I live in a house where something is always broken. Right now it's the ice maker, the washer, and the dishwasher. It's very frustrating because I need to have order in my life, but I feel like I constantly live in chaos. At first I thought the house was haunted and then I realized that it's a much simpler problem. Regardless of the cause, it drives me crazy because I feel like everything around me is conspiring to drive me crazy. I don't remember actually praying for serenity, but I must have because everything around me seems to be trying to give me a crash course in Serenity 101. Isn't that the way it works? When you ask for a virtue, the universe gives you situations to test you. That's precisely why I never prayed for patience! I don't want the tests, but I guess they are just part of the process.
I'm pretty easy to please. At least I think so. All I want is to be able to go to any appliance and have it immediately turn on or to walk in a room and not have to pick up something off the floor or put a cup or dish in the sink. I've practiced deep breathing so much that I'm about to hyperventilate. I pray and meditate each morning and I do a daily devotional. I run and do yoga and on less evolved days I scream at my family. I've reminded my husband that said items aren't working properly until I'm blue in the face and I've pretty much done everything I know to do, but there is one thing I haven't tried. I haven't just accepted things. Yes, I want to live in an orderly home, but that's not my reality. My reality is I live in a chaotic world and I have a messy, but loving family. My life is not an organized, neatly ordered museum although I want it to be. I can't control anyone or anything other than myself. Tomorrow I can call a handyman and have him come and fix those things that are broken or I can just wait until my husband gets around to fixing them because eventually he will. I can also walk around the little messes my family leaves behind. My personality wants to immediately fix things, but isn't that what others expect? Why do they need to do their part when they know I'm going to do it for them?
As I sit here writing this, I see several items that need to be returned to the kitchen and the washer is leaking onto the freshly mopped floor, but I'm not going to get angry nor am I going to get up. I'm going to continue to write and sip Lady Gray tea from my favorite mug. I'm also going to enjoy these Chai cookies that are calling my name. If this house comes crashing down around me, so be it because I'll be at peace. Oh my, maybe I am actually learning serenity.
Just now my daughter Lyndsay came behind me and started braiding my hair. Feeling her fingers move deftly through my hair is relaxing and feeling her kiss on my cheek is priceless. I guess it doesn't really matter that she's left her dirty clothes on the bedroom floor and an empty carton of Chunky Monkey ice cream on the table. Maybe the lesson is finding little pockets of peace in the midst of the chaos.
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