Sitting here tonight having reduced 5 file drawers, 6 bankers boxes and a bin down to about 2 file drawers, a bin and a box and a half (with two boxes and two large garbage bags awaiting their visit to the shredder), I’m feeling pretty darned accomplished! 

But I didn’t stop there!  The writing assignment I had been stuck for the last three days on just flowed right out tonight!  Unfortunately, the instructions for uploading it neglected to mention that you had to register for the upload site AND get permission from the AWAI gods to join their group before you’d be allowed to upload the assignment!   

In the meantime, I can now get on with the program as I’ve completed the task itself.  Thus, along with the lightness I gained from clearing out documents which, when all was said and done, go back to about 1990 (pretty sad that I kept things like electric and gas bills that long, huh?), I’m also feeling a huge weight which was that assignment being lifted as well! 

I know that as I continue to clear out what is no longer needed, both mentally and physically, my creativity and the positive energy will also find a clear path which they can move in and fill.  (though I have to laugh for a second, as I was watching tv tonight and a commercial came on which had a woman hiding in her laundry room as it was the only place her family wouldn’t chase her down.  With a laptop on her lap, she grabbed a dryer sheet and suddenly, inspiration hit!  I get that writers can be an odd bunch, but dryer sheets as inspiration?  Seriously?  No wonder there’s a need for new blood writing copy.  I think the advertisers are the biggest contributors to the dumbing down of America!

So as I was saying, I’ve now been through every piece of paper since 2003 and have yet to find the one document I need!  I am wracking my brain for where I might have put it.  The only thing I remember is that I remember running across it at one point, years ago, and thinking that it was in an odd place.  I just wish I could remember where that odd place might have been!  And the last place I remember seeing it was in the bin which I’ve been through repeatedly, with a fine tooth comb!  I guess the only thing left to do is ask for Divine assistance in remembering where I saw it last.  I’ve done everything Humanly possible to locate it! 
(that last statement sent me digging through the file drawer in my desk, but all I netted for my trouble was more stuff to have shredded!)

So this is me, releasing the location of the document to the Universe which retains the memories of everyone and everything.  I know the memory is out there.  It simply needs to find its way back to my brain!

Which leads me to wonder, how many times a day does the average person dig through their memory banks to try to retrieve a piece of information?  I know that I do it a lot, but do others do it too?

I can’t tell you how many times I walk from the back of the house to the front (and my place is only 1200 square feet total, so it’s not a great distance!) only to forget why I made the trip in the first place!  Of course, when I return to the original location, I often remember, so maybe what I need to do is find a way to return to the original location where I last remember seeing the document in question?

I’m also finding myself spending an inordinate amount of time just staring into space!  I even did that during my nail appointment today!  Is that a writers’ thing, or just one more indication of my own insanity coupled with ADHD?

Topic change!
Over the last few months several friends have lost a parent.  Since I lost both of mine a long time ago (nearly 11 years for dad, over 20 for mom), I can’t help wondering what it might have been like to have them around longer and to, like my friends, just be losing them now?  Admittedly, I do have plenty of friends who had either one or both parents pass as long ago as mine did, some even longer. But as I watch my peers wrestling with the issues of aging parents, I wonder what I might have done and how I might have handled it.  Even more, where might I be now?

It’s just a fact of life that trauma changes us.  I’ve had my share, no more, and no less than most.  But I know that each event caused me to turn in a different direction until, finally, I took a good look at what I’d become, didn’t particularly like what I saw, and set out to make changes.   One thing, though, I’m pretty sure of is that I wouldn’t have become such a cheerleader for a positive outlook were it not for the rough patches in my road. 

The truth is, I know what it’s like to be sad all the time, and to prefer just sleeping all day to doing anything else.  It’s recent enough that I remember and never want to live that way again. 

I know what it’s like to feel that I need to fight with everyone and everything because nobody is on my side. I never want to go there again either.

I also know what it’s like to feel a glimmer of hope when a friend offers me a possibility.  To see an opportunity to slowly pull myself out of the hole I’ve been hiding in and start living my life instead of just existing.

Although I’ve lost touch with the people who helped me turn my life around and learn to find joy in all of the small things instead of misery in it all, they will always live on in my heart because they were there when I needed them.  Some were part of my life for a short time…a season.  Others were part of my life for many years/  Our paths have split and that’s as it should be. but we will always be connected on some level. 

Right now, I just need to take a moment to thank:
    The woman who introduced me to “The Secret” and with whom I became a support group for positive thoughts.
    The woman who was there when I finally couldn’t hold on to the grief, the misery and the guilt any longer and had to leave the club where we danced to wait for everyone at the restaurant we frequented after the club closed, nursing a cup of coffee, and my embarrassment at losing my carefully constructed facade.
   The woman who helped me raise my girls despite the fact that she clearly disapproved of some of the things I did.
   All of the people who supported me and my girls at all of the dance competitions, despite the fact that it was really the wrong time, the wrong place, and in some cases, the wrong people for me.  All of the wrongs really did make a right because it was just one more step in bringing me to where I am today.

I’m sure there are more.. many, many more (not the least of which is my favorite cheerleader!  (you know who you are)).  I don’t know how I could have gotten here without all of the people who have influenced my life, both positively and negatively, because all of those influences were important, and the ones to come will be just as important.

I’m finding that I’m reaching a better understanding of the John Donne poem: 

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

 I tried to explain to someone recently that I believe we are all connected, and that things that annoy me in others are actually flaws in myself.  He didn’t understand…but Mr. Donne clearly did.

My gratitudes tonight are:
1. I am grateful for friendships,past, present and future.
2. I am grateful for the elimination of things which are no longer needed.
3. I am grateful for Divine assistance in retrieving important memories.
4. I am grateful for abundance:  in creativity, in love, in compassion, in prosperity, in health…and more!
5. I am grateful for clarity which come of decluttering, whether I declutter the physical or the mental, both benefit!

Love and light