You Have All You Need

I’ve been reading a book that in essence is a group of mental exercises to get you to see through all the garbage you’ve trained yourself to believe until you can absorb the idea that you have all you need.

Right now. Everything you need is within you.

I thought I got it. I really did. Then I went to a family function, yeah, you know the one, where my head exploded numerous times and I tried to keep my mouth shut as my blood pressure sky-rocketed. And in due fashion, I took it out on my spouse possibly more than anything because he missed most of it.

Yes, a rock star moment for me. And yes, I am not proud.

One step forward, two steps back. So, as I danced the all too familiar too-step, I kept pondering the fact that I may in fact have everything I need within me, but I have to interact with the outside world and that’s when I come into trouble.

I spent more time this weekend shopping, desperately, because I wanted it to go quickly and I am just shy of enough clothes to mix together so people don’t know I’m wearing the same ones over and over.  Man, I hate to shop. What I wouldn’t give to put on a uniform everyday and be done with it.

The amount of time it takes to buy clothes that fit, just so I can look appropriately “business casual” is mind-boggling. The word “casual” brings to mind ease and relaxation, and whenever I go into a dressing room and put on pants that are either an inch too short (regular) or two inches too long (tall), I stress out as if I’m trapped in a cell. And the idea of finding the time to go to a tailor, no less the expense…I know, problems of the first world.

All of this, the stupid little bits of life, steal my writing time and I am resentful of that. I’d like to have all I need and write. So simple, and yet as you all know, it just doesn’t work out that way most days.

Today, I ended up cleaning out my basement, sweeping up cat food that falls out of the bag every time we scoop it into the dish. I brought some things that were waiting for that garage sale I keep tossing around, and set them by the curb. A picnic basket that hasn’t been used in eight years, a car seat that has made it through the lives of two young boys, both items set on the curb and recycled, as about an hour later someone had picked them up and brought them home.

Do you feel lighter when you finally get rid of things that are no longer of use to you? Or do you panic that you should have kept them to give them away or sell?

I feel lighter, I think. But the couple of hours I was down in the basement, was time I could have been writing. I do not regret the time spent listening to Dave Matthews at full volume on an old CD player. That was great, not having to listen to what everyone else wants to hear.

Oh, and another great thing? Work has been hectic and I’ve been trying to look no more forward than the end of each day, sometimes just getting to lunch is the goal. My husband knows this.

When I got home from work on Friday, as I always do, I went up to change. On my bed sat a box with a note, “Because life is too short not to wear a cool pair of boots.” Do you know the boots? Distressed brown, short motorcycle Frye boots. My husband is a good, good man.

And they were too big, but that really isn’t the point, although my fingers are crossed that the smaller pair will fit when they arrive (please oh please let them fit, ahem, okay?). The point it that maybe we don’t have everything we need.

Maybe we have most of what we need, but we need to get rid of what is bogging us down (see: basement crap) in order to make room for things that make us happy.

Maybe a pair of boots is needed too. They aren’t practical like business casual clothes, and they aren’t useful like the full-on suits I have to wear most days. They’re more the type of thing that you have to own just because you need to see yourself as the person you want to be.

I want to be the girl who heads out in her boots to an author reading. And maybe she’s the one doing the reading.

Love.