Trust is a Priceless Vase

Contentment comes in waves. And today is not so content. Today I would murder for sleep. Today I am totally pissed off at looking and feeling like drained crap and like I have aged 5 years in as many months. Today I have little energy to speak of but feel so wired my brain won’t shut up. Today my brain is so wired and fired on creativity it even starts to ponder branding an insomniac and jet lag range called MALLET whilst staring at the wall at silly o clock. It would cover everything from herbal heavy stuff to knock you out to NLP soothing recordings and meditation music. And it would work. It would be the best thing on the market and I would know because if it worked on me it could work on anyone.

Karma and hindsight are the strict parents of growth and they are lecturing my mind relentlessly. And like a petulant teenager my mind resists all insisting it knows best. Oh for an emotional exorcism to chase away the ghosts that career through the valleys like bounty hunters.

Stuff the alkaline diet. I am only human. Guarana with caffeine and sugar as a side please. And maybe a shot of wheatgrass to assuage the ‘shoulds’ in me.

I have realised one thing though in my less than delicate wee hour ponderings. Trust is a fragile thing. It is a priceless heirloom of a vase that you arrange a fragrant bouquet of hopes and dreams in. Whether it gets broken or not is not the issue, because break at some point in life it will. We after all don’t carry our vases, we give them to others to hold. What’s more important is putting it back together. Having hunted for all the shattered pieces and glued them back together you have the realisation that it will never be the same. The cracks will always be there for you to see and now you have to make a decision about how you want to view them.

Let me share a story. My parents recently had their 40^th wedding anniversary and renewed their vows. They had a large barbeque and garden party that required a great deal of communal preparation. My brother was in charge of the meats and with some zeal he slammed the frozen hamburgers that had welded themselves together against the work surface (Mum and Dad’s brand new work surface) with a carving knife wedged in between them. The burgers dislodged but so did a piece of the work surface. This was a true horrific moment for my mum (a recovering housework-aholic) but I took her hand and held it over rather nagging dent. ‘When you are in your 80s you will place your hand here and think of how your close friends celebrated with you. You will think of the laughter and sounds of champagne corks popping and your perfume mixing with the smells of your bouquet. You will think of your cakes and food and dancing. You will think of Dad and how you told him you loved him again and how you wanted to spend the rest of your life with him again. You will feel his hug and feel those tears that pricked your eyes after the ceremony. You think of all this and won’t think of the dent. You will only see the memories and the love you created here.’ But she still sees the dent. My mum is a stubborn thing. At least though it’s with a bit more warmth.

Perfection is a false concept. It’s how you view the cracks, essentially the spaces in between supposed perfection, that dictates your level of freedom.