COMFORT OPENS YOU LIKE THE PETALS OF A BEAUTIFUL FLOWER

Have you ever thought about how much better you feel when you comfort yourself?  Ladies love to curl up in a soft, yummy blanket and read a good book, and perhaps reach, guiltlessly, for a piece of chocolate or two.  The peace in a home where you can do that is rare. So you have to take it as you can find it.  Or in some cases you have to escape to an island.  As I write this all of my dogs are barking, a fax is coming in and the morning is brand new and the doorbell is ringing. 

I wanted to sit and read a new book I had gotten yesterday.  Of course Military Working Dog related, but nonetheless, comforting to sit in quiet and read!  Something I love to do and seldom do I have the chance to indulge myself with this luxury. 

"Comfort heals.  It brings joy to the spirit.  Comfort renews power, vitality.  Comfort opens you up like the sun unfolds the petals of a fragrant and beautiful flower.  Simply put, comfort will make you and those around you happy." ~ Melody Beattie

Remember when you were young and skinned your knee or had a splinter in your finger?  You most likely would run crying to your mother or grandmother for comfort.  Now who do you run to when you have a bruised ego or hurt feelings?  We are supposed to be strong, composed, in control, in charge.  But sometimes we just aren't, and it is just not possible to imagine we could be this way all of the time.  Maybe outwardly we try, but inwardly we are breaking.

I suppose the hard part for me is to ask for comfort, to find time to allow myself this indulgence, to fall asleep on the sofa with a blanket wrapped around me with the soft breathing of my dogs, as the only background noise audible.  When you allow you to comfort yourself or others to do so, don't you find you feel renewed and the stress and anxiety you are laden with creeps out the door and leaves you to feel like the real you once again?  Not the exhausted, depleted you.

Until I read Melody Beattie's quote above did I realize that what everyone has been saying forever 'that if you don't take care of you, you can't take care of anyone else', really is true.  So yes, I get it, if I am happy most likely those around me will be happy.

This said, next week I am heading to the island once again.  The place where I find healing, and peace, and joy, and relaxation and the ability to inhale all the way to my abdomen.  I will sit and watch movies, walk on the beach, search for shells and find broken ones that somehow remind me of the brokeness in all of us.  I will go to the island seafood store for the day's catch and indulge in the best and freshest fish anywhere, as I prepare it with a butter, garlic, lemon and white wine reduction before dusting it with fresh minced parsley.  I will go to the Island Food Store, which is the size of the entry at a super plus supermarket back home.  I will cherish the simplicity of this oasis where you can find anything and everything you need without hiking miles and aisles to find it.  I will absorb the local color and go into shops with glitter and confetti on the floor and a bubble machine outside next to a pepto bismol colored car.  I will search for paw prints in the sand and remember the comfort of walking with one of my dogs by my side and my mission and purpose on this planet.  I will ask for the ability to remain steadfast in my journey.

I will in these days find the ability to remember who I am and what my purpose is and hopefully shed some of the barnacles of anxiety that cause my rampant panic and vertigo attacks.  I will pamper myself, I will comfort myself.  I will renew myself and come home rested and peaceful and smiling. I will begin writing a book I feel compelled to write (# 56).  I will fall in love with life once again and remember how to dance on the edge of each day and yell 'watch out below' as I recall what it is like to once again feel comforted.

I wish you peace.