Lately my days are full of humble pie. Two-slice Hilly humble pie. Well, maybe not totally, because Hilly ate two slices because it still tasted good. My pie doesn't taste good. Like last night one of our dogs gorged herself in order to be a bully to the puppy and eat all her food. And then it all came up again. And when I went to clean it up, first I had to tell the other dogs not to eat it and then I also had to tell the cats. But I myself, I was gagging at the smell alone. Now imagine eating something that smells like that and invokes an internal reflex like the gag reflex. That is how my pie tastes. So I'm kind of over the daily dose.
Here's the thing I know that I don't want to know. Or don't like, or it makes me so uncomfortable I go into avoidance mode (Ostrich mode: head in the sand mode; run away mode; geographical fix mode). I am at the center of all of actions, shitty ones and not-so-shitty ones. And until I actually eat the humble pie and choke it down and keep it down and learn the freaking lesson, I will continue to endure humiliation. over and over and over. and over.
(insert disclaimer here >>) So I started this a couple weeks ago already. But being plagued with a plethora of shortcomings, I have managed to enthusiastically avoid coming back to it. And then again, much has changed since beginning this post. The shit pie I was talking about largely had to do with my constant compulsion to over-share. I even know that the consequences could be big and I could be overwhelmed with humiliation and shame and regret. But as you know (or maybe you don't), compulsions don't easily succumb to reason. So then I have an overwhelming compulsion to over-share, knowing the end result could be disastrous is not enough to control the urge. I don't know about anyone else, but I have found that regret tastes similar to humble pie. It is not as bitter going down, but the bitter aftertaste lingers and seeps into all the flavors around it.
I want to tell you about all the lessons I've learned and the wisdom that I've gained through over-sharing my elephant with you. But the truth is, that bitter aftertaste, well, it leaves me shuffling off into the nothingness to wallow alone and to bask in my self-pity.
On the surface level of the problem, the actual no-money-no-job-no-insurance level, many have reached out and offered assistance through prayer, through resources, through ca$h (let's be honest, that is probably my favorite kind of assistance/connection), through hooking me up with what has been deemed "social capital" (it's not what you know, it's WHO you know), through caring words, through thoughts and prayers and even fund-raising. These have not cured what ails me. Because let's be honest, what ails me lives inside of me.
What these gestures have done though, is give me hope. Like a tiny seedling struggling to take root, it has brought the tiniest glimpse of hope to me and it is continuing to grow into a vining, green plant of hope, with blossoms that are beginning to open and beauty that is seen by fresh eyes... seeing the color seep into the gray and color my world.
What all of this has done is give me hope. God promises that if we have faith the size of a grain of a mustard seed, we will see it grow. That is how I feel about this hope. It is many tiniest of actions that bond together and form something formidable and real. A big, bright, ball of hope that is not to be discounted or discarded.
The update about the Hippie Chick Farm. She is going to make it. My one last-ditch effort to find a solution, to stop the hemorrhaging, was a bust. Hopeless. I felt hopeless. This was on the morning of the Friday before the Tuesday when the sale was scheduled. So three days to get my hopelessness under control (I'd just as soon see her run over by a train), find hope and a solution, present said solution to the lawyer in the suit and get the sale cancelled.
However, this last idea that I had to gain a shred of hope, the free consultation with a bankruptcy lawyer, was summed up by him saying that he could not help me. But what he did was stay on the line for the rest of the 30 minute consultation and spit-ball ideas. And I/we came across an idea that had not come to me before. Or let me say, if someone suggested it earlier in the game, I did not hear it. Know how it is that you cannot hear some things no matter how clearly they are presented? But for whatever reason, this resonated. Loudly. I did some checking and low-and-behold this idea would get me out of hot water. So I called the lawyer, who could not commit to an answer, but called his client, and called back with the final outcome being that we reached a solution and the sale has been cancelled.
Today, the shortest day of the year, Winter Solstice, is a day I will bask in hope and I will reap the joy that lies within the smallest glimmers of hope that friends and my community bestow upon me. And low and behold, I know the days of sun will begin to get longer. Not just in the sky and view that I love so much from my farm, but in my heart as well. Seems a fitting analogy. Today I will respect the cold, dark depth of the Winter Solstice, but I will look forward with hope, knowing the days of sun will continue to grow.
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