Knowing What We Know Now

     Ah, that old saying, “If I only knew then what I know now.” What is your ‘knowing’? Mine could make for a long list. But one of the biggest ‘knowing’ for me is, that I would have paced myself in one category.

            Let me inject something to think about first before I reveal my ‘knowing’

Every one of us has the same set of needs shown above. It you are human, alive and breathing –you qualify. The starting point or highest need is at the base. After all, if none of these are being fulfilled, then there is nothing to build the others upon. Breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, (a state of equilibrium-balance) and excretion, I think we can all agree are essential in our lives.

By the second level, security of body, employment, resources, morality, the family, health and property we start to step away from one another. Then friendship, family and sexual intimacy really creates a big divide. Not in the necessity of all of these, but in the variance of degrees we each have them in our lives.

Self–esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, and by others and finally morality, creativity, spontaneity, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts really opens a gap between us as individuals.

Here is the greatest thing I wish I knew then, acceptance of facts.  Oh, my, just writing it makes me want to befriend myself. One other thing I will inject here is something that for years was a running joke between a dear friend and me. In fact she gave me this written on Birthday cards, posters, pillows, throws, refrigerator magnets, and stationary. The reason was that I screwed it up every time I said it. I never could get past whatever mental block I had in the reciting of this serenity prayer.

“God give me the grace to accept the things that cannot be changed, courage to change
 the things that can be changed and the wisdom to know the difference."

Even now I had to look it up online. But the line that I finally, finally, finally saw as the key to my own mental acceptance of facts is. . . . the wisdom to know the difference! For years I had it backward. I think it was my getting older and wearing out emotionally and physically that caused me to open my eyes. If I had back all the time, strength, money, emotional fortitude, and abilities that I poured into situations that were never, ever, never ever, NEVER EVER going to change and put all that into the ones that could change, I’d be laying on a beach sipping a delightful cold tropical drink with one of those colorful fancy little umbrellas waiting for my massage and selecting my dinner off of a Five Star restaurant menu.  

And the truth of why I couldn’t grasp that prayer is because somewhere deep down inside of me I believed that if I just tried harder, longer and with greater care, I could change that circumstance. I really believed. I hung on to some things like a bulldog.

I can’t and don’t and shouldn’t do that any more. I’ve been given a new set of eyes in the last few years. I look at which side the situation falls under and move ahead accordingly.

Let’s face it; there are things in life that we simply cannot do any thing about. The ship has sailed. What I never could give myself was the peace of knowing I had done everything I could and let the acceptance of that fact take me forward. Acceptance is an incredible liberating thing. That and along with it, realistic expectations.

In closing I’ll tell on myself yet again. I think that was a big part of why I fought so desperately with my circumstances; my expectations were not rational. I remember a time my mother let me order two little books out of the Weekly Reader pamphlet  that was sent home once a month. I was thrilled beyond words! I poured over the pages until I about wore the print off. I finally made my choice, sealed and taped the coins in the envelope, (yes, you could send coins through the mail back then), carried it to the mailbox and then I did the craziest thing.

The next day I ran to the mailbox to see if my books had come. I did that everyday for two weeks. I knew in my mind that my expectations all the way to that mailbox, for at least the first week, were futile.  But it was what was in my heart that took me out there hoping beyond hope that somehow miraculously those books would come to me sooner. And the thing that drove me to expect such an impossible thing to happen was something I still can’t explain. I just believed so much. I know it sounds Pollyannaish. And I can’t explain how or why I got a quadruple dose of it, but I did. It caused for some astonishing events in my life and some devastatingly hard events.

So, I guess that is one of the MAJOR reasons I love to write. Because every expectation whether large or small can be realized in that fictional world. There are NO limits. You want it to happen, it can happen. You want skybluepink flowers, you can have them. In fiction you can change anything. There is nothing outside of your imaginary reach.

Whereas in this world. . .  well, may God continue to grant me the wisdom to know the difference.