I recently pitched my Page -A-Day calendar. This particular one was supposed to encourage busy women to live balanced lives. Instead it seemed to dose out reminders about how unhappy I (or busy women) should be with my (their) choices. Daily it carried admonishments about what I was (women were) doing wrong and how the way I (we) lived was depressing and overwhelming. (Even a female four-star general didn’t escape the invalidation of the calendar writer. The general was criticized for not having enough militant feminism in the way she acknowledged her family during a speech about her career). It’s the third calendar that I’ve trashed this year. As someone in the message business with an intense job, I want daily messages that fill my soul and inspire me. Tomorrow, a page-a-day calendar decorated with flowers is scheduled to arrive. Flowers are silent but beautiful reminders that spring is here. It was a lovely spring day today. Jean Claude and Roxie spent time outside while I sat in my big wicker chair trying to gain back spiritual sanity – lost because I let the shoulds get to me over my daughter’s decision to go to her business destination a day early. My mind went wild with “I should be doing so and so or I should be doing this…and of course I should remember that if people have plans that don’t include me they don’t want me (a horrible selfish should).” ” The Shoulds” should be listed as diseases for the agony and misunderstanding they cause.
Gradually I found peace again by remembering to let those I love be who they are, just as a great power does that for us all on a daily, hourly basis. So now I am celebrating the peace of this particular day and the miracle it holds for me and hundreds of millions of people.
Just stopped writing for a moment…thinking.. “I should check on Jean Claude, he’s still outside.” Roxie came in a while ago.” Sure enough Jean Claude is outside resting comfortably under the big beautiful tree that is in MY backyard.
