Day 355: Random thoughts about love

Well, it took me 355 days to use the word “love” in the title of a blog post this year.

I was about to say, “Shame on me,” but I stopped, because:

• Shame doesn’t do me any good, so I would like to stop using that phrase (and let go of shame) as quickly as I can, and
• I am already suspecting that my first sentence of this post … is incorrect.

That is, I think I MAY have used the word “love” in the title of a blog post before.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, I shall now, with my lovely assistant, WordPress,  search all my previous posts, for a title using the word “Love.”

This may take  me a little while, but the time will pass by quickly, here.

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Wow. Some interesting things have happened, here in Ann Time.

I haven’t checked my old posts yet.  Instead, I noticed, after I “paused” this post, that I was feeling unusually cold. And when I checked the digital thermostat, I saw that it was blank. I didn’t take a picture of that, but here’s a close-enough representation of what I saw:

*

Eeeeeeeeeek!!!!

So in the middle of writing a post on love, I was experiencing my old friend, fear.

I assume that nobody wants to feel cold, or to see a non-working thermostat. However, some people may be more afraid of those things, when:

1. It’s very cold outside.
2. You are alone, when you encounter the problem.
3. No help is available, to solve the problem.

There are times, in my life, where the above factors have been true, for me.  But none of them were true, today.   However, I felt fear AS IF those three things were true.

Why? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are reasons why I might feel a more intense fear, initially, when the heat goes off and the thermostat is not working:

1. Since I was a little kid, I’ve depended upon machines and batteries (specifically, cardiac pacemakers) to keep me alive, so I tend to overreact when machines don’t work, or when things run out of power.
2. When I was in the hospital as a little kid, the temperature was often too cold, and I had no control over that (as I had no control over many other things).

Hey, guess what?  I just got interrupted, again, in the middle of writing this post.

But before I tell you about THAT interruption, I want to tell you what happened, regarding the thermostat and the cold.

After my first reaction (Eeeeeeek!!!!), this is what happened:

1. I noticed that reaction of fear.
2. I used coping skills and techniques I’ve learned throughout my life, to let go of the fear.
3. I concentrated on the reality of the current situation.
4. I came up with a theory of why the heat was off and the thermostat was blank.
5. I called the Heating Guy on my team** —  Tom Prendergast —  and he agreed with my theory. As a matter of fact, he offered me a job on his night crew.
6. We discussed possible solutions.
7. I implemented a solution.
8. The heat came back on and so did the thermostat:

Then, I called back Tom Prendergast, and left him the following message: “We are both very smart, I do not want the night job, and thank you for everything.”

And — to go back to the title of my post today — I had feelings of love, then. Because I felt safe.  I knew that I was not alone.  As a result, I was able to let go of fear, connect with my own wisdom and experience, ask for help, and solve a problem.

Yes, doing all those things, whenever I can, helps me get in touch with my feelings of love.

When I first started writing this post, there were other things I wanted to say about love.  I wanted to allow room for all — random and otherwise —  thoughts about love,  because I (like other people) can have fears about using that word.

However, right now, I have some unfinished business to complete, in this post.

I need to tell you about the second interruption I mentioned above, which occurred as I was writing this post.  That interruption was a phone call, from a dear old friend, who would like to accompany me here:

***

And that conversation helped me get more in touch with love, too.

One more piece of unfinished business: DID I use the word “love” in the title of a previous post this year?****

You know what?  It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: I’m using it now.

Thus concludes our post for today, dear reader.

Thanks to all my friends (old and new), everybody on my team, and you — of course! — for reading today.

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* I found this image here.

** For more about the concept of “My Team,” see here and here.

*** See here, for more about escaping to there.

**** I did, actually, use the word “love” before (here and here), plus I used a variation on the word (“lovable”) here.