It's Valentine's Day and I'm stuck in my house, all but bed ridden, with an enormous hole in my leg so deep that you could stick your fingers into that bad boy knuckles deep.
How it happened is anyone's guess, I was mowing the lawn when something shot out and I was struck by what the French call a certain I don't know what. The day was off to a miserable start already, I had just been turned down for a job that I had really wanted, only for this to happen. As I lay on my bathroom floor with no health insurance, bleeding everywhere and slipping into shock, a strange haze and darkness taking over me, my last thoughts were on the ever easy negatives... "why me?", "how does this even happen?"
Honestly, "man killed mowing lawn" is something you hear on Stupid News....
And then my wife threw freezing cold water over me, and I instantly snapped to attention, back from that bad place I was falling into.
So today is Valentine's day and I'm hobbled. I don't know how I'm going to give my wife her gift, if you know what I'm saying....
You Stole my Mojo!
And here is where you come in, and why I'm writing, why I'm talking to you.....
There will no doubt be tons of things flying around today about the horror's of Valentine's, scores of lonely souls crying out "Why ME?", just as the picture below suggests. And I can't say that I blame you, while I don't think we celebrate nearly enough in life and as such, should have MORE holidays rather than less, Valentine's Day is nothing more than a greeting card holiday, one trumped up to guilt trip you and apply social pressure into spending money you don't have on things you don't need to do something you should be doing every single day for your loved ones anyway; showing them how you feel about them.
And let's face it, 364 days a year you treat your lover like part of the furniture and a box of candy is supposed to reverse it? Not likely.
What it DOES do is make lonely people feel all the more so, pulling their focus on to just how lonely they are. So yes, generally I'm against the holiday. When you love someone, every day should be Valentine's Day.
But despite every single word listed above, I am in no way shape or form in a negative mood. Not at all. Not one bit. My spirits are currently higher than they've been in some time, and the reason is the point of what I write to you today, the message of love I give you as my Valentine....
Late last night, stuck on the couch with no way of going anywhere or doing anything, my wife and I watched
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. While it's a sad movie, the messages there couldn't have been clearer, and I'm a full on believer of Universe sending you the messages you need, when you need them, and from the oddest places..... if you listen closely.
There's a brilliant sequence in the film that shows, better than any other I've seen, how a series of small seemingly random things can coalesce into huge, sometimes catastrophic events in our lives. And that's how the Universe works, how things are brought into being. And while the film shows how much sadness there can be in life, how much pain, disappointment, missed opportunities, it also makes it very clear that it's precisely those pains that show us what's important, how we tell how very good things are when they're very good. So we must learn to embrace these hard times and events, and use them to help us focus on what's important, on what we're grateful we DO have.
So I had a freak thing happen to me and got really badly hurt mowing the lawn, but I'm lucky enough to live in a place where the weather is beautiful enough to do so in February. My friends snowed in in the North East would LOVE that about now.
So I'm hobbled by a chasm in my leg large enough to throw coins in and make a wish, but a few inches one way and what ever did the damage would have torn through my tendon, a few inches the other and it would have completely destroyed my knee cap. Had either of those happened I'd be on the shelf for six months followed by toms of physical therapy, instead, I was hit in the one and only spot I could have been that wouldn't do any real, lasting damage.
I can't give my wife the night she deserves tonight, but I have a beautiful woman who loves me enough to take care of me when I can't take care of myself.
your focus determines your reality
The message here, and one I needed very much to be reminded of, is that what we choose to focus our thoughts, our minds, our energy, our emotions on, is precisely what the Universe continually brings to us. But you have so much more than just that dark side, so much to be positive about; to be thankful for. There's so much for us to love. All of us do. Everyone one, and you do too. You just have to remember what it is, and often it can be the worst things that happen to us that remind us of what they are. So when you ask, "why did this happen?" or "why me?".... well there's your answer.
As I went to bed the sudden thought, fear, came into my head, which is very understandable and easy to happen at times like this.... "what if I bleed out, what if I don't wake up in the morning?"
Towards the end of the film, Benjamin Button, who is rapidly growing young, looks at his daughter and makes the hard decision, "She's going to need a father", and so leaves.... and at that moment before bed I thought of that little girl, and I thought of my own little girl..... and I answered my own question. "I have to wake up, my little girl needs her father."
My Daughter
I think about all the inconsequential things that I allow myself to get wrapped up in, that I allow to throw me off course, something we all do; I think about myself lying on the bathroom floor bleeding, going into shock; And then I think about my wife and my daughter, and the people that I HAVE made positive impacts on in my life, and what it would mean in real world terms if I wouldn't be here any more..... and it all comes clearly into focus, and the nonsense melts away. I realize my importance, my significance, and I'm happy again. In fact, I couldn't be happier.
And you can too.
You IS kind....
You IS smart....
You IS important....
You just have to think about it, and refocus.
And no, you can't date my daughter, lol.
Happy Valentine's Day!
