What Could Have Been, or Sliding Doors

After a great day antiquing and having lunch in the city, I was watching tv with my husband and relaxing on the couch.  The heat had been an almost record high of 114 degrees so we were both exhausted.  My husband decided to go up to bed and I wanted to watch the rest of House Hunters International about a family moving to the south of France , I love France.  At eleven the show ended and the next House Hunters looked boring. I turned off the tv, checked email and facebook. I thought about falling asleep on the couch because it seemed too much to get up and go to bed.  Instead I went upstairs to bed.




  Probably 20 minutes later, as I was dozing off  a loud crash caused me to sit up faster than I could say "what's that?"   I thought  maybe someone tried to get in the house by breaking our glass patio door.  Phil said the cat might have knocked down our glass lamp in the living room.  On the way downstairs we saw the source of the crash.  A mirror about five feet long and four feet high had slid down the wall, toppled over and  shards of mirror were all over the couch.

The back of the mirror was facing the ceiling as it was lying on the couch.  The top part of the mirror had hit the coffee table and caused it to slide a bit.  I was concerned about my computer which had been on the coffee table.  I didn't think it could have survived the accident, but there it was.  It had fallen off the table and onto  the floor.  I figured the screen was probably shattered but when I opened it, it was all in one piece....thank God! Computers are expensive.

Then it occurred to me that I could have been on the couch, that I WOULD  have been on that couch had I decided to go with plan A for the night. I couldn't shake the thought and knew that God probably sent his angels to hold the mirror up until I was gone.  The mirror had been on that wall for almost five months without a problem.  We checked the screw the mirror was hanging from and it was still tight with no signs of failing.It was the frame that the wire for holding it up was attached to that broke.  Phil and I have no idea why, last night, it decided to break.  There doesn't seem to be a logical reason.  If you have any ideas, please feel welcome to share them with me.

 I  couldnt stop thinking about how my life would have been  different had I stayed on the couch.  Perhaps  I would have been killed.  As I surveyed the damages the sharp broken glass made  me wonder.  All of the pieces; big, medium sized and small   looked like knives.  I wondered how the leather couch was underneath the edges and points of broken mirror.  Fortunately there were no rips.

Both Phil and I were processing it all, saying things like, "Oh my dear God,  dear God!!! And of course I said "thank you God" more than a few times.    Did you ever see the movie "Sliding Doors" with Gwenth Paltrow?  I kept thinking of that. 


"'Sliding Doors', is a great look at how quickly a person's life can change in a matter of moments. By taking one path instead of another, forming a tantalizing 'what if?' In fact this movie gives the impression that some things are meant to be known, while some things are not." (quote from IMDb moving internet review site)

Well, for about an hour I kept thinking about the "what if".  I could almost see me lying there on the couch as the accident happened.(The next few sentences are not for those who feel faint at the sight of blood and gore.)  I saw the shards of glass.  But instead of being all over the couch, they were all over ME on the couch. They were stuck in my body in some places and other places lying on my body.  The wooden edge of the mirror left my lying there, blood pouring out of me in  so many parts of my poor, broken body, probably unconscious...(Although Phil really thinks I would have been aware and screaming and that would have caused him to wake up.  I think he would have slept through the whole thing.  And if the accident didn't kill me, loss of blood would have because he would have slept through the whole ordeal.  Just my thoughts.) The thought did occur to me, by the way the  glass broke as it  landed on the couch, that one of those knife-like pieces could have just cut my jugular.



Phil and I just sort of sat there in a daze for a few minutes and took it all in.  We decided to clean up in the morning as the mirror frame was pretty heavy and it would take longer than the usual clean up.  Back in bed I kept seeing the "me" if I would have made the choice to stay on the couch.  At one point I imagined, "Maybe this is a near death experience...or maybe I'm really dead.  Maybe I'm really lying in a hopital somewhere and I'm dreaming that I'm okay." You know, it's like "is this a dream, or is the dream dreaming us."

If I am in a dream, this is my main dream and I'm okay and I'm convinced that God sent angels to help me.  I'm convinced there are probably so many moments like these in our lives where God has protected us and most of the time we don't even have a clue.  You know, the auto accidents that could have been, the downed airplanes that missed tragedy by someone's choice to go back and check that thing that didn't seem right. Whatever, I am convinced that I am loved, and for the most part, protected (until it's my time to die) by a good and loving God who has not only his son, but minions of angels who are good, and who help.

I also realize that some people do have tragedies and wonder why. I too wonder why.  These are the mysteries we'll never figure out in this life. I wish I knew.



 I am so grateful.  I am grateful that I'm alive.  I am grateful that glass didn't rip through my body last night and cause me an undue amount of pain.  Saying that, I'm off to the gym to take care of this body that is whole, uncut and serves me well. Thanks be to God!

the fear

Sooo, this blog may not be the most encouraging, but I will be open and vulnerable.  I am afraid as hell of being fat.  I know!  Some may judge me, some may sympathize with me and some may relate way too closely.  But it's true.  I don't think I"m afraid of anything as much as I'm afraid of being fat.  You see, I was once...and it stole my whole identity.  At first, because it was easy, I believed that I was fat because I was just greedy.  Now I know better.  I realized so much about the reasons why I was fat and a lot of it was based on Freud's theory of the oral stage one can get caught in.  I'm not going into that just now though.  Yet sorry Sigmund, it was also so much more.

