OK

Another train of thought involving being ok...

When you have felt like you weren't worth being on the planet, or taking up space...
When you feel like all you see... all you have seen... for an extremely long time.. is utter black darkness, yeah, you begin to just shoot for feeling ok. A long illness can bring this same feeling. You start to think, "You know what? I'll settle for  being ok. I don't have to feel the greatest feeling in the world. Forget 'Mildly Fantastic' I'd settle for not hating my existence. Thanks." When I first heard "Be OK" by Ingrid Michaelson, I saw it that way. I can understand feeling like you just want all of yourself together in one place. All your parts, broken or not, in the same room. A "nice overview", thank you very much. As I went through therapy, I felt that way. Being ok with myself seemed like a dream. No... actually being ok with myself felt less real than Lord of the Rings. Less possible than taking an afternoon to climb Everest & coming home for dinner in a "couple of hours".
As impossible as it seemed, I actually got there. And I loved it, roll credits... well... maybe not just yet. Once I got there, & maintained being there, I didn't want to "just be ok" with being alive. It was a nice "first goal" or first step. Yet the longer I seemed to be there. I wanted to sustain that & use it as a ..."bad day". When I'm not feeling good to be "down to" being ok with my existence. To go far enough that "falling down" meant going back to being ok. [I think I said that right, hope so]
When I got to this point, I remembered. That once before, during my dark summer, I headed out into the woods. Which helped me immensely. So I stepped back into this practice. This voluntary solitary exercise for my soul. Once again, I felt closer to God. More ok with being alive. I took my mp3 player... yet, increasingly, I left it turned off. Just "enjoying the unplug". I've written, photographed nature, prayed, laughed, & hiked. My soul came to feel at ease. I came to feel "at rest". Not always, yet a greater portion of the time, this was the experience. Over the past few years, I've realized that when I'm in those moments, I'm in the present. All there is, is now. It has moved me along. Taking the necessary journey. The necessary steps forward. To feeling really whole. Well, maybe "as whole as we can, being fallen creatures, in a fallen world". As I've mentioned, I'm taking steps to move out of my little comfort zone. This will mean that sometimes [on here or in person] I'm going to be ..."less than desirable", or perhaps it will take "some extra grace required" to deal with me. A goal is to make these moments as Few & far between as possible. However, a goal is something to be reaching for, not a thing of certainty. Mick & I went out to the Chiropractor tonight. We got to talking. Something I don't always do as well or as often as I think is healthy. Yet, somehow in the middle, I said something that I cannot let go of. "I feel like somewhere along the line I let every single plate that was spinning drop. I'm now at a place where I think I'm beginning to pick them up & get them going again... at least the ones that deserve to be spinning, anyway."
Having posted this, you have a reason why things may seem to "go the way they go" online [& off]. Thanks for being on this journey with me. My main hope is that this will be a story worth reading.
I'll leave you with a commercial that I really dig. As you watch it you'll get why.
And a song that seems to be, increasingly, a song for this moment/ chapter of my life.


"The Mountains are Calling" commercial
Create in me by JJ Heller

May His grace drip from your fingers,
B