Boxing Day

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Ours was a bit hectic, but generally good. I spent most of the day in the kitchen, and had to have G’s help for part of it. I just can’t do some things any more. My body points and laughs when I try.

I’m still hoping for retirement in three years or so. It will take a concerted and multi-pronged effort. G and I are mostly on the same page and he’s doing everything he can (and probably more than he should, but that’s another issue.) I haven’t convinced him to move to the midwest – yet. I also haven’t tried very hard because it’s too soon to consider it, unless and until a windfall arrives on our doorstep this week. I need to take my own advice and start writing things out in detail. It’s the closest thing I have to a genie in a lamp. I know from experience, it works. I literally wrote the book – primarily about relationships, but the same principle can be successfully applied to other things, too.

One thing: if/when you write out what you want, focus exclusively and specifically on what you want. Being specific is key, because what you ask for, you’re gonna get. And when you don’t spell out details that matter to you, the universe apparently figures you didn’t really want ’em. Hoo boy, the things I could tell you about what you lose when you don’t spell it out…

Boxing Day isn’t a US holiday. It should be, if for no other reason than we need the extra day to recuperate from Christmas. Whatever its significance in the UK and its territories, I think the US needs a “Boxing Day” or similar to encourage people to think out of the box. Outside the box is where solutions usually lie. Even more ironic: we’re often inside the box because we stay there after we’ve been put there, long after we need to remain for our safety.

I initially wrote, “…Because we put ourselves there.” But you know what? That’s unfair, and not true. Most of us in those boxes are there because other people threw us there by physical and/or psychological means. No one goes inside that damned box without being forced into it. It’s the box telling us we’re not good enough, pretty enough, strong enough, smart enough, and so many “not enoughs” it builds seemingly impenetrable walls around us. Hence, The Box.

However – and this one I had to learn the hard way, after bloodying my hands and my head from beating at the walls – if there’s a way into the box, there’s also a way out.

Oh, it may be taped up and you may be hyperventilating and claustrophobic – but in order for someone to put you there, there was an opening. And the opening works both ways, darlin’. You might not see it. It’s still there. Sometimes all it takes is daring to open your eyes. Other times, it takes stretching yourself to the limit to burst through. Either way – the box isn’t a prison. It’s just a box.

This wasn’t the direction I was planning to take when I started writing today, but something tells me one of my readers desperately needed to read/hear it.

If you’re dying inside because all you can see is four walls and a tiny window too high and too small to let you see out – open the door and walk into another room of who you are. You’re locked into your mind’s proverbial bathroom, and the lock is on the inside. You can choose to walk out. The rest of your soul house is out there, and it’s more marvelous than your weight, your health, your mental issues, your family, your money, or whatever else has you convinced you’re not enough. The front porch has a view of the mountains, with wildflowers and fresh air.

And you deserve it.