Wednesday 28 January 2009

Nothing

My heart palpitates.
It's hard to breath.
Shoulders feel heavy.
Fight or flight response activated.

But this fountain doesn't care.
The clouds shrug and turn away.
The wind still slithers through the leaves of the trees.
Cars race past, occupied by other lives, headed to other destinations.

The worry builds up in my head,
like the lid of a boiling pot of rice.
It's going to bubble over any second.
Any second now.

Then I think:
In a week, this will be
nothing.

This too shall pass.
It always works out.
God is in control.
God is in control.

My heart will keep beating.
My lungs will expand and contract.
My burden will be lifted
and I'll realize there is nothing to confront or flee from.

This fountain doesn't care.
The clouds shrug, wind blows, cars pass.

I am not the only one.
Something,
Everything,
can become
Nothing.
Or was all along.

This too shall pass.
It always works out.
God is in control.
God is in control.

Friday 16 January 2009

What Is All This?

What is all this? I wake up and rub my eyes and can't help but notice the floaters in the corners. Ya know, floaters, they look like amebas when you look up into the blue sky and see them run down your line of site. This eye-rubbing feels good, until I realize that I'm raising my eyebrows to really get into it, and this means I'm wrinkling my forehead. Rats. A few years ago I was sitting in a chair at the Bobby Brown counter at Saks and the girl applying my powder and lipstick said I was too young to have such pronounced wrinkles in my forehead and told me to quit raising my eyebrows. I decided to love myself enough to accept my wrinkly forehead.

Did I mention the gray hairs? I have at least two gray hairs on my head. They are short so relatively new, and I'd be willing to bet I know where they came from. I had a friend who started getting them in college and would systematically seek and destroy these tail-tale signs of aging. She had gorgeous, thick healthy hair and I thought the little gray strands here and there added character and were just beautiful. But what did I know until it started happening to me?

Yes, I am now one of those women who is disturbed by the aging process.