Positive Thought of the Day: I have friends and family who care about me.
Positive Affirmation: I am loved.
Three Action Steps:
1. Make a list of what I want in a significant other.
2. Focus my meditation on my worth.
3. Spend time today reaching out to friends and strengthening my non-romantic relationships.
Romantic relationships have always been my biggest challenge. Cancer has multiplied this difficulty in my life. The men who are close to me want to take care of me. I love this when it comes to my children and my family, but some kind of vibe has spread into the universe and just about every man I have ever come into contact with has wants the same thing. I know that I tradtionally make bad choices. So, everything I do I do with my goal in mind. I will not settle for less than I deserve. Cancer does some really weird things to people. You would think seeing me so thin and without boobs would turn guys off. Nope. Apparently, it doesn't work like that. Strange days, my friends. Strange days. I'm learning how to navigate in this new body, and I feel sexy and confident. This is my new world and my new way of being.
With that being said, here's today's installment of New Worlds. I hope you enjoy it.
New Worlds Chapter 4
But I couldn't sleep again that night. The stifling silence seemed to smother me in Vicky's tiny pink bedroom. So much so that I felt that I had to get out of that bed in order to breathe. I tiptoed into the living room. I looked at the books lying in stacks on the floor. They reminded me of the romance novels in the window of Mary's Book World. The half-naked men and waif-like women on the covers gave me the willies. I turned away from their obscene nakendness and walked to the bookshelf where I browsed through the names on the dusty bindings. It was dark in the room, but even in the dark, the big yellow couch emitted sunshine. It seemed to be inviting me to sit down. So, I switched on the little end table lamp that looked like a cross between a moonshine jug and a kerosene lantern. Then, I settled into the comfort of the big yellow couch with Clarence Day's novel, Life with Mother. I was drawn into the world created in that book. A world where families stuck together no matter what, where mothers baked cookies for their children and waited on the front steps for their husbands to return from a hard day's work. Somewhere near dawn, I returned the book to its spot on the shelf. It seemed wrong to leave that shining new world that I had so recently discovered trapped in the dust of unuse, but I crept back to bed. With Vicky's foot lodged solidly in my hip, I fell asleep. For nights on end, I would go to that bookcase after everyone had gone to bed. When I could hear the whiffle of Uncle Bob's snore in the next room and Vicky's heavy breathing beside me, I would take a book off the shelf and clean its leather cover. With a dish rag I had stuffed at the back of my drawer in Vicky's dresser, I would gently remove the dust from the book until it gleamed like a jewel. I would trace the letters of the titles with my index finger feeling a bond with each book. Then, I would read. I read Rumer Godden and Herman Melville, Ruth Moore and James Thurber, and so many others that my memory cannot hold them all. In each book, a new world was revealed. Sometimes, the worlds were evil filled with dark characters out to devastate lives. Others were places where laughter filled every nook and cranny. Each morning, I would carefully put the book that I had taken back into its spot on the shelf before anyone noticed that it was missing. I certainly didn't want Aunt Tootie to discvoer that I had touched her things in fear that I would no longer be able to enter those strange and fascinating worlds where I had an important part to play. Without me, who would laugh with the Day children in Life with Father at Father's reaction to the little lamb that had been a peace offering from the butcher? Without me who would cry with Una when she disocvered that Ravi had abandoned her in Peacock Spring? Those books needed me -- and I needed them.