The last few weeks at work have been odd and unsettling. I have run through a pile of emotions and probably let my blood pressure get out of hand for nothing so I am taking a step back. I think I need to write more and stop overthinking. Some of my reactions to change are my own insecurity and I KNOW this. I just forget. Not everything that happens is because I am older, because I got injured, or because I am female. I have to remember that sometimes people are just twisted up in their own garbage and and I need to decide not to be collateral damage.

Two things have helped me get to this point. I just had to shut up and wait for them.

2 Chronicles 20:17 You will not have to fight this battle. Take up your positions; stand firm and see the deliverance the LORD will give you, Judah and Jerusalem. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Go out to face them tomorrow, and the LORD will be with you.'”

A Coat by William Butler Yeats

I made my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world’s eyes
As though they’d wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there’s more enterprise
In walking naked.

I have read the scripture reference before but never felt the meaning so strongly as now. I am going to make the last few lines my meditation for the week and take comfort from knowing that every tomorrow, God will be with me.

The poem was one I discovered clicking to read a different poem. It was in the sidebar. What a wonderful find. Everyone makes their “song” a coat. I cover up with words until I believe them myself but the world always ends up ripping the coat away. A lesson I seem destined to learn again and again. The world might take the top layer but it cannot touch your song or soul. There is risk in walking “naked” but there is freedom too.

all the letters coalesce
become something they were not
and in the birth a death comes too but not
the inner center
gooey soft and chewy
still remains though rain may fall
on just and unjust
washing nothing but the dust
you must
hang on, hang in, hang out
like driftwood bleached bone beauty
hard as nails the water changed
and in becoming
whiter with each passing tear
hardened edges give way to
softened lines as words become pictures
and scars become memories
the shadows only mean the sun still shines

Thank you Mr. Yeats. You still resonate. Also thank you Jae for sharing a poem that led to the poem challenge that led to Yeats. Happy trails. Thank you to my grandbaby for taking my mind off problems and changing my perspective. Thank you blog sidebar for this quote of the day:

“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”
Havelock Ellis