when I began to realize, I have lost a huge part of me, who I am and used to be. I used to be fun loving, care free, a bit of a dare devil and had a I'm not with the in crowd, mentality, I am my own person!
These shoes are adorable, the trim is in a pink glittery leather and they are exactly what I would expect Diva girl to wear. Well, actually, she wanted a pair of heels and I said no. She isn't a heel type Diva right now, she runs, she plays hard on the monkey bars, she scrapes the toes off on the swings. She wanted the new Skechers Glitter toes, but they didn't have her size. She sits between and 2 or 3 and no 1/2 sizes.
I told her we would try again in October to get her the tennis shoes she wants. She is such a doll and helper, she really needs another pair of shoes or three or four!
Now, the shoes that Missy Tomboy chose were exactly the shoes I would have figured she would pick. After the ghastly horrified looks and Not Even On Your Feet comments, the Michael Jackson all sequined pink low tops, were not the shoes she was going to wear, nor were the other girly shoes I tried to get her to wear.
The final straw was when she said: 'I won't even wear those to church!'
So what did she choose? John, I know you will be laughing and I know you know these are who she is. Ladies and gents, drum roll for a Tomboy please:
These shoes, are so her!
Now, I know you are probably thinking, these are pretty girlie, but what you see is only one side of the shoe. The other side has no hearts.
It dawned on me on the way home, how she really is so very much like I am. When I worked in the oil refinery for a few months in New Orleans back in early 1994, I came home wearing a long blue denim dress that laced up the back like a corset, a black felt hat with giant pearls around it and lace and a pair, of steel toed, lace up combat boots!
After working 12+ years for a police department, I lost who I am and who I was. I was changed to be what and who they wanted me to be. They didn't want an individual (at first it was okay, then the guards changed)they wanted someone they could mold, could tell what to do and who would do it without questioning.
They never really cared about the bottom line, they only cared about finding something wrong and pinning it on whomever they were mad at, at the time. I was once part of an internal investigation that was so stupid and so transparent...I had made a mistake...not one of life or death, but I forgot to enter something into the system & I admitted it straight up, offered to meet with the person and apologize. In my defense, we were working several major emergencies at the time and I just set it aside and forgot it.
There was no real cause for an IA, I admitted it. However, when it came back, the detective told me, I know this is silly, but I have no choice. He was right, when you sell your soul, your morals and your backbone to the company store, you are no longer who you were and it just made me sad.
Funny, it took an 8 year old buying a funky pair of tennis shoes for me to remember, I am who I am and to celebrate that, I went to a clothing store and purchased on sale, an orange blouse. Me, wearing orange? You got it!
So, yes, we may be struggling a bit, but God has given me something more precious than a job, He has given me time. Time to be alone with Him, time to read all those books I didn't have time before to read. Time to put together a hexagon quilt, time to embroider, time for taking a nap and not feeling guilty, time for taking the quilting class I have always wanted to take, time for going to a ladies bible study.
Wow! Whodathunkit? Driving through the trees and thinking about black combat boots has made me see what I am supposed to see.
Yes, we are struggling right now, but who isn't? Life is good and go am I!
