Another new clerk. This one is very young with a beautiful smile. She looked so friendly I could not resist teasing her.
“Raise your right hand.” I said.
She blinked, surprised and startled, but did what I ask.
“Repeat after me.”
Again, surprised and mystified, she nodded.
“I promise…”
“I promise.” She repeated.
“To sell you…”
“To sell you.”
“The winning ticket.” I finished.
“To sell…” She stopped and pulled her hand down as though it had been bitten. “I can’t do that! I can’t promise that!”
Good for her I thought. Making promises it is not in your power to keep is unwise, to say the least.
It got me thinking about promises I have made to myself, unwise promises I should never have made, good promises I haven’t kept and good promises to myself that I have kept.
To be honest, there were a lot of promises to think about, but I am limiting it to three in each category.
Unwise promises I never should have made in the first place:
- I promised myself I would go through a box in the storage room each day. This was stupid. It is over 100 degrees right now and the building isn’t air conditioned. What was I thinking? In less than ten minutes I was so dehydrated I had a headache.
- I promised myself I would work in the garden an hour each day. See above, only add bug-repellent resistant bugs.
- I promised myself to walk two miles each day. See above, and add dogs running loose.
These promises all have in common something I can’t control – heat, bugs, dogs. No matter what, I can do nothing about these things. I should have thought before I made these promises, and I have to forgive myself for breaking them.
Good promises I haven’t kept:
- I promised myself to do my exercises each day. These are simple stretching and balancing exercises. They don’t hurt. They feel good. They help me heal. Why am I avoiding doing them? The answer escapes me.
- I promised myself to write this blog each week. Well, that went by the wayside a long time ago! This was to be 52 blogs in 52 weeks. It’s been WAY longer than that. As my great-grandmother would have said, this project has become a ‘devilish thing’.
- I promised I would work on my current novel each day or at least 5 hours a week. There are days at a time when I cannot bring myself to open that file. It’s my novel, no one else’s. Let’s face it, it won’t get written without me. I’m only letting myself down by not getting it written.
That previous sentence is what binds these promises together; they matter only to me. My regaining strength affects only me. No one is reading this blog, so what difference does it make if I don’t write it? I have no contract for my novel. I know I will self-publish it and I don’t think a single person on earth is waiting with bated breath for it. So, if I don’t do these things, no one will even notice, no one will care. I break these promises and it means nothing except for my lack of self-discipline.
Promises I have kept:
1. I promised myself to go to church each Sunday. I keep that promise. I like to go to church. I like the people. I like the singing. I like the sermons because they give me something to think about. But most of all I like that it is an hour where the world does not intrude. God, me, and the other people there – nothing else matters for that quiet hour.
2. I promised myself I would have tea each afternoon I am home. Sometime between three and four o’clock I brew a cup of tea, put two cookies, a sliced piece of fruit, and a handful of nuts on a plate and spend a few minutes recharging. It is a lovely interlude between early afternoon tasks and evening activities.
3. I promised myself that each evening I would log down three good things that have happened that day. Even if I don’t have my logbook with me, I write down three things so I can put them in the log later. It is a good thing to be looking for good things all day and to review the day at night again thinking about those good things.
The one thing these three kept promises have in common is they heal my spirit. I have had some very bad things happen in the last year. I lost a child. I have been seriously ill. It would be so easy to drown in an ocean of despair. Taking time to connect with a power beyond myself, taking time to breathe and be still, taking time to look for good keeps me safe and dry on the shore of sanity.
I am thankful that the new clerk wouldn’t make the promise I ask of her. Even though we both knew I was joking, by refusing she did a good thing. She gave me a lot to think about. And hey, I wrote this blog two weeks in a row!