THE DOOR

The first week I thought it was allergies.  The first day of the second week I battled with it.  The second day of the second week I succumed, went through the door, and stayed in bed all day. 

I slept and then slept some more.  I read an extraordinarily moving and insightful New York Times bestseller (the Art of Racing in the Rain/Garth Stein) and slept again. 

One friend brought me groceries, one brought lunch, and one ice cream, and another picked up my medicine and brought cough drops - bags and bags of cough drops. 

You see I sometimes feel guilty, if I enjoy anything.  Not that I enjoy being sick mind you, but I am beginning to treasure the rest.  I do know a couple of people who feel guilty if they enjoy anything.  They start to enjoy something and stop dead in their tracks when they realize it.  This is a true self esteem issue.  'I don't deserve to feel good, I don't deserve to have fun, I don't deserve to feel love.'  But I digress. This is their problem not mine.

It isn't so much that I feel guilty as that this is what defines me, my work, my passion, my mission.  These things are why I am on this earth!  And yes, I work too hard, too many hours and rarely play.  What I do is by choice and rarely is my life balanced and most of the time a long way from it. 

And perhaps sometimes when we aren't balanced, what props might remain under us, get knocked out.  I am learning the lesson I share with my soldiers - it takes time. Or so I thought I had learned that lesson until I called the doctor and told the PA I needed 'a deadline.'  I needed the day and the time when I would feel better.  She laughed and simply said, "It has to run its course."

Sometimes we balance, sometimes we don't.  There is no magic formula.  There is no specific date and time to arrive through that door.  Sometimes we break and have to heal, and it will take just as long as it takes.

Hearts break, lives break, and we break, and healing will take take as long as it takes.  Even for those of us who are overly goal oriented.  Or just perhaps, especially for those of us who are goal oriented.

The piles of paper on my desk are growing voluminously - tasks uncompleted and deadlines missed.  So my wanting a formula for passage from this place to the next place through a magic door will happen when it happens.

I missed the point.  I need to be here, right here, right now.  I need to heal.  I need to allow myself this time and be grateful for my angels depositing food on my porch.  And grateful for my own pet therapists surrounding me with their love and their special kind of therapy, watching me, snuggling me close and waiting with me.

So now I start a new book and sleep some more and wait for the next door to open. 

But I am running out of kleenex if anyone drives by my house!

What I have learned is first and foremost I am blessed for my friends. The ones who are here when I need them the most.  The ones who care how I feel, not for what I do. The ones who love me and show it. And I have learned that what is truly important in this life takes time, and patience, and great love.

Kelsie is here at my desk with her warm head resting on my leg - a reminder it is time to get back to the business of healing.

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"I know this much about racing in the rain.  I know it is about balance.  It is about anticipation and patience....but it is also about the mind!  It is about owning one's own body...it is about believing that you are not you; you are everything.  And everything is you."

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein