This Winter Hurts

 

The above photo was taken almost a week ago. It was the end of a great work day, a rare day when I got to mix my day job world with my geek girl world. I was tired but blissed out. The state of my face is the result of trying to mimic the “I don’t know” emoji and respond to the question “It’s Saturday, what are you getting into?”

I didn’t know it at the time but that blissed out state would begin to go down in flames starting the next morning.

Sunday greeted me with what I thought was over tired, over clenching related jaw pain that escalated in intensity until it ended with my dentist numbing my mouth while saying “that tooth is toast”. I’ve never known such pain and though I’m no stranger to emotion, I’ve never ran the entire gamut in the span of an evening.

BUT it taught me a lot, as discomfort often does…and that is what I want to share.

 

Stubborn~ dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something

 

On a trip over the summer, one of my oldest friends called me stubborn. It bothered me, a lot, because it made me think of the other people in my life that I had heard associated with that word and I knew I wasn’t acting the way that they did when labeled in the same way. This was about my unwillingness to let anyone help me with my bags…how could not wanting my things to burden someone else be a bad thing.

I was reminded of this moment when my jaw pain was at it’s worst and I saw very clearly the picture of me being a dozen feet behind the rest of the traveling party hustling to make a train, dropping my bag almost every other step…STUBBORN!

I shed a lot of tears in a very short amount of time as I realized all the ways my stubbornness was showing up in my life…the constant dirty state of my car, the pile of clean clothes on my bed that never makes it to the closet, the pile of books in the floor instead of the shelf and the searing pain shooting through my jaw.

What normally plays out like the shoulder shrug pictured above started to annoy me and I wanted to tidy up everything…my car, my room, my books…my LIFE!!!

It couldn’t be fixed that night but I knew I could start the next morning. So, I got what sleep I could and called my dentist.

There was a treatment plan in place for my dental care and I had an appointment for a repair two weeks later but my tooth had other ideas and abscessed. OUCH!!!!

I could blame the tooth all day long but it’s really all on me…my stubbornness had to take physical form for me to notice it. I wanted to keep the tooth so I wouldn’t be down a tooth not for the sake of my health and wellness. So, for the sake of my health and wellness it had to be removed.

It’s been a hell of a few days but if you think I can’t look at it all and still be grateful, you’d be wrong.

 

The pain broke me…I was scared, lonely and pissed…at myself. I couldn’t rest so I took a metaphorical light saber and began to hack away at my life….

 

If you don’t want this pain ~ make a phone call and deal with it

Tired of looking at clothes you’ll never wear ~ donate them and be done with it

Embarrassed for anyone to ride in your car ~ clean it!!

Miss someone ~ reach out!

Tired of watching Netflix on your iPad when you have a perfectly good TV ~ order what you need fix the problem

Tired? ~ Get some sleep

If you want to be debt free ~ pay attention to what you spend you $$ on

Want to be the author answering questions about your book instead of the one asking an author questions? ~ FINISH YOUR BOOK

 

Countless other thoughts and actions met the chopping block. I’m more guilty than I can convey of falling prey to the bright and shiny, the new, the old, the anything other than what I am doing right now and before I know it, I am doing a WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING…

STUBBORN!!!

So, as the pain from the past few days eases (or is at least hiding behind ibuprofen) I have begun trying to erase stubbornness from my life. It’s a slow start, as I am still healing from the procedure but I am working toward letting go, creating space and executing a plan.

While I don’t want a repeat of the pain, I am grateful for the clarity it brought to my corner of the world this week. I will not be the same from now on 🙂

 

*****

 

Dear Readers,

We deserve and owe it to ourselves to take as good care of ourselves as we can. This lesson (and others) I have had to learn the hard way and while I don’t mind sharing them with you here, I really hope we all do a little better at it so that we can keep loving, living and dreaming, in health and happiness 🙂

Take GOOD care,

~Candice