As God is my stylist, I will never wear ugly again.**

(Pre-Script: This post cleans up nicely when read as the song, "Unwritten," #5 on the playlist, plays in the background. So go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (....still waiting...)

Living free is not just a destination, but a moment by moment choice to be consciously owning and making the best choices which lead to freedom, freely living in a wide and spacious place in which to run freely...

"But Michelle,"

Oh, there is my Dear Imaginary Reader, interrupting my freedom train.

"Michelle, you have used the word 'free' in some form way too many times in that last sentence."

Gentle Imaginary Reader, I am so glad you picked up on that. I did that deliberately to embed the word 'free' into the mind of the reader. Free is the word on the streets. Free is the word of the day.

"Word."

Now, Gentle Imaginary Reader, if you don't mind, I will now continue where I left off.

Ahem

...because you got there every second of staying awake and choosing the better thing. Every heartbeat of a moment, choosing the best way. Even when it goes against what everyone else is screaming at you in your face that you are supposed to do.

"You are now free to move about the country."*

But humanity is so greasy and so grief-y, too. Sometimes we identify with our pain and grossness too much. Instead of acknowledging it and doing what needs to be done in spite of, around, and through it, we pull it close like a shawl, our shoulders droop under the weight of it, we burrow our heads in as deeply as we can. "Cover me. I am not living life. I am covered in my greasy grief-y shawl. I am going to just lay here and roll around and around and moan and groan until I fall asleep."
Folks, how do we deal with grease in a pan?? We don't rub it all over the pan, we don't say "This is the pan's natural state, so let it be, let's all ignore the stench and be sympathetic towards it. Let's send it to a workshop or a class." No, we squirt dish soap and hot water into the pan, we scrub it. We get that grease OUT. We leave the pan clean smelling, dry it, put it away, and the next time we need to use the pan, it is ready to be used.
Then, delicious, nutritious things are cooked in the pan. Warm things are served out of the pan. The entire kitchen is enlivened by the smells that emerge from a pan properly used.

-XOXO,

*Airline commercial. However, I have forgotten which airline.

**This title is my own little inside joke with myself. You are free to wonder about it.