Hubris

will turn and bite you in the ass every time.  I am old enough to know that feeling good about yourself is a call to attention that terrible things are to follow.  That makes me sound like a fatalist, but I am not.  I am a hopeful, cheerful and totally optimistic person.  In the depths of the crap buffet, I can wait to eat until I get away from there, if I have to, and if the waiting time does not turn into a decade or something. 

I can always see the brighter side of anything.  Even when the bad stuff was happening here, I knew that I would be able to make it through.  Probably only to survive until the next thing happened, but sometimes you have to take the positive where you can find it. 

Even when I was a small child, around four or so, I knew that there was something greater than myself.  Some thing that was larger than my personal experience.  When I was a few years older and was more in the world, I could see that other people and kids and families did not seem to have the same dynamics as mine did.  I did not know what that might be, but other people seemed, well, not exactly happier or anything like that, but more along the lines of being more relaxed.  Like they could take a breath and not have to worry about the consequences.   I grew older and knew that for a certainty, and kind of also knew that we, my sibs and me, were of doomed to keeping secrets that no one should have to keep.

I am wandering now, but I wonder if distressing childhood experiences create the blueprint for later life.  I have read tons of self-help books and psychology texts, so I have a basic understanding of the progression and consequences of all that, but I am thinking more of spiritual consequence or process or something.  Sort of like my belief that we, in the time prior to manifesting in this flesh, have the opportunity to know about what it is that we need, and that we choose the time and space, the family, friends and work into which we are born.  My daughter says that that belief is my attempt at rationalization, and she may very well be right, but I do not think so.  Probably thoughts that are more delusional than healthy, but it seems to me that the terrible things that happen in a life cannot be without purpose or design.  Otherwise, how is it possible to have a faith practice if that includes the belief that some all-powerful god or some damn thing is at the helm, directing what happens here on Earth and in our lives. 

I cannot, I will not believe in a higher power that allows pain and suffering to happen, much less that he/she/it determines, directs and enforces such things.  So, maybe that is why my belief system has prior self direction and decision making in it.  Maybe that is why I believe that I chose all of the things that were going to happen in this life.  I do know that it informs the way I live and that I am aware that everything I do is my choice and for some greater purpose.  And, I think that believing all of this makes it possible to do the right thing for the right reason even if it does not seem to be in my best interest in that moment.  I think that that is why I am still in this geography.  I need to be here to get my self closer to being the person I want to be and that means staying here and feasting on the crap buffet. 

I chose all of this for a reason.  I am not sure what that is, but it feels so correct that it is my previous, as well as current, choice.  That thought is the one thing around here that does not cause me distress.  It is the one thing, the thought, the belief, that calms me when all else fails.  This is sounding like fatalism to me, but I still think that it is not.  And, this is not what I wanted to write today.  I had something else that was holding a lot of energy for me over the past several days, the whole not being prideful thing. 

I guess that now I do not have to write about that.  I can get dressed, go to the library, get groceries and come home and clean some of the more onerous areas of this house.  I cleaned yesterday until I was sweating and exhausted, and it felt great.  I am hoping that I can do the same this afternoon.  It is forward movement of the highest order and it is crazy how satisfying it can be.