The Inner Workings of a Knot

Many times I have been found silently staring out a window.  No expression on my face, no words slipping from my lips - just faraway stares.

"What you doing?"

*takes a moment to process that there are words coming at me*

"Oh, just thinking."

"Uh oh..."

I get that a lot when I tell people I have been thinking.  Sometimes for good reason, other times I feel a tad unjustified.  But it's who I am, I'm a thinker ... and it's terrifying.

Let me explain.

Now this is coming from a very personal place so go easy on me ... but I'm an introvert.  Sure I fake it till I make it sometimes in social gatherings, but man do I enjoy just sitting in my bedroom, no music playing, just the sounds of the fans blowing and the jingling of my two dog's collars as they settle in for yet another nap.   I guess the sounds of traffic too... I do live in a "big" city after all.

As an introvert, thinking is almost always going to be a natural side-effect.  I think about things such as what to make for dinner, what I should wear the next day to work, the new theme for the upcoming church newsletter; my mind is almost always planning/sorting something.  But sometimes, when I'm left alone, in the quiet, especially at night ... my mind doesn't "small talk", it deep-thinks.  Things like the meaning of life, did I really choose the right faith, will my marriage really work?, etc.  I contemplate all the possible outcomes and sometimes those outcomes are simply unbearable to imagine.  It's for that reason that I am having to take medication to help my heart cope with my mind.

My imagination is also a strong personality trait, if you will.  When my husband is traveling around from job site to job site which takes him all over the city, and it's late and I haven't heard from him for a while, my mind immediately goes to him being in a ditch, unconscious.  After about the tenth text I get a "Chill out woman, I'm fine" text, and all breath comes back to me.

Deep thought and imagination isn't always out to get me though.  Every now and then it's come in handy ... oh, who am I kidding ... it's helped me out a lot!  Art, for example; I love art...like a LOT!  I love colors and creating things.  I don't just love creating art, but I also enjoy admiring other's work as well.  I love to watch a piece of art come to life, to see the movement with the work I may be gazing at at the time.  Sometimes I'm even lucky enough to feel what the artist was feeling and imagine their expressions and movements as they created their masterpiece.

Deep thought and imagination has also helped me solve a lot of problems, knots for example.  When it comes to knots, there hasn't been many that I have come across that I wasn't able to untangle.  Ear phones mange to get themselves all kinds of tangled up and I have been able to untangle even the most obnoxious of knots.  And need I even mention Christmas lights... no, I didn't think so.  But I always seem to come out on top; Me - 1  Knot - 0.

Tonight even, I was attempting to close the blinds in my bedroom when I noticed a rather thick knot within the pull strings; without much thought I just started to untangle them.  I worked the problem backwards, saw how they came together and pushed them back the other way.  After a couple minutes, they were no longer bound to each other and able to swing freely... and those darn blinds were no longer crooked.

As I managed to untether the knot, I thought about life.  We make small decisions here and there; tonight I'll eat that cheesecake, I'll go to bed after I finish this chapter, if I go fast enough, I could totally beat that car, I'm not that drunk; I can drive.    Even something as small as  eating nachos at 10pm or hitting snooze just one more time.  We make multitudes of tiny decisions and then one day we realize we're in the middle of a place we had no original intention of being.  So we start working backwards; step-by-step we go back to the decisions we made and realize that we walked ourselves there ... one decision at a time.

So now what?

Here's my suggestion ... start walking.  I don't mean physically ... unless that helps you think ... I mean, start the change.  Instead of eating that cheesecake, take a bite and save the rest for tomorrow.  Instead of reading that one last chapter, go to sleep so you can be more productive and reliable at work.  Instead of pulling out in front of that car in the long line of traffic, wait patiently ... lives are at stake here after all.  And quite frankly ... you're ALWAYS too drunk to drive... so don't do it.

Turning those tiny bad decisions and intensionally making better ones, ones we know we should be making, we will finally get to the place we were initially aiming for to begin with.  I realize that it's easier said than done.  Just like the knot I unraveled this evening, the strings still showed hard evidence that they'd been bent, damaged and scarred.  We have scars from our mistakes but like those strings, eventually they'll straighten out, become like new; ready to take on the world.

Personally, I'm still very much in my knot; tangled and bruised (sometimes literally...I'm a tad clumsy) but I'm taking the first step.  For me, it's reading my devotions, praying more, being more intentional about forgiving those who've hurt me and loving those around me.  To judge less and encourage more ... to get to that place where I can be someone to be proud of.  I want to make a difference in this world, and though I'm not sure how... I won't stop until I do.

I hope that this starts your own personal journey to head in the direction that you know you should be heading.


God Bless & G'night everyone!  I'll talk to y'all again soon.