        

You must remember though, that this blog is about me, not you.  It's about MY reasons and ponderings, not yours.  So there ya have it.  And my reasons are still not so clear.  And still I go back to this voice inside my head that says I'm just greedy etc etc.  Tell me to walk over hot coals, tell me to have mice crawl across my body, tell me to face one of my biggest fears that I feel I have control over, but don't tell me I'll get fat.  That scares the total hell out of me and makes me want to curl up in the fetal postion and die, yes, die. (Don't judge me, it could happen to you.)  It's a scary and horrible thing to be totally and wholly uncomfortable in your own skin.  Should I just be happy that I am healthy?  Well of course!! What an understatement...But I'm not.  And that's the fact of it.  You can't change me.  If I can't change me, you sure can't. 



My father used to say, "You're the pretty one."  Wow...that's a hard one to live up to when you're closing in on 60 and still feel like 30 and want to be the prettiest one in the gym.  It probably just won't happen. Or will it?  I still have this sort of  unreasonable hope in me that I will be...I'll be prom queen, you wait and see.




Our desires and our personal demons are complex and sometimes, in some, they are not even evident because of denial.  I'm not in denial and I know my fears.  It occured to me that my fear of fat is bigger than I think I realized.  As I get older I sort of see the battle between our fears and our loves more clearly.  I am not an island and I can not do this on my own.  I've had many great helpers.  My counselor (I love you Mary) was a huge instrument in a healing that has stayed with me.  My sisters are hugely responsible for always loving me unconditionally.  And of course my God who loves me unconditionally and sent legions of angels to help me.  Well, maybe not legions, but at least one in my opinion.



Still the journey continues and the battles with my self and accepting my own, very real, fear is ongoing.  I'm not an island.  I said that and will say it again.  I have no idea where my fear of this will end up.  My son in law's cousin died of fat this last week.  According to them he sort of gave up on life and had a staff infection in his fat cells.  He was extremely large.  He, according to people I listened to about his life, was an extremely caring person, but he just gave up.  He didn't die of drug overdose, or too much tobacco, he died of an infection in his fat cells.  How sad is that because that was just a cover of his own decision to give up on his own life.  Of not being able to live up to what he thought his life 'should have been'.  Yeah, just my opinion.  But what's yours?

So, I'm open and being very, very candid.  That's my biggest fear.  And there ya have it.

"forget about guns and forget ammuniton
cause I'm killin' them all with my own little mission
Now I'm not a saint and I'm not a sinner
and everything's cool as long as I'm gettin' thinner." Lily Allen

Angels Watching Over Me

Lately I've been thinking a lot about angels. 



So I went to Goodwill and bought a book and it has even furthered my interest. Too much has happened in my little life for me to deny the presence of "other worldly" creatures and experiences; it's also the icing on the cake of my life to know there is just more than what my eyes are able to see.

Unfortunately, there are those that are skeptics and that makes me sad, especially because I wish we could share the same beliefs. 





(Definition of 'skeptic'; . a person who mistrusts people, ideas, etc., in general) In my humble opinion, if an experienc or belief turns towards love and truth, then be open, right?  Not with skeptics.  I have no idea why people are skeptics but maybe it's ego.




(Definition of ego;

the “I” or self of any person; a person as thinking, feeling, and willing, and distinguishing itself from the selves of others and from objects of its thought. ) I really don't have the time or energy to comment a whole lot on that definition, but if you think about it, the ego's main purpose is to "distinguish itself from the selves of others."

 

To believe in angels, according to some people, seems, well, just silly and childish,  only for those who are simple.  At least that's my reasoning of why skeptics are skeptics.  Maybe it's not considered intellectual to believe in other worldly creatures.  Perhaps to believe in angels would just seem a little too....uh.....crazy?  Silly?

 

 

Years ago I lived in Israel on a kibbutz.  My friend and I were trying to get back to the kibbutz on Friday, their Sabboth, when everything in that country totally closes down.  Instead of taking the bus, we made the not so smart decision of taking a ride with a stranger. Unfortunately, he didn't take us back to the kubbutz and we found ourselves in the middle of a desert, on the main road, which then was only two small lanes with no traffic.  We decided to start walking, hoping that a bus or something else would come and rescue us.  When what seemed to be out of no where, a young Arab boy came over the hill walking towards us.  My friend who spoke a little hebrew spoke with him, came back to me and told me that he said if we just stay put, the bus will come and take us to our kibbutz.  Then the boy literally disapeared over the hill..Probably no more thatn 5 minutes later a bus came and took us safely back to the kubbutz where we lived. I do believe he was an angel. 

 

So...let the skeptics doubt and let them live in a boring black and white world. Me?  I believe there are angels watching over me.