Life made simple

Apparently, my compass was already fixin to point north...

I read an article archived on one of my favorite blogs recently with a HUGE list of things you could begin doing to simplify your life. It's interesting how quitting smoking has allowed me to tap in to this well of determination and strength that I wasn't aware existed. Conquering this little beast, day by day, has given me this amazing feeling about what my future may hold. Feeling empowered is an amazing way to begin and complete each day. I may be exhausted. My body may be releasing toxins left and right in all these different (and some quite annoying or down right disgusting) ways but my mind is clear of the addiction speak.

What and enormous gift I have been given. I digress...

The list within the article I am raving about begins with this initiative:

1) Choose four-five priorities/themes/aspects/notions that are the most important to you in life. These are the four-five elements you would like your life to be focused and centered around.

Easy! Um....wait...is it?

It was hilarious! I sat down a few days ago thinking that I had this in the bag. One, Two, Three, Four, Five and done. Next! Not so, my friends, not so. Spots 1, 2 and 3 filled up quite quickly and then...I froze. Four and five? FOUR and FIVE? What the heck were my fourth and fifth elements? And so...I took a few days to think about it and today, I filled in spots four and five. I was patient with myself and I liked that feeling.

After I completed step number one, I rolled up my sleeves and prepared myself for the next big task. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had already began to focus on the next five-ten initiatives. In fact, I had been doing some of the initiatives since moving to Florida. Steps like limiting media intake, television, consumerism, materialism. I have, by no means, been perfect at any of these steps but I found a morsel of pride in the fact that I had already begun to live some of the steps out.

I am not sure if there is something in the air or if I am simply feeling the effects of increased oxygen in my blood but life has been really blessed lately. There's a line from a song that I always think about when it comes to having pride:

"I wanna have pride, like my mama has, not like the kind in the Bible that turns you bad."

I feel that kind of pride today as I fall asleep and allow my body to repair itself and rest for another day. Pride in what I've been raised with. Pride that I am putting what I've been raised with to good use.

Beat

Those who are insanely productive: Those who do not smoke cigarettes. One in the same.

Monday and I am already beat. I have that feeling lurking somewhere in the pit of my stomach with a big fat name tag that reads: EXHAUSTED. My head keeps lowering in degrees closer to my chin hitting my chest. A physiological white flag waving.

It feels absolutely amazing to be this exhausted! To have a reason to get home late and run around like mad getting lunch packed and teeth brushed before bed. I don't feel like it's even productivity in vain either. I have a strong displeasure for productivity that results in someones insides turned upside down, their hair falling out and there teeth chattering from the velocity of life. In my opinion, that type of activity is just as demolishing as my cigarette addiction. The attempt to fill a void with another void. The hoops I jumped through tonight were lovely hoops. Hoops that will make my day smooth tomorrow and hoops that allowed me to connect with my friend.

Quick summary (and this is more to hold myself accountable to not smoking than it will prove to be entertaining.) Today I: Worked a 10 hour day, had dinner with my friend Robot, quick Target run with Robot, commuted home, quick gas station trip to fill up for tomorrow's commute (successfully went to gas station and did not purchase cigarettes), made homemade croutons for salad (lunch) tomorrow our of bread that was about to turn, made dressing in old olive oil bottle for said salad tomorrow, made salad for lunch tomorrow, did all dishes and left the kitchen looking spic and span.

It may sound as if I am taking pride in the small things. Honestly, it's because I am. When I was smoking, my whole life was about sitting outside, talking on the phone and smoking. While I will obviously keep the habit of talking on the phone with those I love and keeping in touch, it's nice to have time in the evening to make salad dressing or homemade croutons. It's nice to not have a full sink of dishes staring me down when I get home from work tomorrow because I wasted time tonight or simply felt too exhausted from treating my body like a garbage can that I couldn't bare to do them.

Smoking is a tricky addiction because it remains mainstream and somewhat common place. That may be one reason it is such a difficult habit to break. Because no one except the addict understands how much it robs from the addict. Health, monetary and general quality of life are all wrapped up in this addiction even if smokers do an excellent job of acting as if that's not the case.

I feel very blessed to be making this decision. Even though I have moments where I want to climb the walls of my apartment or bite someones head off, I know there is purpose to those feelings. I deserve good health and I'm grabbing it by the horns!

Homemade dressing ingredients:

Old Olive Oil Bottle I will now use all the time for homemade dressings (cleaned and sanitized each time of course!)

