Blog posts as of late...

...have been sort of, um, stale. I don't mean to be. I try to trudge forward with my writing, whether or not what I have to say is of any real value or depth. This, a suggestion of Ariel Gore in her latest "how to write" book and probably of writers ad infinitum before her. It works for me but does mean that, from time to time, my writing is dull.

In relation to my honey's car trouble and our latest BAM--this morning I have something that I didn't have last night, though I was nearing it a bit before bed as I tried to articulate my emotional stance here on my blog (see prior post).

Perspective.

I have a little perspective on this issue in the greater orbit of my life.

I have a fighter spirit, I've talked about this before. There's not much that can take me down...for long anyway. I've made a life of overcoming. But I'm also reading this book, I'm afraid it sounds self-helpish but what-the-fuck-ever.

"A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle--there's a plug I suppose but it's unintended because I bring it up only to mention what I read that coupled with my internal power to swing me into perspective.

He writes: "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having..."

Now, I don't believe for a second that there is an external force subjecting me to experiences for the sake of shaping my character and fortifying my soul BUT I do believe that I stand to learn from whatever comes my way, to find the power within myself to step outside of the emotion of the event and observe my response or determine my response.

I do not have to be a passive player or an object of my life--I can choose to be the force of my life, the actor deciding the action.

Tolle's discussion on the above takes place within another discussion of "stuff" and the value we put on having stuff, having more than someone else, having better than someone else, etc. and how we allow this "stuff" to affect the feelings we have about ourselves: "I have, therefore, I am."

Thinking in these terms, it really allows me to release and let go. To move beyond this feeling of inadequacy that plagues me when money is tight. Tight finances do not imply or mean that I am inadequate, I simply have to give more thought to what comes into our home or orbit.

Ya know, it's not that I consider myself an eternal optimist, I don't. Optimism is the wrong label here. I simply get the cyclical nature of life, "to everything, turn, turn, turn"--that's just how it rolls. I will have distress and I will have bliss. It is as certain as I will inhale or exhale.

That is the promise of life, the certainty I can count on.