I don’t wanna sleep right now. It’s 3:38 am, I’m in a bed in a hotel room in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. Jarrod’s kind of asleep next to me (the room cycles between warm and cool and we both woke up in the warm cycle) and I’m really awake because…
change is afoot.
I’m shifting teams, in real estate — company, actually, not just my team — and there’s a new energy, new tech and systems to figure out, more new clients to find.
I’ve got a few people that I’m talking to about ghost writing, some completely new, because they’re looking to do a book or two, and we’re looking to see if we’re a match.
Jarrod’s starting new things with his business, and I’ve volunteered to help, so my mind is coming up with ideas.
And today (well, yesterday), mom’s thyroid swelling and biopsy result came back with “oh hey, it’s cancer”.
…
I guess it wasn’t just the new year that I was feeling.
…
Jarrod’s fallen asleep again — the room’s gone back into the cold cycle, and I’m burrowing into the blanket.
The world is completely the same, and completely changed.
Tomorrow will be the same 24 hours, but there’s a chance, now, for a shift.
I’m naively (probably) hoping that my mother will take this as a chance to finally put herself first. That she will learn to enjoy life a little bit more. To let things go.
I’m hoping, just as naively, that my dad will choose to step up, to take care of my mother, to take charge and put her first, to learn to think for and consider another person.
I know, realistically, that both will not happen.
My parents will continue the way they are. My mother long-suffering. My father in his own bubble. Their communication awful, the misunderstandings plenty, their resignation with their lives heavy.
And I know they’re looking at me the same, or perhaps (now that I come to think of it), that’s how I’m looking at me.
The lens you use to see other people, I’ve learned, is also the lens you use to see yourself.
Every time there’s a new start, my mother would say, with hope and scorn, that I should change.
With every new beginning, she’d ask me to find a new attitude.
To which I would reply, “You first.”
And she would say it’s too late for her, that she’s too old, that there was no point. She felt stuck, and I guess that’s why she could see my beginnings and opportunities for change so easily.
I can see the point where and why she could change, and know that she won’t.
(Now it’s cold. Snuggle.)
What was my point? (“Dolphins,” my brain replies, in a Good Omens reference.)
Oh.
I see the chance for a shift.
I see two threads of life, sparkling and glowing, unspooled and in front of me, leading away into the future.
One is redder, floating a little lower than the other. It’s the one that means I don’t change. I stay exactly the way I am, ignoring responsibilities and taking life “easy”.
The other is a little more yellow, more classically golden, and it’s the one that says I change.
(I just shifted in bed and the headboard protested. Jarrod woke up on instinct, to check on me. Poor love, he’s sleeping with a pillow over his eyes because he’s used to total darkness.
I’m trying to cover the light of my tablet, and I just hid the keyboard under the blanket. It helps keep me warm, and if I go a little gentler, it helps muffle the clackity-clack.
I am typing blind though, because my work/travel keyboard doesn’t light up. It’s not ususlly a problem, because I can touch type when I’m in a flow, but I’m not right now so it’s slower and with a lot of misteakes and backspaces and searching, and I’m about to have a cramped shoulder blade — ok the keyboard is back out and I will risk freezing until the next warm cycle.
I’m getting tired again, good. It’s 4:38 am.)
I will say I am surprised by something.
It’s the golden thread that beckons. The one I’m looking more curiously at. The one I’m paying more attention to.
And that’s a strange feeling.
(Hang on, leg cramp. streeeetch. COLD. I wanna lie back but the headboard is a little snitch. hehe. It’s just contracted with the cold. Anyway.)
I can’t force change. Or be forced to change. So looking curiously at the golden thread is a good start.
To feel the situation a little more though, I think the red thread is falling away.
Change is binding itself to me, and giving me the heads up with the illusion of choice, and a sprinkle of attention and curiosity.
It always happens in the wee hours of the morning (4:59 am).
I get to go be someone new.
(okay, i’ve stuggled long enough.)
💖🌧️
Image of a really pretty probably hotel bedroom by VirgoStudio from Pixabay. Big bright windows, light wood tones, white walls and linens, and soft drapes around a massively comfy-lookin bed.
