Gideon’s Challenge

Annoyed

Early Dawn

So… Stupid humor irritates me.   Case in point, I’m watching Perry Mason and the commercials come on, and here’s this orchestra.   And all of a sudden the triangle player loses his fucking shit ALL over the place.

Seriously stupid.   And completely annoying.

Although… to be fair, it’s possible the commercial has extra annoyance power due to the sound of that triangle going on and on and on and on and on and on.

But it’s still stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss_8CfBabmc

Gideon’s Challenge

Down

Broken Leaf

It is not the ache upon the solar plexus or sinking of the heart, but the silent creep of tiredness and, concealed within that tiredness shadow…. apathy.

The interest in food dissolves, as does the drive toward self care.   I focus on work so that I do not fall behind, but there is little joy, only process.  Mindless process where by I go through the motions that move me along one step at a time.

I try to push back, but there is nothing to push against, and nothing to push with.  It is all shadow and mirror, no substance and thus nothing to grasp or defeat.  After all, how do you wage war a shadow?

Gideon’s Challenge

Hypocritical 

September Clouds

Twice, today.   It’s an uncomfortable feeling and… unwarranted?   I don’t know why I’d feel that way but I did.

Both times, it was at EC, while answering questions on the forum.   The first was the thread I answered where someone was asking for help and advice considering long distance relationships.  The second was in a thread where someone asked advice on starting a home business from a hobby.

I know my advice in both cases was good, and I am speaking from a place of experience as well in both instances.  And yet…. somehow I feel hypocritical anyway.

I tell myself that I have a thriving online business, and thus I am in an excellent position to give advice on such things.  Yet…. oddly I feel a fraud spouting hypocrisy.   Same goes for the long distance relationship advice.  We’ve been in a long distance relationship for 9 years.  It’s had its ups and downs like all relationships do.   So why do I feel as if I have no room to speak on the topic of long distance relationships?

I don’t understand why I feel this way… and yet it came up twice today.

Gideon’s Challenge

“Your life will be filled with struggle, strife, and woe.
There will be great love, and great pain.
There will be comfort, but not prosperity.
These troubles are lessons carried over from the life you left behind, and lessons needed for the life to come.”

Future Path

Pensive

At nine years old, a trusted friend with a remarkable gift did a tarot reading for me to get a picture of my future. That was the result, although it was not given to me until much later when asked for. There was more, of course, but that was the “theme” of my life that surfaced within the cards.

Ten years later, the same friend did the reading again. The cards were different, as were the words… but the theme was the same.

Over the years between that first reading and now, I’ve had my tarot read many times for many different reasons and with many goals in mind. I’ve done it for myself, and I’ve had others do it for me.

And whenever the question is about the “theme” of my life, the results are the same.

Next year, it will have been another ten years, and I will go back to that same friend again to have my tarot read regarding the theme of my life, just as I have in the last two decades prior.

I wonder, as I do with each reading, if the theme will change… or continue on as it has been.

Gideon’s Challenge

Broken

Broken Slat

Not my spirit, but my body.  Sometimes, it drags on me.  That constant pain is like paint chipping away on a broken slat.  The break is there and can’t be fixed, and still year after year the paint keeps on wearing down and chipping away.

Sometimes, that’s how my pain feels.   My back.  My knee. My hip.  My ankle. Shoulder. Elbow. Wrist.  And that’s not even counting the pain from the scar tissue…. internal and external.

I suffer in silence.  There is nothing anyone can do for it, there is no solution or resolution, no cure or magical healing that will take it away.  Expressing one’s pain to others nothing but make them uncomfortable, so there is no point, yes?

I work hard to manage it with my physical activity, yoga and other stretching, meditation, physio, chiropractor, ice packs, massage, and when absolutely necessary, anti-inflammatories and pain relievers.  And yet, it’s always there.

I try to ignore it, and for small fractions of time here and there, I succeed.  And yet it’s still there.  Always there.

Today, is one of those days where it refuses to be ignored.  Instead of being able to ignore it for an hour here or there, it is ever present and nagging.  I’m so tired of the pain.  I can’t even remember or imagine what life is like without it.

Gideon’s Challenge

Pride

Water Park

My heart warmed with pride today, because last year this little boy was terrified of the water and would barely get close enough to stick his toes into the wading pool.

Although my neighbor and her son moved away a while ago, I’ve stayed in touch and enjoy visiting and being considered a “part of the family”. Over the past year, I’ve had a lot of talks with him about the water.  About lakes and oceans, beaches and swimming pools.  In June, I convinced him to take a swim class, which he agreed to as long as I came with him.

And look at him.   A day at the water park and he had a blast.  It wasn’t a big water park, and it wasn’t a big slide.  But he did it on his own and was smiling  both as he landed in the water, and as he waded out of the pool.

I consider that a success.