2020-12-06 — What’s the Word?

I’m feeling… I can’t think of the word. I’m pensive, for sure. But… perhaps… sorrowful? Regretful?

I don’t know.

Lots of thoughts right now. My finger is healing, but there’s something that’s not right–at all. I’m hoping that it’ll resolve itself, but I’m also concerned it won’t. The flesh is now almost completely healed, but it’s still quite swollen, and it hurts, a lot, to try to bend it even 90 degrees, like there’s something in the way, keeping my knuckle from being able to bend. In addition to that, my knuckle seems to be missing. Well… half of it. And that half seems to have migrated a quarter of an inch up my finger toward my hand. When I try and bend my finger, there’s a big bulge, on one side, as if it were my knuckle, and where the knuckle is supposed to be, at least on one side, there’s, well, a valley or whatever you want to call it.

So… I’m a little nervous. I’ve been thinking of it as a miracle more wasn’t damaged, but I’m starting maybe see the writing on the wall? Chainsaw across the knuckle… as deep as it was… how is something important not destroyed. So… I’m hopeful but also concerned.

So why sorrowful? Why regretful? I have this body that, though it does have a number of issues that cause pain and discomfort, still works remarkably well. And I’ve taken it for granted. A lot. I risk it’s safety and its health being careless or lazy. I never should have risked doing with the chainsaw what I was doing. I risk my physical safety fairly regularly, honestly, and right now I’m feeling ungrateful, sorrowful, and… motivated to do better. Perhaps if my finger really is screwed up it will be a lifelong reminder to me to be grateful for what I have that many others have never had or don’t have anymore, etc.

It’s not a down-on-myself feeling, but sort of a call to wake up and be grateful and to take care of myself, so that I can use the health and capacity that I do have to be a blessing to others instead of being so careless, thoughtless, and ungrateful.

Anyway… yeah… so there’s that.

I’m also feeling a little anxious about my future. Sad. Anxious. Waiting for some things I have no control over, hoping I’m on the right track, a little afraid that I’m not, but trying to keep trusting.

I’ve also been educating myself a little more about the animal/animal products business. I watched a documentary that I felt like was really tastefully done and that I liked quite a bit. I highly recommend it. It’s linked below if you’re interested. If not, no worries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlIqhI3xPFc

I’m cognizant of the fact that my changes in perspectives are my own, and though I’m excited about them, want to share them, and am grateful for what I feel like is growth in the form of the expansion of my heart and capacity to love and feel compassion and concern, I also feel like it’s important to respect and honor those whose views are different than mine, even if I disagree with them, perhaps significantly.

It’s easy to view oneself as enlightened, and it’s easy to feel like other people should “see the light” because, well, for heaven’s sake, I have, so you should, too.” But I think that can be arrogant on multiple counts, and can lead to a lack of the very compassion and patience and love that we’re pleading for.

Balance.

And… real love. When injustice and abuse is done, real love isn’t angry: It’s sad. That’s my opinion, anyway. It’s sad for the victim for what they must suffer. It’s sad for the perpetrator, for the joy they miss out on being the way the are and doing the things that they do.

That’s a terse example, but hopefully gives a decent idea of what I’m trying to communicate. I’m late for bed yet again. Not sure how that happened. I was about to start writing my entry at 5 something this evening, and now here I am after 10 again.

Why do I struggle so much to get back in the groove? I was doing so well. It’s a lesson for me, yet another, to remind me how easy it is for me to slip out of the routines that are so valuable to me. I’ve been out for probably three weeks now? And it’s definitely taken a toll on me.

Ugh… sorry. Not trying to be a downer today.

#1. I’m grateful for the feelings I have right now that are pushing me to be more grateful for what I have and to take care of it. May I ever hold that perspective.

#2. I’m grateful that I still have my finger, regardless of what ends up being the final state of it. I am able to type this journal entry with only minimal pain using that damaged finger.

#3. I’m grateful for my “new” bed. I’ve realized that the weird neck pain that I’ve had when tilting my head all the way back as if to look at the stars, that pain is gone, and it went away when I got the bed (granted, I was also using that whatchamcallit muscle stimulator device, too, which i haven’t used in weeks now, but the neck issue remains gone, whereas while using that thingy, I could get it to go away temporarily, but I’d wake up with the issue every morning.

#4. I’m grateful that I was able to take a long nap today–something like 2 1/2 hours.

#5. I’m grateful for simple inventions like fingernail clippers.

#6. I’m grateful to face the challenges that help to humble me and mold me into a softer, more gentle person, closer and closer to the person I ultimately want to become.

Thought of the Day: “If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.”
― Abraham Lincoln

Lift the World.

~ stephen