Test Day

That Little Voice

Love everything that comes to me?

Is it necessary to love all the calamities or misfortunes that come to me? Really?

Do I have to embrace chasing that massive cockroach across the room in order to eliminate it permanently from my house?

I suppose I can love that it makes me get up from my comfortable chair and dash around the room. Exercise is good for me.

And picking up dog poop…it’s not the picking up that bothers me, it’s the standing there pretending I’m not embarrassed that my dogs are taking their morning constitutional on the public sidewalk in front of city’s most expensive hotel.

I do understand the thought process of knowing all things can teach me something about myself, but I’m really not into a lot of learning. I would prefer to skip a grade or two, and sidestep those uncomfortable, painful and humiliating lessons that ‘they’ say are good for me. I would rather just let some activities, people, and thoughts be loved by someone else. Let someone other than me suffer and learn to accept reality. They can tell me about what they learned.

However, that isn’t how life is. I must learn my own lessons, experience my own guilt; I am required to stumble through life hitting walls of ignorance so I can find the door to the next disaster.

All those bruises, hard knocks, discomfort and emotional highs and lows must be experienced by oneself. Hopefully the lesson will be learned the first time around the block, or I will no doubt have to repeat until I finally pass the test of that particular moral tutorial and learn to hug that unpleasant fact or truth about myself and accept it as my own.

The problem is often I’m unaware it is test day until the pain of some action becomes severe. That’s when it’s necessary to make an apology and reevaluate my behavior or decision.

I can thank the universe for this lesson learned and move on to the next mess up, anticipating graduation is just around the corner and testing will end. At 81, I believe that time is nearing.