Humility

It has been a long time: a phrase that works in several areas of my life.  Since I've written here (which, at one point, seemed moot), since I worked on my novel, since I really settled down and talked to God, no holds barred.  Since my dad was sober all day, since I was nice or attempted to make eye contact with strangers regardless of my mood, since I felt happy consistently.  

None of this is because I have trouble in my life; in fact, God has so richly blessed me that I often don't understand it.  I think I'm in the habit of being serious, an affliction I've had since birth.  Nothing was ever funny.  Anyway, I must have accidently been willed or delivered someone else's gifts, someone better's job (and students), friends, relatives, co-workers, boyfriend, children (in no particular order).  I just don't get it; I think I forget to smile, forget that work is just work and that is ordinary for lots of people, that my friends will either understand or they won't, that it is not my job to police the universe, that missing someone is part of loving them, that respect is something that is earned and paid, like money but infinitely more valuable, that it is okay for me to age (a big issue for any woman in this country), that I can laugh and not worry if there is food in my teeth or if I look ugly, that the distance I feel between my sons and me when I first see them after being with their dad is a part of the suffering we all still experience because I broke up my family, that I'm a thousand times better a mom and person since I did, that I can have perfect confidence that things will always be okay because they always are (but that is the hardest thing to remember), that God has a plan for me and Todd and my boys and even their dad, even my brother the meth addict, that any time I'm willing to say "I don't know," I am opening myself to life, that I really don't have to be perfect in any way to be lovable, that attempting to live according to my true beliefs is a worthy and difficult goal, that worrying that I won't always be able to keep all the balls in the air keeps me humble and clear in my understanding that I cannot make it without lots of help from all the people God uses to reach me in my incredible stubbornness. 

All I can say is, in the words of Anne Lamott, "Thank You, thank You, thank You."  All is as it should be - shalom.