I am an anchor.

    In October I cut my finger and it was quite gory. Stitches, blood, the works. I cut my ring finger, the glass sliced right under my wedding ring, and the ring was off for about 2 months. One day, excited to see how much the swelling had gone down, I slipped the ring on and it got stuck. Oh. Giant wad of scar tissue. I bought a dinky sterling silver ring that fit and I slipped it over the lump. It fit, but 2 hours later I had swelling and an electric sort of nerve pain and numbness up my pinky. Nope. Yada-yada-yada....... I decided a tattoo was the answer (isn't it always?).

   So I got this little dude. An anchor, right up there on franken-finger. An anchor, I decided, was about stability. An anchor is the life I've made and the way it ties me to the earth. In my darkest moments I have said and felt that I was a ship without an anchor but that feeling hasn't happened for a quite a little while. An anchor, or the thought of one, felt like safety. So, I went in one sunny Friday. The artist asked if my husband was in the Coast Guard and I said no. He gave me a funny look, shrugged and continued. The finger is one of the worst places to get a tattoo, in my opinion, for SO many reasons, but I did it anyway.

     Today I decided that I am the anchor. I was walking in the forest and thinking. In January, I made sort of a goal. I mean truly, it was New Years resolution, a silent, mildly embarrassing one. I am of the mind that self-improvement shouldn't be something vaguely grasped at in a brief and feverish rush from January 1st through the 15th. But I made one, and it was to strive to be someone that I admired. I haven't always been, but I know that I could be someone brave, and kind and full of goodness. Someone silly and fun. Someone, honest, with myself most of all.

    I was feeling sort of discouraged, because I felt that I had been falling short on my goal. You see, my life has been a bit.... bewildering lately. There have been events and even circumstances, and I feel that I haven't done as good of a job rising to the occasion as I know myself capable of...... But, there I was, walking in the woods alone, standing up, feeling rather okay in general. I had bear spray, a paperback and a banana in my purse and the afternoon was mine. As the sun made all the new growth, wild ginger and salal, shine an almost fluorescent green, I realized that I was the anchor. The things happening around me, weren't me. I realized that even though I may not have the events and circumstances that I would prefer, I could have the SELF that I admired. My circumstances, the things around me, they are not the anchor. My self is the anchor and I am strong, and sunk deep enough. So my ship will ride the storm out, carrying all the things it's made out of, even though the waves beat against it. 

    That's something I know today, that I didn't know yesterday.