This past week I had minor knee surgery. I injured it several months ago while dancing.
I keep waiting to be irritable or annoyed, or unhappy. I noticed some pain, yes, and I was really, really sleepy for two days mostly because of the anesthesia. Now I limp.
But I just can’t get worked up about the actual knee or not being able to go out biking. I’m kind of liking being home all day.
The only time I experience a bit of stress is when I start thinking I should be doing something or that I ought to be accomplishing something right now.
Or when I tighten up against the pain I feel in my left leg.
Or (this one is good) when I think the rest of the people who live in this house aren’t cleaning up the kitchen! Forget any stress about the knee…why are there dirty dishes on the counter!?!
My mind seems to enjoy generating stories, like putting together endless puzzle pieces for a puzzle that will never be completed. It goes off on all kinds of tangents and wild goose chases!
- No one else notices when the kitchen needs to be cleaned
- There is a big dust dirt ball under that chair
- I see cobwebs in the corner of the windows and SOMEONE should wipe them away
- Who left their shoes in the middle of the living room?
- The lawn needs to be mowed
- Everyone in this family is sooooo dang messy!
So I read a short quote by Katie today and smiled…..as I lay in bed with my knee up on a pillow….“There is no story that is you or that leads to you. Every story leads away from you. You are what exists before all stories”.
Without any story behind what this all means with the knee thing or any story about the cleanliness of the house and what my family members need to be doing about it, I just sit and feel what it’s like to not have any thought of “should” and watch.
Oh look….my 15 year old just put all her dirty dishes in the dishwasher. And my partner then started the dishwasher. Then my son came in from being away overnight and collected all his stuff and took it to his room.
I also said once “could someone take out the garbage” and someone did it right away.
Asking for what I want is easy, especially when I’m not demanding that it happen. I ask, and it might happen and it might not, no big deal.
Same with the pain. It comes, it goes, I completely forget about it, then it’s back. It’s having its own life, no big deal. Loving what is.
“You are love. It hurts to believe you’re other than who you are, to live any story less than love.”–Byron Katie