Impulse
Notes from A Seasoned Woman
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I am living on the razor’s edge between success and failure, adulation and humiliation — between justifying my existence and revealing my unworthiness to be alive. — Steve Strossel
Me, too. I feel like I’ve been walking the same wire for months now. A constant battle between logic and instinct, between taking risks and sitting safely on my couch. Sometimes I’m drowning in excitement about planning my Gap Year at 60 — and sometimes I’m just drowning.
Then Friday morning something happened — something so small that I almost didn’t notice it — to reset my internal compass.
I pulled up to the bank, and wonder of wonders, there was a parking spot right in front. I zipped my car in and hopped myself out, gleeful that the Parking Gods had finally forgiven me. Then a rogue thought popped into my head … you’re parked awfully close to that driveway, don’t you think?
I paused. Debated. I’d only be in the bank 10 minutes, tops. Damn it! I jumped back in the car and found another spot two blocks away, and walked all the way back.
As I reached the bank, a Fed Ex truck rumbled up the street and braked to turn into the driveway.
An SUV coming up behind slammed into the truck.
The truck lurched wildly and drifted to a stop … right in the spot where my car would have been.
A last-minute decision, based on nothing but a feeling, that turned out to be exactly right.
A few weeks ago I started taking sailing lessons (because I’m having this recurring hallucination that I want to solo sail in the Caribbean), and this is what my instructor yells when I’m struggling to remember the 9,000 things I have to do —
Stop thinking! Feel.
Why do I keep forgetting this? To trust how I feel. It’s proven more far reliable than what I think I know.
I’m listening to my impulses this week. Hope you’re doing the same :-).
Stories up this week on A Seasoned Woman:
My Salad Days — I Can Be Old and Cool, Right?
From One Binge Writer to Another — Here’s a Foolproof Cure for a (Writing) Hangover
Spirituality — And God Said … You Are Mine! And I Said … Dude. WHAT?
Cool stuff I read recently:
James Finn rounds up love, activism and joy in If It’s June, It Must Be Pride!
A simple touch may be all we need. Megan Minutillo’s Color of Dignity
GE McKerrihan’s soul is thinking and dreaming, and he’s letting us watch in A Soul Cannot Think Without a Picture.
