I’m missing my keys right now. They’ve been missing for days. Took the dog out the other night and unlocked the secure building to get back in (Monday night, I think). It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed my keys were not in the yellow porcelain frog with the gaping mouth I usually keep them in by the door.
Well, they weren’t in any of my pockets or any other logical place either.
At first, I went into that how could I not put them back where they go, that’s so stupid line of thinking. A momentary fissure in my self-esteem opened up.
Now I’m looking at it as an opportunity to practice what I preach so to speak. I recently told someone in an online forum you can call back to you anything with your name attached to it, anything that is yours. Once I remembered that principle, I decided I’d better practice it. Each incident of disorder like this is an opportunity to be the creator of order in our own lives.
I don’t know how I’m going to get my mini library scan card or my Ace hardware rewards card, my apartment door key, building key, and mailbox key back. I’m curious to see where/how they show up. Maybe there’s something else in the works.
But if we choose, there can be order and purpose everywhere. I’m allowing that in an assertion of synchronicity. I expect to learn something — or even be surprised in some way. A much better way to spend the interim, don’t you think? Spending the interim reminding myself of how it was stupid to not put the keys back where they go is like taking a pick axe to my self-esteem. Why? My wife still has her keys. I use them. I can leave a note for the mailman to please bring up our mail while our key to the box is lost. Everything is well within my adult capacity to communicate, adjust, and then laugh when we find out what actually happened to the keys.
It’s an analogy, isn’t it?
Yes, it is.
It would be very easy to either spiral into some kind of negative self-talk, taking a pick axe to our well being in this post-Covid world. Covid has now become keyword for when we lost our keys, couldn’t carry on with life as usual. We might even be tempted to spiral into negative talk about humanity (virus-spreaders), as some already have. We might be tempted to obsess over those that ‘did this to us.’ But none of that gets us anywhere, does it?
We live an an analogous universe.
If we can find lost keys or replace them … if we can continue on while still believing in ourselves … if we can see the ‘mistake’ or the thing that ‘shouldn’t have happened’ … then we can see it as an ‘alternative opportunity’ and think clearly enough to make the necessary adjustments.
Speaking of keys and my wife still having hers, it’s not that big a deal to use them to get some new ones cut. Actually, I could’ve already done that since I live literally one block from an Ace hardware, couldn’t I?
New keys — that’s a metaphor too, isn’t it?
Yes, it is.
What are the new keys for you in the post-Covid world?
There is no safe, secure normal for us to retreat to. It isn’t in the past, although that image could be used as a template for creating a new normal. Just like cutting a key.
So what is your template for normal your best life?
I think life may be waiting for us to discover that our old ‘normal’ wasn’t good. The loss of it is an opportunity to create something completely new.
What would open up parts of life we’ve weren’t accessing during our old ‘normal’?
Rhetorical question, of course.
It is far too easy to make a pre-Covid world glisten with nostalgia in our minds. Don’t put glitter on that shit. Just taking away the virus or lockdowns won’t make us happy again.
I’m not going to talk about just vintage porcelain and my daily incompetence. Health Positive! exists to deliver a ray of light into your life. Please subscribe.
What were you unhappy about before?
I was unhappy with my health. Now I’m doing more about it. I’ve turned it around.
I had been unhappy with how my temperament had become distorted into irritability, anger, and cynicism. I saw that I’d lost my sharp spiritual focus. I’ve gotten it mostly back.
I was unhappy with the degradation of our communities by bully-capitalism. Now I see an opportunity to connect with people who have a similar feeling and who want real community with people of similar values, a sampler of humanity within short travel from where my wife and I live. I see an opportunity to barter, trade, and support each other, and make new friends in the process. Our family has already extended to include a neighbor and a recently adopted dog, Jacinto.
Honestly, my life has better components than it did just a months ago.
Maybe you see something for yourself in this metaphor of the lost keys. Please, share it.
Those old keys were kinda cranky anyway and you had to jiggle them a lot to even get the doors open. I think it’s time for better ones.
Please share this post and Health Positive!