Just read Courtney’s journal and it was so beautiful. Her sense of wonder and possibility and bitter-sweetness about the world and “home” (wherever that is for us)…I felt myself yearning with her.

Wonder and possibility. Wonder and possibility.

I am trying to change my emotional/internal direction when I feel myself heading down a path that doesn’t have wonder and possibility. I don’t know if this is the most effective thing – but I am trying.

Wonder and possibility. Life does not have to be this narrow scraggly path with hidden landmines that I subconsciously expect it to be. It doesn’t have to be that. It can be a winding path with lots of sunsets and sadness and joy and tenderness and beauty and horror, but I think I forget that it isn’t all directed at me. The landmines aren’t there with my name on them, necessarily. I am not the center of the universe, thank goodness. The whole point of everything isn’t to make me feel badly.

Wonder and possibility.

Courtney wrote about a place being a symbol of the person she was at another time in her life. A person she seem to have really appreciated. I think about Cameroun that way – although I’ve had to divorce the place from the self, I still yearn towards that person I was. I felt serenity then. Possibility, too. Trust that the future wasn’t there to harm me.

I trust that the present and future have wonder and possibility. I am going to learn to trust that present and future have wonder and possibility.

*****

Steve and I had some words last night and haven’t repaired things. It was a very stupid thing. Before I went out for dinner with Tessa and her fiancé (let’s ignore the fact that most normal husbands/boyfriends and certainly everyone except Steve that I’ve dated or been married to would have come with me to dinner with a friend and her fiancé, but not Steve), he said to me from upstairs on the bed – “Will you give Ripple a treat before you leave?” I said yes. She was in her “house” (mud room) drying off from our walk in the wet, wet park. So, I gave her a treat in her house and left.

When I came home, all the doors were locked and I didn’t have my key because he has hidden them from the drive to OKC – I need to learn not to let him have my keys – so I had to call the house from my cell to get him to unlock the doors. The second thing he said was, “So I thought you were going to let Ripple out before you left?” He meant out of the mud room. My defensive mechanism was promptly in full swing. I said, “Those were not my instructions. My instructions were to give her a treat.” He says, “I said to let her out.” I said, “I did not hear that AT ALL.” He said, “Well, don’t get ing pissed.” And that was the end of our conversation from 9:30pm last night through to today.

And I wasn’t feeling or being very mature so I didn’t do anything to fix the situation. I should have said, “I felt defensive when you said that.” And begun a clearing of the air. But, sometimes, he and I just need no-talking time. For some reason, we just do.

That was a ridiculously long and probably unnecessary description of a ridiculous “fight.”

I have my period and I’m crampy – and sleepy. Perhaps I’m PMS-y too, but since I’m often this way, its hard to attribute it to PMS.

Today is very, very slow at work. I forgot to order groceries through SimonDelivers so I will need to go the grocery store at some point. Maybe I’ll go at lunch. Its cold enough that everything will be safe in the car. I also need to use a coupon to the consignment store, so maybe I will do that too.