Pastoral

I found my jive again. Which is to say that I feel better for the time being. Someone said to me today that we all have our afflictions and that mine seemed to be a social compulsion to think that I can never do enough to deserve relationships with people (not necessarily men...any kind of relationship). And I can buy this about myself. And she went on to say that this is incurable. Which of course, being the growth junkie, I find a difficult thing to swallow.

It's humid here...and we walk and are wet. Although it isn't so hot. It's just steamy. Of course, I won't even talk about my hair...it is a moist mad froth. And since I consider it possibly my only redeeming feature, I HATE THIS.

I've been thinking about a lot of things lately. My mind skipping here and there. I heard a word a couple days ago-Surrender. This word could carry shame, but it doesn't for me. It isn't about losing the battle. It is about giving up before you are defeated. It is about keeping your self-respect. It is about letting go of the fight against impossible odds. It is about giving in to grace. And about harmony in knowing you've handed your wrath to a higher power.

But, it still feels frightening to me. It recommends vulnerability. And I stink at that.

I went to see The Women on Friday night with a group of women (who are amazing and work their hearts out for pet rescues in NC) that I don't hang out with a lot. Which is to say that I know not so much about them, but like what they are about and enjoy my time with them when it happens. After the movie, we were all talking and one of them mentioned a scene in the movie where two friends are angry with one another, then funny and finally crying together. And she said, "that pegs us" meaning the female race. And it isn't my experience. I hang with a different crowd. And that type of emotional outburst isn't really seen by me in the women relationships of my life. I think it is amazing that we are all so different and yet the same. I believe that women feel things, sense things and experience things in a way that no other living thing can. I think we are tuned in to a frequency that is life and we pick up on all the infinite possibility.

This can make for confusion. There is too much to choose from sometimes. But, overall, I wouldn't want to be anyone else, anything else. And I am so thankful for all those women who beat the path for me and took the hard hits to do it. I am thankful for the women who go out every day and make a new path. I feel so blessed to be a woman.