I had a long talk and a long walk with a friend last night. It was good for my body and mostly my soul. I’m finding myself craving more people I can speak freely to. People I can see in my presence and not over a screen. People who we don’t run into the restraints of time and distance. They are such real, painful, hard obstacles in this season of life. I miss freedom from COVID, whatever that means.
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My favorite podcast is by one of my favorite writers, Emily P. Freeman, and it’s called The Next Right Thing. In one episode, don’t ask me which one, she says we make about 35,000 choices in a single day. Wait… what? My mind still can’t process that. It’s too big a number for a single day. It sits right though.
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This shirt or that.
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Shoes or flip flops.
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Toast or a bagel.
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Answer the text or don’t.
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Switch the laundry or sit and read.
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On and on and on.
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And on.
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We are in an endless battle of choices.
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Why are some that much harder than others? Well… because if I let the laundry sit an hour more it might smell a little funky but I can rewash them. If I say the hard thing to my friend I might ruin the relationship. It’s tricky.
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Life.
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The important ones have bearing on our lives for more than a moment or a day. The significant ones have more impact on other people in our lives. The vital decisions are, well, vital to make right.
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Right?
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I’ve talked about being an Enneagram One. I really like things to be right, wrong, black, white, and the more I travel down this path of life, the more I realize stuff is just sort of gray. It’s annoying. I want to be right. Hell, I want to be wrong if it means there is a right and wrong. Some days I want someone to tell me I screwed it all up, did it all wrong, here’s the playbook for Right. It doesn’t work that way.
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The last time my friend and I went on a walk a doe and two fawns crossed the path right in front of us. They were beautiful. Wild. Free. They felt tame and wonderful. It felt as though I could reach out and touch them. But I wouldn’t have tried. I know better than to reach out and touch a wild animal. They’re unpredictable. You could find yourself seriously injured by such a silly move. We stood at a safe distance and took a few pictures. We mostly just reveled in the moment.
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Steady.
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I hadn’t felt steady in years. I’d tried to be okay in the unpredictable. I tried to be a good wife and do the best I could with what I was given. In the end I had to walk away. In the moment it felt like reaching out and touching a wild doe, I could get kicked at any moment, but in the end I see I walked away from what was hurting me. I walked straight for the thing that kept me steady. The thing that had helped me see a new perspective for years.
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It could have been the wrong choice.
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I could have hurt everyone.
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I could have regretted it.
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I could have done it better.
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I did it in a messed up, complicated, hard way.
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There was no other way.
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Everyone was hurt before. Everyone hurt after. Staying wasn’t going to bring me healing. Walking away was. I needed to feel not just steady in my faith, holding on to Jesus with a tight fist, I needed calm in my everyday moments. I needed to see a face at the end of the day that brought me back to center.