For so long we were inside and not feeling well, and it was nice to have the haven of home. Wrapping ourselves in Granny's warm quilts and spending long days in our pj's were welcomed activities. While we were sick, those things were nice and comforting, but coming out of the sickness, much like coming out of a long dark tunnel, we are experiencing a bit of "cabin fever." At least I know this to be true of myself. I realized this morning what I was feeling and why I seemed to be discontented and not able to concentrate for long periods of time. I have found that even the task of reading is not an inviting one, as much as I love to read and even though I am in the middle of a very interesting book, I just can't seem to keep my mind there now.
I was looking back through some photographs and found these two. They were both taken last March. We had just come to North Carolina looking for a house to move into and the weather had been bad. We left Little Rock and followed the cold and snow all the way. And true to this type of weather, I had been sick for the whole trip. Eventually ending up in the emergency room at 3 o'clock in the morning.
We weren't having any luck, after days of searching for a place we wanted to live, and being so sick and drug hazed, I wanted nothing more than a reprieve from the stress of everything. The four of us had been staying in a fairly small one room hotel for several nights, spending our days riding around in the car for hours looking at one house after another. Desperately trying to learn the layout of the area and decipher where we wouldn't mind spending the next year and a half of our lives. Noah, who was three at the time, was very restless and tired of being confined, and was especially rowdy and cranky thus adding to the stress of it all. Not getting enough rest and due to the influence of medication I was so worn down, I just wanted to be left alone to sleep. But that wasn't to be, there was work to be done and in short order. The longer it took for us to find a place to live, the less time we would have once back in Little Rock to actually get everything ready for the movers to come pack.
One day we just decided to forgo the usual routine of searching and chose instead to have a "play day." A day for a road trip, to clear our heads and come back refreshed and ready to tackle the task at hand. This was just such a day...
We drove south to Wilmington and then to the coast ending up at Carolina Beach. Driving along the coast road I could smell the ocean. Looking out across the inlet I could see the sails from the boats in their docks. Being a lover of all things nautical, I felt an ease and a sudden peace begin to flood my troubled spirit. I knew that everything would be fine. I relaxed and was comforted.
The sun was warm and the breezes light off the Atlantic. We spent several hours basking in the glow and the warmth. I'll never forget how the sand felt underneath me as I lay there listening to the sound of the ocean waves.
While Andrew and the kids played nearby, I closed my eyes and slept. It was the most wonderful sleep...The warm sun shining down on me, warming my body, but also my soul. I know this sounds strange, but it felt to me as though God was reaching down and healing my body and my spirit. After that day I begin to feel better, we found a house and went back to Little Rock and survived yet another move.
So on this day, almost a year later, the long winter and sickness once again has me in need of some warm sun and ocean breezes. However, since the weather is not cooperating, I suppose just a road trip would do. Someplace I haven't been or rarely go. Something new for my eyes to see; a place to breath different air.
I suppose my nature is such that I often need to kick out of the rut I dig for myself. I can go some time on the same track, but then I reach a breaking point where I have to have a change. It doesn't necessarily need to be a permanent change, but something to break things up a bit.
Something that will help me to change the way I view the rut. Sometimes people get so bogged down in the daily routine they become like a kiddie ride at the carnival. They go round and round on the same track for so long that they see things the same way they always saw them...nothing changes, they stop growing, expanding their minds and lives. They die before they die. They become the walking dead.
I suspect my gypsy ways are a direct result of the fear of that happening to me. I have watched people who day in day out, year in year out, have lived the same lives, driven the same roads, done the same things...I decided long ago that I couldn't live that way. It may be fine for some folks, maybe that is the life that fulfills them, makes them happy. Not me, I would wither away, shrivel up and become a shell of myself. My creativity would dry up and turn to dust. Change is for me a way to recharge to view things from a different prospective. A way to open my eyes and really see again. Change has become my best friend; my closest companion. I seek it out, need it and desire it regularly. Without it, I could not exist...it is just a part of who I am.
Some people would see that as a character flaw, and I would not deny that perhaps it is one. But just as some people seek security and routine, I desire change, new places, new territory, new challenges, new prospectives. Perhaps it is just part of my nature, my personality, a part of me that was shaped by some event in my past. But I think it is just the way I was wired. An extention of the same nature in us that causes some people to like some things and detest others. What we call our preferences...
I know often times our lives become such that we are no longer free to indulge our preferences. But in the midst of living a responsible life, finding little things that bring life back into our rut; give us a new outlook, a new attitude; can be a welcome respite.
Due to the weather and prior appointments, I will not be taking a road trip this week, but I am looking at and planning one for the very near future. Something to shake up the daily grind and blow some refreshing breezes through my staid routine.
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