Life is not a polaroid of one moment, etched by the emotions and events in that single instant, that tells all and settles everything into the way it is.

Thank, God.

Me with the crooked nose in the pillow wondering why I always have to feel everything like wet cement, where even a ladybug crossing makes a footprint.

Fix this relationships, deal with this anger/loneliness/drama now, become more godly, more feminine. Now. Now. Now.

Gasp. Sputter.

Because we were never meant to live like the drama is a cold wave to our lungs, but sometimes I forget.

 

Sleep on it.

Sleep on it, relax, and stop taking yourself so seriously.

For petes sake, stop. And laugh.

I’ve chanted those lines to myself over and over last week.

 And the theory stretched tight and drug across my mind like an threadbare area rug.

Someone wanted to take death in their own hands, last week, and came seconds away from success, and it shook me, I’ll admit.

 And of course I was there earlier that morning and so wonder if I should have been sweeter, or kinder, or if I said something wrong that made him make the choice.

There have been moments when I would have paid over a royal wedding to be able to lock myself in a quiet world and hold silence just for the beauty of it, blocking out that day.

But.

Which is the word that you never follow “I’m sorry” with, but that keeps me madly in love with my life.

But, there is always the choice to fit laughter snug up against the tragedy that time seems to create.

Not laughing at the pain or making light of the mess of earth, but letting go of our control of it, and finding gentle humor in the little things. And when you laugh at time, it gets disgruntled.

The nurses and I laughed last week, her holding the papers on a car hood, while he tried to call air ambulance on the satellite phone and the wind blew dust around the young officer, all of us eating up the dry humor.

As the head nurse said, “A little humor goes a long way”

Time may seem to create crisis.

I know that reality, since it holds the cards in healthcare especially. I know what split seconds can do to life. I know.

Yes, run like life depends on it, grab that stretcher, make split second decisions, get the assignment done on time, apologize quickly, witness before its too late.

But in the end, you know, time doesn’t have the last say, God does.

And, frankly, he doesn’t need your  control to help him handle it.

You just look like a blundering idiot taking the universe’s drama on your toothpick shoulders.

So fill the panic of time with high laughter, even if it comes hard.

A little humor goes a long way,

preaches Esta to herself.

(for photo credit of first two pictures click on picture)