Day 3- Being the Woman I am and not the Bitch I've Become

I wouldn't have given you a flip for last night. In fact, I would've said last night that this crap about living my intentions was just a bunch of hooey. But I stuck with it anyway because frankly, what was my alternative? Stay stuck on the pity pot?

And then I remembered the teacup.

All week long I've been plagued by a half-memory of this conversation I had with a friend of mine about a teacup and the space around it. Finally I just had to go see him. "Remember two years ago?" I ask him. "We were talking about a teacup and the space around it."

He looks at me like, I'm supposed to remember something from two years ago? A teacup? What?

And then I see the realization cross his face as he remembers. "The teacup. Yeah! That was about negative space." He frowns trying to recall the details. "I wanted my writing students to look at the entire picture, not just the main object, so I told them to write about the space around the tea cup."

"That's it! That's it exactly!" I say. I have been focusing on the teacup instead of seeing the whole picture. The negatives have been my teacup while I ignore the space around the negative.

I was seeing the proof of my loneliness and not the dis-proof of it. I was looking for further proof that the teacup was the only item in the picture, when there was so much more to notice.

"Who said, 'Be the change you wish to see in the Universe?'" I ask him.

"Gandhi," he says without hesitation.

"That's what we've got to do," I say. "Be the change. Make the first move. Celebrate the negative space around the teacup."

He gives me this puzzled look because I, of course, have neglected to tell him the entire Bitch You've Become story and how pitiful I've been feeling.

"Yeah," Tom said, thinking we are appreciating Gandhi. "One time someone asked Gandhi what he thought about Western Civilization and Gandhi smiled. 'Western Civilization,'he said. 'Sounds like a good idea.'"

Tom chuckles and I laugh right along with him because suddenly, life is good and I am not feeling even a little bit lonely.