Resilient Confidence

I find being human a fascinating practice in surprises.  Today is a great example.  I woke up with a migraine.  I get one every month or two.  Usually at the intersection of dehydrated and stressed out.  LOL

I have, in the past, increased my suffering by anguishing over the lost time, listing all the things that won't get done that day, resisting my state of health or illness in general.  Today I managed to dodge all those follies.  Instead, I checked in with Zander, made sure he had what he needed for his morning, then I went back to sleep.  Drifted in between snoozing and meditative contemplation, actually.

And when I woke again, it was noon and I felt much better.  That was my first surprise.

Then I reminded Zander that we had a great opportunity for social time at a weekly park gathering for home school children.  As much as Zander is often happy to spend time alone with his projects, his social interaction battery runs out pretty readily, so it's in our best interests to keep him visiting other kids.  Only, in this case, that involved driving on a hazy bright afternoon.  And just walking from the house to the truck was a piercing reminder that the headache was only on break, not gone home.

Some thoughts crossed my mind, of skipping the drive and the park.  Of calling someone to get Zander to his father this afternoon.  But after a queasy moment or two, I knew I wanted the time with him.  Our end of the week travel time is also our check in for the weekend and plans for next week time.  So I drove.  The sunglasses helped.

On the way, he played one of his handheld games, trying three times to beat the bug type gym in his latest Pokemon game.  And managing only to generate a lot of frustration.  His team was underprepared, but he didn't want to do the work to get them ready.  And he's usually the sort to be right on the money about what his group of critters can handle.  Now this sort of situation, where I know he has the resources to solve the problem but isn't using them, often results in me becoming cranky and impatient.

But this time I just felt compassion.  That was my second surprise.

I offered to level up some of his pokemon while he played.  His turn to be surprised.  LOL  He replied, "Do you really want to do that?"  I said yes.  Not that I have any great desire to play on his DS or to learn more about capturing pokemon than I need to stay current with his reality.  But I do have a desire for his happiness, and it seemed a simple enough task to get his team some basic upgrades.  Besides, I already had plans to mostly sit during our park excursion.

So he played with his friends, and I got the team ready for their battle.  And I had a lot of fun, which surprised me.  And I got sufficiently distracted from my discomfort to ignore it completely, which surprised me.  And he beat the gym battle on his first try with his upgraded team.  All happy results.

Now, I'm home again.  Some cleaning to do, some organizing, some things to sell on Craigslist.  My head still hurts.  It doesn't really bother me, though.  It's just a status report my nervous system keeps updating.  It'll probably be gone tomorrow morning.  And then I can explore new surprises.

I feel more comfortable with the not knowing, today.  My confidence in the good will of the Universe is returning.