Post Damage and Workplace Abuse - Life Is Complicated

Damage in our neighbourhood after the storm on July 19th

Oh me!  Oh my!  Three days have passed since you've heard from me.  For a blogger recently committed to blogging every weekday, Monday to Friday, five days I week, I've failed miserably this week.

Why?

I'd love to say that I was in some exotic location doing something memorable:  in the Himalayas climbing Mount Everest (is it in the Himalayas?). Hmmm.

Or perhaps, on a beautiful Caribbean island wearing a bikini, lounging on the beach, long, silky hair lying luxuriously along my shoulder like a sleek mane.  Oh yeah.  Wait.  I don't have either a bikini or long, silky hair.  Nor does my hair lie luxuriously, sleekly on my shoulder when it was long.  It more or less resembled a brillo brush.  And the body shape?  Let's not go there.  OK?

So where have I been?

And what have I been doing?

Enjoying a day at the "new" splashpad with the grands.  I call it "new" because it wasn't there 30 years when my kids were kids; therefore, it is "new" - at least to me.

The most exotic locale I've been to lately has been the local park with my daughter, all three grandchildren - and my camera.

Or was the most exotic locale the local library?  Hmmm.  Maybe the grocery store?

I think you get the picture.

There is nothing "exotic" about my life at the moment.

Indeed, for the most part I've been holed up, not just in my house but in the room I consider my "safe" place.

I've been watching DVDs, knitting or rather tinking (which is knit spelled backwards and is basically unknitting what you've knitted).

Working yet again on a set of both physical and emotional symptoms that crept up uninvited.

Grief.  Weariness in the journey of recovery.  Wishing it were over.  Wishing my life was what it used to be in terms of things I could do.

But wishing is ... well ... just wishing.  It's reality that keeps bombarding me and slapping me up aside the head (rather thoughtless of it, don't you think?)

It's my altered reality that I have to deal with on a daily basis.

And this week, I've let that altered reality get me down.  I've let it take over.

I've let it ....

Yet, there's the other side of the reality.

I've persevered in the knit piece shown above (anyone in the market for a pink baby blanket in say the year 2015?).  It is now 21 inches long (isn't that the approximate length of the average newborn baby?).  In some ways, it's just like me.  Imperfect.  Mistakes and corrections to those mistakes knitted into the very fabric of the piece.

Isn't life like that, though?

Full of mistakes.  Things that we wish hadn't happened?  Things we regret?

We can't undo our mistakes.  There is no delete button in life.

But we can knit on.  We can incorporate our mistakes - and their corrections - into the very fabric of our lives.

So today, I put fingers to keyboard once again.  I look at the blank page - which is intimidating in its blankness.  I let my fingers drift across the keys.  And yes, I looked at the pile of pink knit on the chair beside me.  

I'm in my "safe" room.

I'm doing what I love best.  (Or rather two of the things I love best:  writing and knitting - NOT at the same time).

I am alive.  I am able to face today.

I put one finger to a key and press it down.  Then another and another.  Before I know it, I have a word, then a sentence, then a paragraph.

Eventually I have a blog posting.  Today's blog posting.

I am able to face today - and it's challenges.

For that I give thanks.

Life is often what we make it.  On July 19th, a severe thunderstorm with high winds barrelled through our area.  Leaving downed trees and power and phone lines in its wake with resultant power outages.  Here is how one neighbourhood restaurant dealt with what life gave it that day.