Days 16-18--{helpless, refresh, spirit}

"Helpless"

It took me so long to sit with this little group of cards because the first one I was supposed to tackle was "helpless." It isn't that I couldn't think of anything...it was that it seemed like that about covered EVERYTHING! Last week was one of the most helpless weeks I've had in a long time.

So, here's my card. This is "me", stuck in the gears of my life, feeling helpless. It feels like circumstances are just grinding me up. The background paper (CM) is a graphic version of tire treads because, this sense of helplessness leaves me feeling like I've been run over.
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"Refresh"

I'll send you a post-card if I ever get there.
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"Spirit"

Now, you would think I would come up with something entirely spiritual here. Nope. These are reflections on the emotional side of my spirit (or my recollections thereof...)

You see, I used to wear animal prints. There were a snakeskin-print pair of jeans. A cheetah print blouse. Oh, and my favorite...also cheetah...a neck scarf. At the time I remember feeling like they pretty accurately represented my wild heart. Today I'm thinking, "Where on earth did that go?" I've become so tame. I don't do anything crazy or romantic anymore. I don't even think those things anymore.

For a brief moment last weekend, I remembered how it used to be. But the context for the remembering basically nullifies it all! You see, I was so overwhelmed, irritable, emotional that I ran out on my family. Frantically left the house with nothing but, "I'm not doing o.k., I have to go. I'll be back late." I didn't really have a plan and I ended up at the cheap theater. The only movie starting within the hour was "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End." Well, Disney sure did it up "dark," but I still managed to be completely in love with the protagonists. It made me want to be a pirate (with better bathing facilities, though.) It made me want to win the heart of Jack Sparrow (or Will Turner...he'd be good, too! Heck, Elizabeth Swan was even fantastic.) I lived the adventure vicariously for a couple of hours and it reminded me of how my spirit used to soar now and then.

Now, my spirit drives a mini-van, sleeps in old t-shirts, and doesn't wear make-up. Sigh.