Love, Jimmie

Gah.  I’ve been in a funk lately.  It hasn’t been fun. 

Someone stole my garbage can, right out of my front yard.  Why?  What need does anyone have of my garbage can?  It reeks because I put excessive amounts of used cat litter in it and some chicken gone horribly, horribly wrong.  I cannot imagine why anyone would go to the trouble of rolling it out of my driveway, down the street and into their garage when all it’s going to do is make their garage smell like feet.  That was thing one. 

I was asked to take on some new responsibilities at work.  I like new challenges and getting opportunities to worm my way into to the company so that I am an incredibly valuable resource when recessions hit.  Smart thinking, I always say. But this request hit me funny and quite frankly, I was a complete jerk about it.  That was thing two.

I started a bad trend of being lazy.  It’s a vicious cycle.  You skip the gym one time and then suddenly you’ve skipped a month’s worth of gym visits and your jeans don’t fit as smoothly as they once did.  Combine that with an overwhelming affection for Easter Peeps and viola, weight gain.  That was thing three.

For a solid week, every route I chose to drive – home, work, gym, anywhere – was the wrong route.  Devastating traffic accidents happened daily and I found myself smack dab in the middle of highways that were closed for an hour or more to clean up debris.  Trying not to think about who just died on the road, I spent a lot of time in the car winning fake arguments in my head which usually got me worked up into a foul mood by the time I arrived at my destination, and I was the only one fighting.  That was thing four. 

Hormones contributed to things five through ten with some other varying factors thrown in for flavor.   

I was not in a good place. 

Driving home one afternoon, on a road with traffic that moved approximately one square inch per minute, I was having a fake mental argument with the neighbor I suspected of stealing my garbage can.  The weather was rotten.  It was raining on half of the road and the other half was dreary and gray.  I was wrestling with myself outside of the argument, wondering where my negativity was coming from and why I insisted on nurturing it, when I glanced up and saw the faint colors of a rainbow.  Within minutes, the rainbow fleshed fully out and I was faced with a breathtaking view of an enormous arc of glorious color.  Never in my life had I seen a rainbow from end to end, the entire arc, but that day, I saw every bit of it.  The sun dropped behind me, the sky turned the most beautiful golden hue and the gray became a background, like a painting.  Breathtaking.

I’ll have you know, that rainbow clapped its massive hand over my negative door and slammed it shut.

Here’s my lesson: for the entire funk, I could see myself being negative.  I could see the progression I was taking to work myself up into a big old snit about anything, didn’t matter.  I was fighting it, praying about it, rejecting negativity, giving myself positive self-talk, but the negative was still there by my side.  I was fighting to speak life and in the instant I saw the promise in the rainbow, I understood that it’s that easy.  Just speak it.  Just realize that God is bigger than me. 

That was my journey.

This link is The Squirt’s journey.  Remember her?  She is my littlest sister – the cute one, the one with blonde hair and blue eyes and a tan, which skipped right over me and graced both of my younger sisters with its golden glow of health.  She’s writing and it’s good.  Give it a read and see what you think. 

La Vida Naranjada