Raindrops on roses...wild geese that fly...

Self, calm your heart.

Upon reading about the signs of mid-life crisis this morning, it sounds like I have been in a mid-life crisis for decades.

What the hey? Do other people not live in a whirlwind of constant change?

Maybe this unsettling in my soul which seems to have always existed as a result of some sort of abandonment issues when I was a little baby.

I was fed on a bottle.
Mom was institutionalized when I was a babe.
Maybe I was left to my thumb as my soul source of nurture.
Who knows what went on at home while Mom was institutionalized.
I wonder how things were before she was institutionalized?

In my latter teens, I was told that Dad was in a serious car wreck before I or my brother or my sister were born. As a result Dad had a metal plate as a permanent fortress built into his forehead. I was told he was in a coma for one or two or three weeks; I can't recall how long now. I was told that Dad received a vision before he awoke out of his coma - a man, who was Jesus to my father, and Dad were under a tree, seems it was an apple tree. I wonder why an apple tree? Apples are abundant in North Carolina. Jesus told Dad as they stood under the tree that it was time to go back, time to wake up. That was when Dad awoke from the coma.

I wish Dad were alive so I could ask him about the details, about my recollection, about what Mom told me - something to do with a straw that helped save Dad's life that day.

I wonder if any of what I recall and/or was told is even true?

Mom's institutionalization happened some years after Dad's wreck.
It happened after Mom was in a serious wreck where my brother went through the windshield but he had on his football helmet which saved his life. I was an infant in the back seat in some sort of car seat which probably saved my life. My sister was waiting to be picked up a movie theater.
The wreck happened when we still lived in Florida.

I think about death so often these days. That is one of the signs of a mid-life crisis.

I don't like that word, "crisis," when referring to seasons of life that naturally occur. Like the term "healing crisis," which refers to how the body heals itself and will bring up old symptoms that then dissipate. I prefer "healing response." Herring coined the process the "laws of cure." I imagine the empirical medical establishment might call it "bullshit."

I desire my heart to be calm. I wonder if the changes I am soon to undergo in regard to my business will help my heart to calm.

Lately I've envisioned brown wicker baskets with helium balloons tied to the handles. I will place my worries and anxiety in the baskets and watch them float up to the clouds. The baskets never disappear but rather hover in the air right below the clouds. And then, the baskets rain down blessings. The blessings are simply raindrops filled with gratitude.

Dad sure had some serious car wrecks.
One left him with a plate in his head.
Another left him paralyzed for thirteen years.

Raindrops....