Trina Machacek
There is such a refreshing feeling waiting for us each day as we stumble to the bathroom and wash our faces. Of course, in winter up north, we have to wait for the warm water to travel from the hot water heater to the bathroom sink.
When it does reach the faucet, and a warm washcloth hits your face. Isn’t that the best way to start the day? But. Yes, a cold slap in the face “but.” Waiting for the water can seem to take forever. Like trying to let go of things.
Wiping a slate clean of all the things that you know you need to let go of, but just aren’t ready to admit defeat. Admit things didn’t go as you hoped, prayed, or just wanted them to go. I am there now.
Now that we are into the second half of January I am going to start making decisions for the new year. Already I am looking out the window, through the frost and fog of winter, searching for the first tuft of green. Green that will not be showing up for at least 60 days.
It doesn’t stop me from searching. I remember my other half going chucker hunting in winter. Bringing home birds that somehow found green grass to eat on the high reaches and south slopes of my Diamond Mountain.
So, in my brain, if those little birds can have green sprigs of grass in their craws, I should be able to see green grass. OK, sooner or later. Probably later.
Cleaning the slate of life has wonderful advantages. Like making that final payment on your truck. There is nothing like making a final payment. Cleaning that off your list of bills to pay each month. Is it human nature to tell yourself after you make that last payment that you will continue to pay that amount into some virtual fund?
Build up a little nest egg with the $543.73 that you have been paying like clockwork for the past 36, 48 or, gulp, 60 months. Yes, it all sounds wonderful. Until the first of the next month comes and poof all of a sudden that amount just doesn’t seem to be savable, does it?
We have all been there. Cleaning the slate though, that takes some courage. To let go of things. To move forward. I love to tell people that are navigating new waters in life; just keep moving forward. The ability to keep moving forward is an amazing motion.
Think if we didn’t have the ability to move forward. Reverse is not where you want to go. Did you ever notice that when you go in reverse in your car, the speedometer and odometer do not register? It’s like you are getting absolutely nowhere when you are backing up. So, keep moving forward to get where you want to be.
The first step to moving forward is to clean your slate of things that are dragging you down, keeping you from finding what is ahead. I’m finding it easy to only see things from my side. What I need to do, what is happening in my little circle.
Recently though I learned that I am not the only person affected by my slate. Like the sun coming up each day. It shines on me of course, but it also shines on everyone. That makes cleaning my slate a bit easier.
Because I finally see that I am cleaned off of other people’s slates too. That is kind of freeing actually. Now cleaning your slate doesn’t mean forgetting all the things that have crossed that flat black slate. Oh no sir.
Some seven years ago I became a widow, and I have never truly crossed that part of life completely off my slate. It just isn’t as prominent as it was those first years.
Do we learn from year to year the things that we should be careful about putting on our clean slates? Well, you would certainly think we would. It doesn’t work that way though, does it? Nope. You would think that after learning that it hurts when you stub your toe on the same corner of a chair, that you would move the chair.
Well things in the new year are teaching me, and hopefully you too, to move the chair that you are stubbing your toe on, over and over again. Clean the slate and move on.
What is that saying? Crazy is doing the same things over and over and expecting a different outcome. Grab a rag, wet it with clean warm bathroom water. Then clean your slate of things that are bogging you down. Keep moving forward.
Trina Machacek lives in Diamond Valley north of Eureka. Email itybytrina@yahoo.com.