Comfort and Questions

Today is one of those red-letter days.  I will be taking another giant step (it is to be hoped) in my journey toward the next phase of my business life.  This is a journey I have embarked upon reluctantly and with the bare minimum of zeal needed to inch me toward the goal.  I have no doubt the café experience scarred me for life when it comes to having confidence in my own ability to make wise and well-considered decisions.  This crisis of self-confidence makes me seek out any excuse NOT to do the things that need to be done.  Or that I THINK need to be done.  Because I’m never sure if I’ve correctly assessed that they need to be done at all.  And so, when I am not completely paralyzed by self-doubt, I am inching forward at a glacial pace.

When I come to one of these days where I am absolutely forced to move forward more than the most minuscule toe stretch, I find I often turn to the Universe and try to hide my head in her robes. “Don’t make me do this.  I can’t do this.  I’m afraid.”

And the Universe unerringly comes up with a wise reply.  Usually this reply comes completely out of left field, but is immediately obvious that it is THE thing to grasp…rather than retaining a death grip on my doubts and fears.

In the back of my mind, these days, are the things I’ve always wanted…things that I thought we would have by now, having worked all our lives and nearing retirement.  Things that it looks, now, as if we will never have.  Like a trip to Europe.  A beach house.  A paid-off mortgage. A car that is less than ten years old. The possibility of actually being ABLE to retire. 

I think of these things, and I get angry.  I want to know why we can’t have these things.  What have we done wrong that we are facing an uncertain financial future at this stage of our lives, rather than coasting through the last few years of feathering our nest before retiring to it in peace and plenty?  I look at the things that other people have, like mansions and private islands and $150k designer cars and 3000 square foot “cabins” in the woods, and I think, “Why can’t we have a few small luxuries in our autumn years?”  Instead, I’m almost sixty years old and making my half-blind way toward a small business venture which will probably do little more than give me something to think about besides the fact that we are chronically broke. 

This morning, I ran to the Universe with my sage and my crystals and my arms up over my head in a panic, all these issues—present and future—weighing too heavily to bear alone.  I wanted to demand of her why I couldn’t have the nice things I would like to have, at this stage of my life.  I didn’t have to form the words, or even the thought, before the Universe conveyed her answer.  It went something like this:

Look at your life and you will see that I have provided what you need.  Understand that.  Be content with that.  Perhaps you will also get some of what you want.  But there are no guarantees in that direction…   

Hmmm.  I’m not really sure where to take this ball, now that it has been shot back into my court.  I don’t think it’s a crime to want things.  But I can’t become embittered if I don’t get what I want.  If I define what I need, I’m pretty sure I’ll find I already have most of those things.  On the other hand, if I ever stop working toward something, I might as well not bother getting out of bed.

Comfort…and more questions.  Happens every time I open myself to the counsel of the Universe…