Pedicures and the church

I took my Veteran's Holiday on Friday because of work obligations on Tuesday.  I did something nice for myself.  I got a pedicure.  Best Nails is where I go and it is a rather large establishment with a lot of friendly employees.  Manicures, pedicures, waxing, etc.  They do it all.  I normally go on a Saturday or Sunday when it is really busy so I was looking forward to being there during the week when I hoped it would be less so.  I was not disappointed.

I walked in and looked around.  They had a comfortable number of customers sprinkled about and the atmosphere was not as chaotic. I was greeted by the owner, asked what I needed, and picked a nail polish color.  Same as always.

Like every other salon, the pedicure chairs are lined up against the wall facing the center of the room. If any of your chair neighbors are loud, you are privy to phone conversations, text messaging, and conversations between them and their nail technician or one of their neighbors.  It won't come as a shock to any of you that I don't like idle chit-chat so I keep my communications to a minimum.  I go there to relax, not be stressed out thinking about what other stupid shit will come out of my mouth.  Not everyone feels the same as I and it was my awesome pleasure to be treated to one of my neighbor's non-stop verbal diarrhea.

She was probably in her fifties and wore her make-up less on the natural side but not quite clown. Her bottled blond hair looked nice but from two chairs down I thought it could use a good dose of conditioning to help with the dryness.  Just observations, folks.  No judgment here.

She never stopped talking.  Really.  Occasionally the long suffering nail tech would interject one thought or sentence but it was pretty much a soliloquy.  A one woman show.  Besides being fascinated that one person could talk so much without a script or input from anyone else, I was handling it up to the point when these words carried over to me, "God will help you but you have to believe.  You have to believe 100% because if you don't, it won't happen.  He will provide you the money you lost before.  We all makes mistakes in the past but if we believe, He will make up the difference."

This is one of the reasons I don't attend church anymore.  Yes, I 'm Jewish.  I have been since birth and will always define myself as Jew no matter where my spiritual journey takes me.  As a freshman in college I discovered Jesus and for about fifteen years I was active in the church.  It's a whole other mile long blog topic as to why I left the church but suffice it to say this is one of reasons.  Is God really not big enough to make things happen if we have a moment of doubt?  Is God that heartless that He would not want to give us what we want and/or need if we don't believe 100%?  Does our heart and behavior have that much power because that is what this says to us.  It tells us that God can only move if we do something that can be next to impossible.  It is this way of thinking that pushed me away.  God is love is also preached.  Really?  Is this a good representation of love?  Is this how love works?  If it is, I don't want any part of it.  I can't believe in a God that will only help me if I first believe 100%.

After leaving the church and rejecting the traditional idea of God, my spiritual journey continues to this day.  I still believe in some kind of higher power.  One of my theories is that this is all a huge experiment.  I liken when the asteroid hit the earth and the dinosaurs were destroyed to when a kid messes up his Lincoln Log creation to start again.

So, after I heard this lady preaching to a captive audience, I put on my make believe ear muffs and tuned out.  You know what that is.  You've done it yourself.  I went to my Happy Place.  I dialed down the present and got comfy with my imagination.  I got so comfy that I found the bravery to have my eyebrows waxed for the first time ever!  I am a movie star, people.

Vanity

And when you look up at the stars, what do you see?  Do you see unending galaxies and universes and lives that are lived far far away?  Do you see your destiny?  Do you see that you are a mere speck, a teeny dot on a small planet?

I used to fly to Florida on average 2 times a year.  I miss it, in a way.  It was a luxury.  I could get away from the usual and be free.  Part of what I miss seeing is the earth from above.  Above the clouds.  Above the weather.  Above daily cares.  There is no turbulence at that height.

Life's perspective is different from above.  No streets.  No people.  The first time I watched the beginning of the movie Contact, I held my breath.  At least it felt that way.  I watched myself pulled backward further and further and further away from Earth my perspective changing and my mind forced into continually adjusting.

We are so small and look at the havoc our small selves are able to create. Horrible atrocities are manifested in the name of some god.  Why is it easier to live in fear than walk in love?

I have theories but no answers.

Slow down.  Take the time to drift up.  No matter what life is like now, it won't always be this way be it better, be it worse, or just different.  All you control is what you do now.  When you make peace with that, your perspective changes.

Changing

I've been doing quite a bit of work on myself lately.  That's one reason I have been so quiet for so long.  I have had to take more than a few steps back and honestly come to grips with who I am, who I want to be in the future, and what I believe in. 

Who I am.  I always thought of myself as this dominant kind of woman that knew what she wanted and actively pursued her interests.  Well, the joke was on me!  While my intelligence, creativity, and mindfulness are cornerstones of my personality, I have come to realize that I have lied to myself for a very long time about what my core is.  I have been forcing myself, even as a young child, to try to fit into the mold that those around me wanted for me, needed me to be for themselves, instead of listening to myself and allowing me to just be, well, me.  As I make the adjustments I am like one tweaking the old fashioned radio dial where one had to carefully and slowly twist the dial left and right until the incoming signal was as clear as possible.  Sometimes I overcompensate and sometimes I under compensate but for all of the travail I am more at peace than I ever can remember feeling.  I no longer experience the undercurrent of anxiety of round hole square peg.

Who I want to be in the future.  I think I now have a pretty good idea of who I really am.  It's tough being honest with oneself.  It's also tough turning off those old autopilots and scripts.  Reacting instead of stopping, thinking, and assessing is much easier but it will only keep one on the merry-go-round.  Up and down and up and down.  I wanted off.  I needed off.  It's scary out here but the scenery is much more interesting.

What I believe in.  I always believed in God.  I was born a Jew, freshman year in college I learned about Jesus and believed in Him, and am now reading up on Buddhism.  I am leaning more towards a Higher Power and/or Creator of the Universe than what some call God, some call Jesus, others call Allah......I could go on and on with the names humanity has given to this Power.  I believe it exists, I'm just not sure what and/or who it is exactly.  I'm not all that worried about labeling it.  I'm just learning.  Once again, I am at peace.

So, I guess I'll be writing more about this journey as I walk it.  It can be painful at times but it has also brought me much joy and freedom.