A TENTATIVE LIFE

Following my internal conversation yesterday about trying to lighten up, as often happens, I’ve automatically snapped back in the other direction towards seriousness.

Ever since my heart operations I’ve had a tentative feeling about life. It’s not that I’m feeling morose or anything like that. The tentative feeling is more of a subtext to my life—something sitting just beneath the surface. But it’s a feeling that is most definitely there.

As a result, I think I am suddenly acting on things that I’d been putting off for years when I thought there was no end to time. I’m acting more quickly—as if doing what needs to be done is suddenly a matter of urgency.

I’m moving with my family across country to a kinder, gentler, and cheaper place. I’m making plans—literally—for a house I’ve always wanted to build. A simple place on a hill with a view, to be built of natural materials only, wood and stone and very little paint. There are some other projects that I’m going ahead with but not yet ready to talk about.

The point is that all the things I’ve been putting off for years, I am now making plans to do. I’ve got no timetable other than to do them NOW. I’m finding all the old excuses like "not having the money" or "taking on too much at once" are just fading away. In fact, it seems that the bolder I am about my plans, the quicker they seem to be fulfilling themselves.

This is a good test of what I’ve been practicing for some time--having faith in my Higher Power. As I found myself telling my friend Randy Durband at lunch the other day, it is when we actually EXPECT things to happen that they do. To me, expecting something to happen is the best sign for me that I’m trusting in God or in Nature to get things done. God or Nature are far more powerful than I am. What I’m doing is what some call, "letting go and letting God."

So in the end this tentative feeling I have is serving me well. I won’t be around forever, so for the time I’m here, I'm using it.