Patterns

My eyes scanned the aisles of cotton print, looking for a certain aesthetic quality that I didn't quite have the words to describe, something arts-n-crafts-y, Americana-ish, in good ole red white and blue on a dark beige background, like that weeping willow or the two-story red house with the black windows I've seen so much of--but not that, it's overdone.  Anything but roosters, which seem to be everywhere now.

Patterns.  On fabric, it is just an image that repeats itself over and over again, familiar, symmetrical, soothing somehow, a nice contrast or gentle blending with whatever the background is.  The human eye is trained to look for them.  Something about the familiarity is soothing, it feels safe, it pleases the eye.

But here is the interesting and somewhat paradoxical thing about a pattern:  after awhile, even though the brain is trained to see them, they somehow fade into the background and become un-noticeable with too much exposure.

How does that play out when we are talking not about fabrics, but our lives?  A life pattern can be good or bad.  To the good, it can keep us safe; but sometimes, a pattern can be extremely detrimental, limiting our potential and damaging the outcome of our very lives.  The most extreme example is that of an alcoholic or junkie or sex addict, who has a pattern that shapes their entire lives and yet, they are not able to let it go.  Most of us, thankfully are not alcoholics or junkies or sex addicts, and yet, our patterns can be just as harmful.

Just today I saw dear friends of mine who lost a child born stillborn 25 years ago.  I don't want to minimize their loss or their pain, but they have allowed that single event to mar their joy for 25 years now.  It has limited them and damaged what they could be.  I'm not being insensitive, so if I am coming off that way, I do not mean to--but a quarter of a century has passed and they are still bound to the pain.  I would like to think that we don't have to live our lives this way and that this child would certainly not want her parents to continue to anguish over her in this manner.

In order to accept something we often have to let something else go.  If your hands are already full--with grief, or anxiety, or hurt--you can't pick up joy or happiness or peace until you put those other things down.
The danger here is that often we don't know our own hands are full because they have been full longer than we can remember and we no longer know what it is like not to have those things present in our lives.

So here is what I'm trying to do--and what I encourage you to do.  Examine yourself with a fresh perspective.  Look for patterns that no longer suit you.  Let them go.  Embrace life.