Broth, luck, and collisions with silence

I just spilled Chili con Limon! Cup O' Noodles broth all over my work desk. And it came about this __ close to infiltrating those hyper-sensitive between-the-key canyons on my keyboard. Ole! and booyah. I am so lucky in life sometimes. (Two weeks ago when I received a barely legible speeding ticket from a speed-trap-happy Po-Po on Biola Avenue? Not one of those times. Last Friday when I lost a contact, and therefore gouged my shin as I splayed my depth-perception-impaired body over a metal bench, attempting to find Ambrose Pizza's rest facilities? Again, not one of those times. *If that last incident sounds funny to you [jerk], you can read about it in more depth on a.m.r.'s blog. Find him in the comments section.)

Second, and unrelated paragraph: Do you have epiphanies? (Holy crap, you might be having one right now because you thought about that question.) Before I go further, I need to clarify that by epiphanies, I'm NOT referring to visions of the Virgin Mary. If you just experienced a vision of the Virgin, you may need more help than I can offer here. Anyway, I haven't had too many epiphanies in my lifetime. This is probably because I am a tad bit A.D.D. and my attention is busy creating more deficits somewhere else by the time the ah-ha moment would've hit me. My overall epiphany-lack is also very likely because I have not been driving my whole life. When I am alone in my car, the only distractions are, well, driving (and who needs that), and crummy radio stations with too many commercials about things I hate, like cosmetic surgery (see previous post).

. . . and you can get the breast enlargement AND the tummy tuck for only SHUT UP! I am trying to have an epiphany here! So the radio is silenced, and I am left with just me, God, and, if I am on Valley View, the nagging ghost of the dread Pirate Starbucks, who always wants me to turn in me hard-earned gold for some chai at his drive-thru window.

Around 12:30 last night, I was barreling down the 91. The Pirate was not nagging me, but God was. During that delightful traffic-free drive home from Norm's, where I'd enjoyed mediocre food and good conversation, God decided to hit me with the significance of the day's interactions with some dear friends. And I had a terribly simple epiphany: that it's okay to be myself. I don't have to be good at everything, or accomplish everything. It's okay to be small, to be one specialized part of the world and the body of Christ, and to fit into the whole. As I thought about this, relief swept through to the edges of my hyperactive, self-critical soul. Bonus - this was not part of the epiphany, but, as part of the whole self-acceptance theme I'd like to say: it's okay to like my body, shin-bruise and all, and to not go for KKLA's tempting cosmetic surgery deal, because, shoot, I can't afford it anyway thanks to my stupid speeding ticket, AND, why would I ever tamper with a body that CLEARLY possesses some of the most amazing hand-eye coordination on the planet. Ole! and booyah.