Garbage--real and symbolic

Garbage. Finally, the company managed to find and pick up my garbage and I managed to get a container for future pick ups. Seems silly but it really was getting to me that every week I’d put it out and every week it would still be there at the end of the day. Every week the company would assure me it would be picked up and it wasn’t.

I realized that it was symbolic—if the real garbage wasn’t being picked up, on some level I felt as if I couldn’t get rid of all the emotional garbage in my life either. Add to that a phone line that keeps going out and...my frustration level was hitting the ceiling. How can I coach over the phone if the phone doesn’t work?

So often, I think, we invest emotions into things beyond what makes sense. All of this has given me practice in coming up with creative ways to cope with problems. The other thing it’s done is give me practical experience countering frustration with things that make me smile. I’ve made a concerted effort to make sure I have healthy food in the house that I love. I’ve made sure that every day which brought frustration had SOME experience of success to counter it. (Yesterday—garbage day—I made sure I got my car inspected and registered here.) Each experience then became proof that I had control over my life and that my happiness wasn’t hostage to what others did or didn’t do. Each time I smiled, it was a reminder that even when some things go wrong, I have the power to create happiness in my life.

Still no couches, still no vacuum cleaner (where are all the good inexpensive bagged ones???). I do plan to get lots of things at Target but it’s hard to do that before I have the couches so that I know what will look right with them. (My dresser the year in NJ after my divorce was stacked drawers from Target. )

By no means do I want to sound as if I have any regrets about this move! I still smile every time I look around at my house. I still smile every morning when I go out my front door to get the paper and see sunshine. I still smile when I think of all the people I’ve met who have been so nice. Each of these things is a reminder that life is not and doesn’t have to be perfect to be wonderful. Each of these things is a reminder that the frustrating things that occur are not the sum total of my days. Each of these things is a reminder that I was so very right to listen to my instincts and come here.

There is a song sung by Lee Ann Womack—I HOPE YOU DANCE. I love that song. That’s how I see myself and my life now—I had the choice to sit it out or dance and I am dancing. If you haven’t heard the song, I hope you will. And I hope that you, too, will always choose to dance in whatever way that matters in your own life.

April