I had to throw this in! This is a bottle of "The Dreaming Tree" wine made in part by...you guessed it...Dave Matthews! Why is this significant at all to my quitting smoking? I am learning to enjoy life again. To enjoy the little things. I treated myself to this bottle because although I am attempting to save the money I am not spending on cigarettes, I thought a one week award was in order. And what a wonderful one week award it will certainly be!

Not as Catchy

"Smoke free in 2012" is not as catchy as "Smoke free in 2003" but I'll take it...

Deciding to make my quitting smoking a public thing was a surprisingly easy decision. I have spoken about quitting smoking in prior posts so I knew the cat was already out of the bag. I wasn't quite sure, however, that everyone (anyone, for that matter) knew that I had taken back the nasty habit, if even with reluctant arms.

Making my battle with cigarettes and everything encompassed within the swirling tornado referred to kindly as "addiction" public was an easy decision for a couple of reasons. One: I respond promptly to the threat of letting others down and thus, by making my quitting public, I am opening the door for others to "check-in." Two: I need to stay busy. Forward motion is everything. Each time I sit down to write about not smoking is a moment of the day that I am winning this little (Enormous) war.

My goal for 2012 was to quit smoking and so far, I've upheld that goal. And this....this is what I've been doing...

Homemade Spicy Shrimp and fresh bread for dipping

Tea and Reading on my porch in the sunshine

Cutting fresh citrus for homemade air freshener

Made my home, HoMe.

A sense of smell

One breath was all it took...

Thank goodness, thank God, for this week! In my previous entry, I describe how God touched my heart on Saturday and somehow, removed the hurt and bitterness that had started to sink in. That feeling of freedom and relief has continued this week and has even multiplied!

One of my biggest praises this week is the way that God has assisted me in changing my attitude. Even if we are blessed beyond measure, with everything we could possibly need or want, it is still in our power to choose to turn our back on God and live in a place of bitterness.

It's so easy to get stuck in a place where we refuse to take responsibility for our attitudes or our lack of effort and blame everything on God. The truth is, God can save us. God can provide us with our needs and wants. He is capable of comforting and providing in times where we may not be able to do that for ourselves. The trick is....we have to trust Him. We have to turn to Him and believe that He will provide. Most importantly, we have to start feeling strength in God instead of feeling sorry for ourselves.

As I was walking on campus yesterday, I took a deep breath and was struck by a feeling I have not experienced since living in Florida. It smelled like home. That may sound strange but for me, smells have always been able to conger up memories like no other. And this smell, it was distinctly of home. It's as if God removed all of the barriers for my loving Him and loving Florida and now....I can see (and sniff) clearly.

Florida was never the culprit and He is allowing me to remove the clothes pin and sniff out my place here.

Amazing Grace

It Finally Clicked!

I have been praying for months (literally) that I would be able let go of some pretty heavy duty baggage I seemed to have picked up when I first moved to Florida. It's been a long haul and for anyone who knows me well, it's been evident. I've allowed myself to get really low, really often. I can, without hesitation or doubt, say that the wallowing has not helped my situation and if anything, has hindered me greatly.

I have no clue why God chose today to speak to me on such a profound and palpable level but, I suppose that's kind of the thing with God, you never know when He's going to bless you with clarity. To be honest, I am not going to waste a second of my time wondering why today was the day that the gears clicked clacked like a well oiled machine. I could care less about why today was significant because I have some truths that I'm laying my head down on tonight. Some incredibly significant truths that I've been blinded to for quite some time now.

I am here for a short time and God has incredible purpose for my life. Although I am but a grain of sand on a huge beach full of other tiny little grains, God sees me as if I were a diamond. I have an exceptional family and that includes all the wonderful friends I have from growing up in Indiana as well as some amazing people I've met so far in Florida.

So what's the point of me blathering on about all the blessings I have (by the way, I left out about a million for the sake of the length of the blog entry)?

If I wallow, if I choose to get all caught up (tangled, really) in "stuff" that doesn't amount to a hill of beans...I'm missing all the good stuff! I don't know how and I don't know why now but God let that thunderbolt hit me tonight and well....it feels pretty freaking awesome!

Thank you, God for having been patient with me during my idiocy since I moved here and for loving me enough to snap me out of it.

Me and my friend Walt

"My respiration and inspiration, the beating of my heart, the passing of blood and air through my lungs."

