the lightness of being

It was one of those days yesterday.

Well I say that, but in fact it wasn't one of those days. It could have been.

Usually when I leave the house in the morning to walk the dog, I do the checklist: Wallet, dog bags, ball, treats, keys.

But for some reason I only got to treats... So I was there in my dog bag looking for the keys, no keys.. Maybe I left the backdoor open - no, I remember locking that. Maybe there's a window. No.

For some reason, instead of going into a fizzing panic (as I'd usually do) I felt like an ocean-swimming breaststroker. Long and steady strokes, gliding smoothly through the waves. I calmly picked up the phone to call hubby, but he didn't answer. So instead of leaving a flustered 'call me NOW!' message, I laughed on the phone, said 'oops' or something to that effect and continued walking the dog.

I mean what else could I do.

Though usually when people, faced with challenges, shrug, laugh and tell me 'well, there's nothing I could do' I'm usually skeptical. I tend to think 'who really believes that? Who really feels calm, positively resigned when forced to have their day sent into chaos'

I wonder if it's a control thing. Because I tend to get my knickers into reef knot over this kind of thing usually. So I called hubby and he (sensibly) suggested I call the real estate agent, which I did. And bless them (usually I'm spiking up like an angry hedgehog even thinking about speaking to the estate agent... samskaras, eh) but they were so nice. They laughed, they said 'ah, that must have been a good start to the day for you. Come along and pick them up.' And there we were, chuckling together over my misfortune.

I mean, it took a few hours to sort it (lashing rain, ordering a $17 cab etc) but I just kept on swimming my calm breaststroke

You see, when you try and see the lightness in life, it all falls into place.