Ben Harper's "Beloved One"

Crazy beautiful and truthful. I love...

On letting go and making room for good things...

So, I unexpectedly find myself with a really good thing...actually, a really great thing.

I went somewhere random on a whim and engaged in a conversation just for the fun of it really and the rest is well...just what it is - goodness.

It was the day after this whimsical experience that I let something go, not to replace it with something else, but because I simply recognized that something had to give, even if there wasn't anything at all to fill the space left behind. But, you see, I had to release the one to experience the other, it was just the way of things. It didn't feel good at the time and was actually horrible and frightening and sad, but it opened up the space needed for what was to come next.

Some things just aren't good. Some things are painful and uncomfortable (not in a productive way) and ambiguous and other not good things that are bound to eventually outweigh any goodness that might be in them. We hold on to and sometimes even hoard these things (people, relationships, feelings, thoughts, etc...) for all sorts of different reasons that I won't speculate on here, but I'm a believer that we shouldn't. When something isn't good (or at least mostly good), let it go.

Let it go and make room for those good things that might come unexpectedly or in time or tomorrow or with patience and hope...I dunno. Just make sure that when a good thing comes to you, you are not too cluttered to receive it.

I don't want to give you up either...Corinne Bailey Rae's "Closer"

*If only the lyrics to this song actually worked. Damn...smh

Goodness and Getting Ready

Good things come to those who are ready. Thus, it would make sense to be ready...and folks, I'm getting there. I'm freed up, with lessons learned and experiences to put under my belt and it feels kind of good. I'm closer to being able to receive those good things that are meant for me...make no mistake, there are lots of really good things in my future.

But getting ready is painful. Maybe it has to be, maybe it doesn't and I'm just hard-headed, but there is something about being in a space where you are conflicted and wounded and muddled that tenderizes and prepares you for something much better.

Perhaps it is developing the ability to appreciate goodness. Without having experienced the bad and the ugly, how can we truly recognize and value the good? Moreover, it could also be about preparedness: developing and exercising your own skill set (how to care and love and cherish and fight and be honest and patient and kind and discerning and all of those other things) in order to know what to do with goodness when it gets to you.

But probably most importantly, getting ready has a lot to do with getting to the place where you really - deep down in your gut - believe that you deserve good things. Not deserving from a position of thinking you're the shit arrogance, but out of the knowledge that you have been good - that you have practiced goodness. Striving for perfection is just silly, but there is something to be said for extending hope and encouragement, being kind even when others are not, putting others before yourself, coming correct when you need to, and doing your part to make things right when they are wrong, etc...

I suppose it would be tough to reconcile one's self with getting good things if you haven't given them - the only thing to do would be to reject and/or sabotage them. But with the above understanding in your headspace, I believe good things are inescapable. Yeah?

Aw, shucks...call me an optimist.