Summer of Bliss (or How to Avoid Black Hole Energy Suckers)

Posted by Sara on June 25, 2012 in Uncategorized

“Summer summer summer time . . time to sit back and unwind.”

Fresh Prince, you got me you smooth talking, cutie pie, you.

How many times did I sing that at the top of my lungs?

Okay I can’t lie – I still do.  There’s something about summer summer summer time that makes me feel free and full of possibility.

I want to boogie around my living room and call my girlfriends to come run through the sprinkler with me.   I want to ride our bikes around the neighborhood talking to boys and then speed home for a slumber party.

I want to catch lightning bugs.

I want to walk to the ice cream store and order a small vanilla on a cone with rainbow sprinkles.  I want to do laps in an outdoor pool in the middle of a perfectly sunny scorching hot day.   I want to ride with the windows down singing my heart out on the way to the beach.

Ah summer bliss.

Unfiltered Joy.

So what doesn’t fit in with this picture? 

How about the pile of clothes that I just found when I started to clean out our office.  Yuck.  They’ve been sitting next to my unused sewing machine waiting to get fixed for so long I almost forgot they existed.  And now I can’t get either – the pile or the unused machine – out of my head.

Or how about making time to stop by the Apple store to get my question answered so I can move ahead with my rad online class.

Or how about returning my overdue (and unread) books to the library.

Drain.

All of these things hanging around have been about as fun to think about as getting a cavity filled.  They’re sucking my energy right down the tubes and tricking me into thinking I’m behind.

And there is no room for that in my Summer of Bliss.

Not when I could be using my energy to hang out here.

Dip my toes in the water of this beautiful scene? For sure.

My Inspiration

Similarly, my older, wiser, (and generous for letting me share this story with you) Pearl of a sister, told our member’s only Happiest Woman You Know Facebook group about a pile of mending that had been sitting on the floor of her closet for  — wait for it – two years.

The majesty of nature. Black Hole Energy Suckers are not this cool.

Two years of moving the six items aside.  Of picking out clothes around them.  Of thinking what a pain it would be to take them to get fixed.  Of moving them from one house to the next.  Yes, the pile moved when they moved.

She told herself it would be too much of a pain to take care of that ‘project’.  It would take too much time.  It would cost too much money.

But the kicker is, every time she looked at that pile (every day, as nudism doesn’t run in the family), she felt her energy get sucked into a black hole.

We all have those Black Hole tasks that we resist.

That bag of clothes that needs to go to the Goodwill.

That phone call or drop in that needs to be made to get a problem figured out.

Those library books that need to be returned.

We put them off because they’ll take too long, or cost too much, or require something of us that we’re not willing to give.

But what if the Black Hole Energy Suckers are stealing more than we thought. 

What if what we thought were just annoying tasks are actually getting the best of us.  Our best enthusiasm.  Our best feeling of accomplishment.  Our best joy in the SoB ( not that SoB).

Every second we spend thinking about the Black Hole Energy Suckers is another minute we don’t get to spend in the Summer of Bliss.

No need to miss out on any more of this. I'm kissing those Black Hole Energy Suckers goodbye.

A few weeks ago my Pearl got motivated to take her pile to the seamstress.  And to her astonishment the whole stash of energy draining duds cost a whopping $26 to fix.  $26.

That means that all that was standing between her and gobs more energy was a drive to the seamstress and $26.

Her astonishment and lightness at having dropped this Black Hole Energy Sucker could be felt across the country.

And has led me to a declaration.

Hear Ye Hear Ye.

I declare this the Summer of Bliss (SoB).

 

I defer Black Hole Energy Suckers to another light year that I will never have to deal with ever ever again.

 

I take care of those over-hanging energy suckers right away so they don’t steal my mojo and rob me of the joy I want to feel now.

Off I go to the seamstress, the Apple store, and the library.

And oh baby I feel so good.

SoB 4 life,

Sara