WW Song of Myself

Obvious to me, the connection between the lovely Mr. Walt Whitman and yours truly, for quite some time now. Brilliant in ways that I should hope to be, the man was able to vocalize what was internal, beat out of his chest what seemed incapable to unearth. As common among poets, he was a emptier. He would empty himself of thoughts, of creativity, of emotion...of functionality in an effort to rid himself of the heart that beat thump, thump, thumpity thump thump from within. I wonder if sometimes he emptied so much that he found it difficult to see himself clearly. If he ever looked at himself in the mirror of his secluded cabin only to be met by a blurry vision of the man that stood before the mirror...

My imperfections are evident. My flaws float to the surface, regularly, for each and all to see. Even when I attempt to gloss over the bumps in the road, fleeting seconds, and there they are in all their glory. I have stopped fighting the flaws because, well, quite frankly, it's damn exhausting. Of course, I strive to better myself but I have learned to hug tight those little annoying traits about myself because I'm a big collection of faults so why the hell not?

There's this one flaw, though, that I cannot seem to embrace. I cannot seem to get my short stubby arms wrapped tightly around this particular flaw. My hands won't clasp together behind its back, the way your hands clasp tightly when you love something so dearly that the thought of releasing it makes your stomach churn and burn up your throat. My inability to embrace this flaw comes from years of being bitten by it and listening to others warn me that its bite is as bone crushingly strong as its shrill bark.

My capacity to love.

And we're not talking about butterflies and rainbows kind of love. We're talking about the kind of love where I find myself crawling down into ditches that others have dug and begging them to begin slinging the dirt. It's innocent, really. My faith in others to change. I have not a clue where its birth place lies, except that its been with me since day one and it lives in the lowest place in my gut. That place deep in your person where that which creates the very fiber of your being nestles in for the long haul. It all sounds so gracious, so kind, so lovely. In reality, it's a bitch of epic proportions. The lectures, the "let me tell you something, Lizzy's," the "you'll learn when you get olders" they are the byproduct of this lovely vice I hold in my hands.

The funny thing is, I get it. I, contrary to how I may appear when faced with any conundrum of the technical variety, am a pretty smart one. At least, when it comes to introspection, I've got that ground covered two fold (probably three.) It's not that I don't see the error of my overly nurturing, worrisome ways. It's that I have no idea how the hell to go about changing the beast into a beauty.

How do you shut off a faucet when you can't see the dial? I don't know how to keep my arms from flinging open. And such, in the words of my friend Walt, is life...

This week's forecast

Calmer seas ahead...

Kate came to visit this weekend and I had an absolute blast! We have known each other our whole lives, which makes it impossible to feel anything less than completely comfortable. We had great conversations full of updates about her new little one, her loving husband and all the changes that having said little one brings to life. It was so awesome to see the love in her eyes when she talked about her "little puffin" and the family she and her hubby have created. Naturally, we laughed until we cried and talked our little hearts out about what life has brought our way throughout the journeys we are on.

Kate asked me a few questions that necessitated some difficult answers this weekend and when we were finished with the conversation, she said, "Lizzy, I want to tell you something. You're going to be fine. Some things have happened here that have been really unfortunate and I am sorry you had to go through them. You know what to avoid in the future now and sometimes we have to make really stupid mistakes so that we can learn from them."

I felt like God had pulled up a chair in the chat and was using Kate as a tangible comfort. Sometimes, the sea gets so choppy that we lose sight of the horizon and forget that there's a beautiful sunrise in store for us when the weather breaks. I've started to see a break in the clouds, allowing a little sliver of light to escape in the last couple of months. Kate's ability to verbalize what I didn't even know I needed to hear gave me even more excitement about the day where the clouds will disappear completely and I'll have to wear my favorite shades to protect my eyes from the glare!

Forgiveness is such a difficult thing for me and I'm not sure how long it will take me to forgive the people I made the mistake of trusting when I first moved to the sunshine state. I am confident though that God is softening my heart to the idea of forgiveness. Having Kate here to laugh with, lay on the beach with, girl chat with and all of the lovely things that come along with a girl's weekend, helped me realize that God's blessings are plentiful in my life. Piece by piece, He's allowing me to feel His embrace by putting friends and family in my life who are willing to help me rebuild what has been shattered and move the heck on.

After all, God never says that the storms won't rage and our boats won't get racked. He just promises to help us bail our boats and re-direct our paths towards the horizon!