I’m exhausted today, resting up for my evening plans. One friend called and wants a ride if I’m going to a certain reading tonight. She also wants to know if I’m going to another reading tomorrow. Another friend plans to call a little later today and expects me to be out and about — which I had planned to be. Yet another friend has emailed me about various events, including an international excursion. I wish I had all the money in the world, along with an endless supply of physical stamina and bonhomie. Being irredeemably human, however, I don’t and I don’t. Ah, well. C’est la vie.
Along with everything else, I discovered over the last few days that my visit with shingles is not entirely finished. I made some of my famous (in a small circle of friends, anyway) chocolate candies on New Year’s Day and (of course) ate my fair share of them. Shortly thereafter I received a return engagement from the ghost of shingles past. Luckily it really is just the ghost, with mild numbness and a shadow of the former pain. Just that, however, is leaving me tired right down to the marrow of my bones.
One of the gifts I got from my main event bout with shingles was this: I now remember that, whatever happens to me, I have a choice about how I see it. For example, yesterday evening I was driving home from a party and someone cut me off in the freeway exit ramp, speeding up to do so, then immediately switched into the opposite lane. For a moment I seethed with anger, spewing colorful epithets relating to the other driver’s family origins. Then I remembered: I have a choice here. Yes, it seems as though that person deliberately sped up just to cut me off. And maybe they really did do it on purpose. So I get angry because I want control, want to stop them from doing that. Since that’s impossible, how would I like to feel instead?
To make a long story shorter, I chose to feel grateful that I had survived the encounter unscathed. Feeling angry in situations over which I have no control stresses me out big time. Feeling grateful to be alive, fortunate to survive insane freeway driving, is an instant de-stressor. Since I am very sensitive to physical and emotional stress, choices such as this one are as crucial to my survival as careful defensive driving (and lots of luck).
So, thus endeth the litany of gifts gleaned from my ordeal with shingles. At least for now; more may surface in these first full-to-bursting days of the new year.
Take care, and may you shine divinely in 2009!
~Love and Blessings,
Selene~
