A few words about Doors that Open and Close...

When I bought my condo a few years ago, I remember entering it for the very first time as an owner and immediately taking down the mirrored closet doors. I had lived for the last few years with mirrors on every closet door in my apartment and one evening when I was particularly tired, additionally without my glasses on, I was walking toward the closet door and had difficulty recognizing the woman coming toward me...she looked like me but she was tired, she looked old in her pajamas, and generally didn't look very happy. It was shortly after that encounter I decided that when I bought a place of my own, there would be no mirrors on the closet doors. So prior to moving my things into my new home, and with the closet doors gone, I installed a magnificent closet organizer with double hanging space, drawers, shelves...I tell you it is fabulous and affords as much space as a girl could want. Well, nearly. Anyway, my beautifully organized closet is filled with beautiful things, organized by color and sleeve length. My sweaters are neatly stored in perfectly aligned stacks, shoes are placed in little cubbies and clear boxes, purses stacked to the side. So for three years I have looked at the inside of my beautiful closet, and have thought "I need to get doors on that thing someday" but not getting it done. Until today. I hired a contractor who came in this morning and installed closet doors. Now I have this expansive space of white sliders where there used to be colors and textures. Now, it is white. Blank. No color or organization showing. I have closed the door on my creativly organized colorful closet. Does that mean it is finished? I think not. There have been doors that I thought were forever closed in my life that have opened again. There are slivers of light coming through doors that are barely cracked. And there are those that I really don't see any hope of opening again and while it isn't my desire for them to remain closed, I no longer wonder if perhaps they might again be opened. That is the only way I can come to agreement with the reality of what is and move forward.

How often have we closed doors, metaphorically speaking, without really thinking about the consequence? Did I close a door because of an argument or misunderstanding, a mistake I was afraid to admit or some other expectation which wasn't met? And what would happen if that door would have been allowed to swing whichever way it wanted? Would it open again? And the consequence of course being that I will never know the answer to those questions.

I know that I met with someone I've known in the past with whom I have amazing chemistry but meeting again now is ill timed. Oh, it was refreshing to know the chemistry is still there, but life circumstances are not conducive to opening that door right now because we are in such different spaces in our lives. Perhaps it will change in the future but for me this door has to stay closed right now. What if that door would have been opened before? I don't know and it isn't mine to say. The Universe had other plans...

So perhaps opening or closing a door has everything to do with timing. Perhaps it was time to close my closet and open up the blank space before me. Perhaps the doors will swing as they might, or I'll leave them opened to catch a glance at the colors behind them. Maybe I just throw them open, as well as my heart and see what happens. Who knows? So the message for today is I love my body more than closed doors...I refuse to keep my life locked behind a door that should be open wide.

XO,
Karen

A few words about microscopes....

Last night I met a couple of friends at a place where they teach you how to paint a picture with 25 of your new best friends that are also painting the same picture. I have to say, I have plenty of artistic talent, but painting a picture that I would hang on my wall was a little challenging. They serve wine, turn up the music, shout the directions and which brush to use, and in the end you are supposed to have painted a picture similar to the one they are teaching you to paint. Mine looked like total chaos, but after it dried and I stepped back a few feet and looked from a distance, I was surprised at the way it looked. It didn't look like any of the others and sort of resembled the painting we were being instructed to paint. But it looked okay. In fact, it looked good.

So, it got me to thinking about microscopes and the purpose they serve in the living of a life. Looking at things so closely doesn't allow you to look at the big picture. I have put my life under a microscope, found fault with things in the past that now I have put in a different and healthier space in my head. Is the microscope necessary for examining my life? Is it necessary to get an up close look at events that might not have turned out the way I expected? Probably not anymore. But it did allow me to move through that space of self criticism and self denigration for things that have happened along my path of life. And now that I am older and wiser I am able to objectively stand back and look at the life I have lived and the decisions I have made. I am in a place of peace and live my life relatively drama free. And that is good. Each experience, like each brush stroke, has lead me to the next, and at this point in my life, I am pleased with the canvas I have created. I no longer feel the need to put everything under a microscope and tease it all apart. I have more than a PhD in me. I have learned that the colors of my life make the portrait and that portrait is indeed wall worthy. In a golden frame. So the message for today is that I love my body more than the microscope that served a purpose for me. Instead I choose to stand back and lovingly look at the beauty of the creation that is my life.

XO,
Karen