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Gifts In Ugly Wrapping Paper

© Katherine E. Rabenau

I have often said that there is a gift in everything that happens to us in life. And I even believed it - with my head. Now I am actually ready to believe it with my heart as well as my head. Some of life's gifts, like babies and sunrises and roses are unmistakably beautiful. Some of them, like illnesses and personal tragedy, are really unpleasant seeming packages that we just don't want to open. "This is a gift?" we think, "You've got to be kidding." I remember when I was about seven or eight years old my brother gave me a copy of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations for my birthday. I was underwhelmed by it. I thought it was a really boring, stupid gift. Years later it became one of my favorite resources. I wouldn't dream of parting with it. A lot of life experiences are like that too.

Last week I received one of those ugly gifts. I've been asked to move out of my current place of residence by the end of November. I'm physically and emotionally much stronger than I was 15 months ago when I came to Arizona, but I'm still not back on my feet financially and though my legs are stronger and carry me further, I am much more wobbly than I want to be to feel secure out on my own. I have learned to drive, but I have no car and haven't actually gotten to practice even once since I got my license 5 months ago. I have a part-time job on-line which brings in some money, but not enough for me to really support myself out in the outside world. And I have two months to figure out a plan. How can this be a gift? It certainly didn't feel like it when I first got the news.

What's truly odd, though, odder almost than being agoraphobic - is that I feel really happy. Blessed, even, by this unwelcome turn of events. That's not to say that I wasn't a bit miffed for a few days. (I was really ticked off, actually. Betrayed. Mistreated. Abandoned. Tragic. Pathetic...and so on.) It's not nice being told to go away. Even when it's not offered as a personal rejection, it surely feels personal.

I have so much that I want to say here and I don't know where to begin or how to weave it all in together so that the pattern of the journey comes clear. I guess I will just plunge in and let the words lead me to through the maze. (The Amaze.)

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