You Know You’re in Trouble When…

When your bi-annual dental cleaning is the most relaxing part of your week, you know you’re in trouble. It seems that just when I am really taking life in stride, rolling with the punches, focusing on the journey, the process, trying to be really Zen about the chaos of life, that is when the universe decides to throw all its S#@* at the proverbial fan. Like I just can’t get a break until I admit that I cannot effectively keep my cool through all of the day’s trials.

Not until I am literally screaming at the car seat that won’t come out of my car, watching a new feast of nuts, dried fruit and crusty cheese shower onto my just-vacuumed car carpet, being honked at by a stream of fast-moving cars, ignoring my hazard lights as they flash desperately and silently as I curse through gritted teeth, tears stinging my eyes, will the universe take its big foot off my head and let me get off the dirt.

I know I’m not the first person to have a hard day, to share a car with her husband, to be stuck in traffic, to have too many things to do at once, to have unprofessional professionals poorly executing a huge project in my house, or to have a flu-ish toddler who is giving up her nap. But knowing that I am in good, hardworking company only comforts me so much.

I have been putting a lot of stock in positive affirmations lately. I believe very strongly in visualization, the power of positive thinking. So I have been repeating, chanting, writing phrases that I hear and appreciate. One that I like a lot, which I read in Julia Cameron’s The Artists Way is: Life is not an emergency. I say it all the time and try to believe it. It seems the last two weeks my life has become more and more frantic not less. So I have been working to formulate the positive form of this chant, to make it a true affirmation. What life is instead of what life is not.
So here is what I came up with: Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.

Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.
Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.
Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.
Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.
Life is a peaceful walk down a long and beautiful path.
Now I just have to live it.