Stressed? Not me!

I squeezed my eyes shut before I opened them and peered at the mirror.  Yep, that left eyelid drooped. Stuck at half-mast. Lovely. Aging is for the birds- droopy eyed, saggy, oblivious, egoless birds.

My mother had droopy eyelids- at a certain point surgery is a medical necessity so you can see. Which means when I’m eighty and walk around with eyelids impeding my vision, I’ll get a face lift.  

Meanwhile, I use the mighty Internet to scare myself with diagnosis of dire conditions.   Of course, stress was mentioned several times also.  Which is nonsense. I can’t be stressed- I moved from the D.C. suburbs to get away from stress.  I live in paradise- literally on Paradise Dr., East Paradise in Leisure Hills to be precise .

And that weird mouth issue- a doctor I’d never seen before quickly declared my stomach acid was eating my teeth and announced, “Maybe you’re stressed.” Rubbish.

So I huffed off to my colonoscopy/ endoscopy and was informed, complete with pictures to back it up - I’m stressed.  The stomach acid is eroding my esophagus. Not much more than the previous scope but clearly, when I moved…. I brought myself along.  Stress and all.

So it wasn’t just my previous pace of life because my pace here can crawl and no one cares. Most would join me in a slow amble toward tomorrow.  It clearly wasn’t the traffic- if I meet a car on the road here it’s likely a dusty truck and he’ll wave. And it’s the wave of the west- a finger raised off the steering wheel.  The friendly index finger acknowledgment.

It can’t be isolation.  Last week I showed off my sweet, small world to dear friends and one declared she was finished worrying about me!  We did meet an unusual number of my new friends and acquaintances.   And it’s beautiful and peaceful here.

It’s me.

I soaked up the competitiveness and pace of the east coast not because I was a passive sponge. It was my competitive, productive-at-all-costs, don’t-waste-time, personality coming to the surface.  It popped to the surface in that like-minded culture.

Here in paradise, it lurks beneath the placid surface.

Well, the water’s been stirred. 

Does God just reach down a huge, divine finger and create a small eddy at the center of our souls?  That's a more comforting mental picture than an angry god hurling a boulder into a watery soul to get our attention.

His finger is gentle, even unobtrusive.  I didn’t feel stressed.  Not enough to admit that there would be consequences to my striving.  I was relieved to have a wonderfully successful retreat behind me. My roofing selections were safely transferred to the hands of another and the new doors were chosen and ordered.  My new porch was lovely and while the steps led to nowhere, they looked great.  The interior was spruced up for company, the larder stuffed, the yard… well, the garden was being tilled by an aggressive mole but at least the pest was outside and doing my garden work.

But I was stressed- the heavenly finger had gently stirred and my body responded. It just took my mind a few weeks to catch up.

So now what?  How can I recognize the familiar tendency to wander off the path into “gotta get it done” land?  When my to-do list exceeds sane limits, can I be sensitive to my history of drift into insanity?  Sane- mentally balanced, reasonable.  Insanity- lack of reason or good sense.

You don’t have to be a mad lunatic with psychosis (other lovely words listed under insanity) to be unbalanced, to lack reason or good sense- to drift off the narrow path.

I used to hear the straight and narrow and think of restrictions, limits, narrowness.  

A friend sent me a wonderful quote this week-

 Wilderness, then, is not only the nature you find outdoors. 

It can also refer to your own true Nature—the You 

that is closest to your birth. 

This inner wilderness is the untamed truth of who you really are.” 

Gerald May

The untamed truth of my life is that I am naturally unbalanced. And my loving, heavenly Father, with a careful touch of the very tip of His finger, stirred up my lovely pond and revealed the muck that had settled to the bottom. Clearly not eliminated by my move to paradise, it just settled into an unseen layer of the same insecurity, frantic busyness and fierce independence.

And with that same gentle finger, He points to the straight and narrow way. The small, quiet path that leads off the natural and into the realm of supernatural possibilities – of renewed trust, of continual dependence, of awareness of my body.  Of balance and reason. 

A path that is too narrow for my bulky rucksack of “do it myself”.

A path that doesn’t meander into unbalance and unreasonable expectations. 

It’s a path straight to the Father’s heart.

You, Lord, are my shepherd.
    I will never be in need.
     You let me rest in fields
    of green grass.
You lead me to streams
of peaceful water,
     and you refresh my life.

You are true to your name,
    and you lead me
    along the right paths.
 I may walk through valleys
as dark as death,
    but I won’t be afraid.
You are with me,

And it’s where I want to be.