Choosing To Not Think Like a Victim!

The dogs had been jumping on and off the bed between my husband and me for the last five minutes as unobtrusively as they could but with just enough excitement and slight whining as each of the eight paws between them brushed the surface of the bed in attempt to wake us up so we would let them outside to bound  after quivering rabbits, chattering squirrels and tiny dragons from their dreams. I lay there for a full five minutes with my eyes closed praying upon hope that my husband would respond first so that I could relish the remaining ten minutes I had to nestle before the alarm went off to begin the day.  But, he didn’t budge and because he’d been sick for the past three days with a cold, I reluctantly hoisted my warm, sleep-deprived body off the bed wading through two hyper dogs as they coiled and jumped around me trying to not trip over our ancient Black Lab whose form I could barely make out in the gray shades of morning beginning.

My body creaked in rebellion with my sinuses that were crashing in dull rhythm to the ever changing barometric pressure telling us all that a cold front was coming.  Nausea rounded out the overall reluctant feeling of facing a new day with my brain waking up to the idea that I could choose to be in full misery feeding the negative feelings into a full brushfire of negative thoughts, judgements and actions or I could acknowledge the sucky way I felt and keep my mind open for spots of beauty that might occur.

I kept re-choosing to keep an open mind in spite of feeling like crap even as I washed my face feeling that ever-present tiny white whisker that refuses to die, cannot be plucked out at the root and tends to spring forth overnight often times catching me unaware until I find it unexpectedly just before an important meeting.  No amount of makeup or foundation can cover up a tiny white whisker springing off the side of your face reflecting the sun’s glint in your profile.

I creaked out to the front door and up the driveway to fetch the morning paper still between choosing as to whether I’d fill in all facets of what it means to be a total bitch or see what good may come in spite of myself.  As I picked up the paper and turned towards the house, there it was, the beauty I’d been waiting for showing up unexpectedly as the sun brushed the branches and trunk of the ancient Cottonwood tree behind our house its light softly dusting it all like cinnamon on an apple.  Way high up in the tallest bare branches was flock of birds perfectly perched between each other taking up three or four levels like notes in a song book.  

After years of seeing my being and the whole world through a victim’s eyes whether warranted or not, I’m so grateful to have learned that I am at choice as to how I “see” the world no matter how I am feeling physically, emotionally or spiritually. I don’t have to perpetuate the victim agony lurking in the shadow echoes of my past. Today is a new day and even if when I turn my head for a different view my neck aches in stiffness, I’m at choice as to how much authority I give the pain.  I can choose not to think like a victim. I choose to see beauty.