Wake Up Call 1

Ever have a period in your life where you start asking yourself, “What on earth is going on!?”. You know, the kind of times where one crisis after another comes up and you start trying to figure out what you did in a past life to bring this on? Well, these are what I like to think of as the wake up calls from the lobby of the Hotel Grand Universal and it usually goes something like this (all caps are the Universe yelling at me):

“Hello, Dawne. This is the Front Desk. Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that you have overslept due to some contraband, grey woollen blankets you purchased. These blankets are contraband due to the fact they TURN YOUR BRAIN INTO FUZZY MUSH! It is our understanding that you didn’t know their function at the time of purchase. However, you are still in violation of the PRIME LAW OF THE UNIVERSE. As you know, this LAW is about YOU CONTRIBUTING to the ONGOING CREATION of reality. But, you CAN’T DO THAT if your ENTIRE PSYCHE is in a DOZE! So, it is now my job to KICK YOUR GREY WOOLLY BUTT OUTTA THAT OH SO COMFY PLACE you THINK you’re in and back into reality. WAKE UP DUMMY! Thank-you for staying at Hotel Grand Universal. Have a nice day!”

Strangely, I never find these wake up calls from the Universe terribly pleasant, but I do know they truly are for my own good and for the good of those around me. I also find, whenever this happens to me, that I usually have a short meltdown during the crisis, then pick myself up and get through it. When the crisis is over, I try to wring out whatever lesson I can from it so I can cope better next time – you know, like earplugs. Never quite works though. Oh, I do get some kind of wisdom from the experience, but it just never seems to prepare me for the next one. I find they’re pretty wily down at the front desk; always figuring out new ways to make me give up my grey woollies. I think they’re trying to make me throw them off once and for all. What’s kinda dumb (ok, really dumb), is that I realize the horror my little addiction brings into my life.

This Is the Front Desk Calling… AGAIN!

Over the summer of 2008, I discovered my father had cancer. When I learned of this, I was told that his radiation treatments were about a year away, meaning he wasn’t too far along. Well, a couple of months later, I phoned my Dad to check how he was doing, only to find out he hadn’t wanted to worry me: The radiation begins within the month… He’s going about his life, puttering in his garden, going to work and so on. In short, going about his life. Taking everything in stride and if I asked him why, he would tell me, “Not much I can do about it. That’s just the way it is…”. And everyone would agree…

But is that actually true? Is it really true? You see, I’ve had really, really bad stuff happen to me physically and I said, “NO WAY!! NOT ME! FIND SOMETHING ELSE to get my attention, ’cause that is NOT going to fly in my sky. Period. Are we clear? ARE WE!?”. And within a couple of hours, everything is always great.

A quick example was when we had I my second daughter, Aila. The doctors and nurses told my husband twice during the labor I wouldn’t survive. I wouldn’t survive because of the physical mechanics of the situation: My body would go into deep shock and I would die. That’s just the way it is…

Yeah right. I had a baby to look after at home and the one coming now – at high speed. I had to get this done and get home. No time for dying. Gawd! Can we just get on with this so I can go home? I left the hospital in under 48 hours with NO adverse effects at all. Not in my sky…

So I made my stubborn, dyed-grey-in-the-wool (heh) Dad take down a title: Biology of Belief. I did this through eloquent bombardment of ardent verbiage (I browbeat him) by pointing out that there is plenty of proof showing the contrary to, “That’s just the way it is.”.

Front Desk Calling. This Is Your THIRD Wake Up Call, Dawne

On the same day as I found out about my father’s radiation treatments, I found out my husband had a serious problem as well in his eyes: He was going blind. I guess first you need to know that he’s been very near sighted since he was five. Now it seems, his eyesight went from 450 (really near sighted), to 1500 in two years. The closest deterioration a doctor would normally see is 450 going to about 1100 at 80 in five years. At 1500 (in both eyes), it means he was legally blind, so much so, the optometrist couldn’t figure out how my husband could walk in a straight line without the benefit of a cane or guide dog (plus his eyes were very dialated from drops). Seriously. I wonder what he would’ve done if he knew my husband could read too. Without Braille?

What the problem seems to be is a very rare form of cataract within the lens of the eye itself. This means eye surgery to replace the lens in each eye. The up side of this did mean that they were able to permanently correct his vision (no glasses) and he doesn’t have to worry about these particular cataracts ever returning. As a person who has always had extremely sharp vision, I shudder when I think about the surgery he had to go through… awake. But my husband took everything in stride: He’s used to severe problems with his eyesight….

But I guess it’s just like what I’ve had to do every day for the last 16 years. I walk around each day with the kind of pain most people only have nightmares about, but never really think about it. Why? Because I’m used to it. And all this started me thinking, which means I’m awake. Guess all that yelling does work, ’cause all this is the Universe trying to get rid of those grey woollies of mine.

Wake Up Call 2 Addresses getting rid of the Grey Woollies & handling the Wake Up Calls the Universe sends us.