Learning to lean

I was born with naked feet.  And, frankly, I try to keep them naked as often as I can.  This creates a bit of a problem for my husband who is constantly picking up the shoes I've kicked off..  Unlike most women, I'm not crazy about shoes; however, I am crazy about comfort.  If I collected shoes, they would be displayed on shelves, much like pretty plates, objects to admire from afar. 


On any given day, I might have three to four pairs of shoes hanging around the house.  My house slippers, a Christmas present from my sons, all snuggly and warmly lined,  usually end up under my desk abandoned as I sip the first coffee and focus into my morning writing at my computer.  My new ECCO walking shoes tumble onto the bedroom floor to lay buried under my exercise clothes.  In Oregon, one needs mud boots to bury the weekly compost. These black, rather ugly, soldiers end up kicked off somewhere around the bottom step in the garage.  Rounding out the day, I'll wear some run-around, simple, black flats or my new MBT rocker, good-for your-core Mary Janes sometime during the day.  They too will be dismissed under the dining table, at the edge of the couch, or "lost" somewhere in the house. 

My husband picks these up...all the time, every day, in all places...he retrieves them and places them back in my closet.  I guess that shouldn't seem significant to a woman who has lived alongside three brothers and raised three sons.  I've spent a lifetime picking up after people.  But you see, for years I haven't acknowledged  I could count on Matt to pick things up.  I have been so consumed with self-sufficiency, I haven't learned to lean on someone else.  I've viewed myself as the helper, the listener, the retriever, and the partner.  The dependent...what a forbidden thought.

Turns out I have a whole support system to lean on.  My God blesses me beyond measure.  My friends are plentiful, loyal, and inspiring.  My siblings are a phone call away.  My sons are now strong, self-sufficient, confident men.  And my husband is my best friend, number one fan, and first class shoe retriever. 

To everything there is a season.  It's time to lean, to ask for help, to enlist listeners, to reach out, to depend, to live nakedly,  feet and all.

Day 45

So, I retreated.  I paused.  I slept and wept.  I felt the silence and stillness of God within me.  A piece of me is now renewed. 

I am more than the job I've been.  The words come easily but it takes much longer to internalize the reality.  I've spent years in the frenzy named "work."  Blindly, I'd launch from one task, one obligation, one responsibility to the next; so blindly, I lived more in the future than in the moment.  That obsessive need to give my all, to touch young lives, to live my passion,  has given way to a release of frenzied energy as I melt into a puddle of now. Fear ruled my life.  Fear of not being good enough, letting people down, not being self-sufficient, hurting someone else, failing, abandonment, judgment, and the unknown.  Fears on top of fears have been my driving force for years. 

It has taken weeks to come to grips with the fact that doing nothing means having time for awareness of everything.  I am happy for the opportunity to be unemployed.  What a relief!  What a blessing!  Time to BE.