much more muchier

The hives came back today.  Just a few on my legs this morning, and by evening, my entire chest and arms were covered in welts.  When I saw the splotches on my chest, I downed two prednisone just as fast as I could.  The problem with these pills is that they are very disruptive to sleep, which I understand first-hand as I type this sentence at 3:30 in the morning.  I have spent most of the early hour sitting at my table outside feeling the wind on my face.

It has been an unusually calm and warm week, but the next two days promise rain.  It looks like the wind is the introduction to the weekend deluge.

Wind is not a force I spend much time thinking about.  I am a fire sign, and I am invariably drawn to water, so those two forces really dominate my unbalanced understanding of the Earth, Air, Fire, Water elements.

Right now I feel like all this wind is trying to send me a message.  That I need to pay more attention (and perhaps give more love) to the elements of air in my life.

According to my favorite resource on elements: Star Chalice Sisters,

Wind is the element of air and the mind.  Wind represents thoughts, visions and the conscious link between human beings.  Wind is changeable and fluctuant.Wind as the element of air is a powerful, active, creative force that brings ideas and inspiration that generate form.  Thoughtforms are air, which are the energetic gridlines that create the manifested structure.  Our thoughts affect our choices and bring us their accurate reflection, which are revealed all around us. All of human creation exists first as a thought or idea.  By mentally being open and flexible, we can allow our concepts to shift with the winds of change as well, revealing the freshly swept and supercharged power of this airy, creative force.

Wow.  This all sounds pretty great.  I could certainly need fresh inspiration, and maybe, just maybe, I could stand to let my mind be a little more open and flexible. ;)

The rain will start sometime tomorrow, but right now I am more than happy to feel the wind.

I had a routine doctor’s appointment today, which ended up being a long conversation with my brilliant doctor about what an absolute bitch life is.

We started off with the usual check-up questions and then I got right into whining about how I think I “have arrived” and yet I don’t feel like I “have arrived”.

What I mean is that all my early thirties milestones have been reached (good job, nice car, living in foreign country, travel extensively, etc) but I still feel like I am schlepping through life.  I don’t feel like I have arrived at my happy ending and I have yet to burst out in song in a field of flowers.

So my question today was “how long am I going to have to keep at it before I arrive“?  Haven’t I done enough work?  Where the eff is my happy ending???

The answer was wise and blunt.  You don’t ever really arrive, eventually you will just die.

Life is a struggle.  It has some amazingly beautiful aspects, but overall it is a battle that you win by continuing to put one foot in front of the other.  Every day.  Even the boring ones.

If you have reached a point where you feel like you can stop, take a breath and give thanks for your blessings, then you have arrived.

* Hurray!!! *

But you need to say those blessings fast because the next train is coming down the track and this one could be carrying heart disease or ovarian cancer, and the long slow march of survival must continue.

As depressing as this pep-talk sounds, it actually gave me a great deal of heart.  Things will change.  You will never get stuck in one place too long, even if that place is the most comfortable place you could ever imagine.  There are better places for you.  They may not have room service and cute towel boys, but they will have life lessons that you REALLY need to learn.

We are all on this long schlep and we are all hoping that the happy ending is just over this next hill.  Maybe the happy ending was that breath you just took, or that wink you just exchanged with a stranger.  Maybe if I start treating every mundane day like it is my happy ending, like there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be, I might even squeeze one or two unauthorized happy endings from this bitchy old universe after all.