It's 6:01 am on Thanksgiving and I'm afraid to be grateful.
I'm afraid to feel good, because the other shoe keeps dropping. Life is just full of other shoes dropping right now.
I just looked up the origin of that phrase. It refers to apartment living in New York; the experience of lying in your bed directly underneath the bedroom of the apartment above you and hearing that upstairs neighbor take off one shoe, and then waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know the other shoe is coming, so you resist sleep in anticipation that it will be interrupted and ruined.
Life is a string of other shoes dropping.
Or at least it can feel that way. It is so tempting to feel that way. To cling to misery because it is safe, risks nothing, and gives us something to talk about at parties. There are expected shoes and unexpected shoes. Sometimes the shoe is big and clunky and alters the molecules of the floor, other times it is a Barbie sized shoe that doesn't scratch the surface. And yet, no matter the size, you are never ready for them because the timing of your dropping shoes is wildly unpredictable. This unpredictability does not, however, prevent us from preparing for the downpour of shoes, for trying to ready ourselves for impending doom, real or imagined, exaggerated or authentic. We can live an entire life around the inertia of waiting, nourishing ourselves with the anticipation of disturbance.
Or not.
Because a shoe dropping is over in an instant, it is how you spend time between shoes that makes a life. It is knowing that time will be disturbed and spending it wisely and unwisely and frivolously and quietly and daringly and honestly and mistakenly and forgivingly and authentically that turns waiting into living.
I'm still afraid in this moment right now because I do not know what the day holds; but after I write this, I will pet my dogs. Then I'll probably have a chocolate chip cookie--yes at 6:44 in the morning. Then I'll probably go for a run or check out Pinterest. Then today is happening.
So at 6:50 am, I know what I am thankful for. I am grateful for all the shoes dropping and all the moments in between.
Happy Thanksgiving.
I'm afraid to feel good, because the other shoe keeps dropping. Life is just full of other shoes dropping right now.
I just looked up the origin of that phrase. It refers to apartment living in New York; the experience of lying in your bed directly underneath the bedroom of the apartment above you and hearing that upstairs neighbor take off one shoe, and then waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know the other shoe is coming, so you resist sleep in anticipation that it will be interrupted and ruined.
Life is a string of other shoes dropping.
Or at least it can feel that way. It is so tempting to feel that way. To cling to misery because it is safe, risks nothing, and gives us something to talk about at parties. There are expected shoes and unexpected shoes. Sometimes the shoe is big and clunky and alters the molecules of the floor, other times it is a Barbie sized shoe that doesn't scratch the surface. And yet, no matter the size, you are never ready for them because the timing of your dropping shoes is wildly unpredictable. This unpredictability does not, however, prevent us from preparing for the downpour of shoes, for trying to ready ourselves for impending doom, real or imagined, exaggerated or authentic. We can live an entire life around the inertia of waiting, nourishing ourselves with the anticipation of disturbance.
Or not.
Because a shoe dropping is over in an instant, it is how you spend time between shoes that makes a life. It is knowing that time will be disturbed and spending it wisely and unwisely and frivolously and quietly and daringly and honestly and mistakenly and forgivingly and authentically that turns waiting into living.
I'm still afraid in this moment right now because I do not know what the day holds; but after I write this, I will pet my dogs. Then I'll probably have a chocolate chip cookie--yes at 6:44 in the morning. Then I'll probably go for a run or check out Pinterest. Then today is happening.
So at 6:50 am, I know what I am thankful for. I am grateful for all the shoes dropping and all the moments in between.
Happy Thanksgiving.
