Not often do I admit to a stomach ache. One reason is I hardly ever have one, but this morning I had to call my friend and say I couldn’t go with her to shop and have lunch as we’d planned. “I’m not feeling well,” I said. It was OK. She had others to keep her company and I could stay home and get over whatever was bothering me.
I don’t look for causes like “Was it something I ate?” I’ve learned to give physical problems as little thought as possible and focus on mental solutions. So I made myself a place with pillows on the sofa and let my canary sing and play in his cage in the window. I would be amused by his songs and antics. That should help to free my thought.
The gardeners were busy keeping the grounds lovely and the noise of their mowers and trimmers came in through the open windows. I sometimes wish they still used old fashioned lawn mowers. You know, the kind they’d push and the blades would make an almost musical sound. Music. Yes, I would turn on the I-Tunes on my computer. Some old romantic songs like “I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places...”
Why is it so many of those old songs make you cry? They got me to thinking again of a young couple I know who are breaking up. I love them both and hoped so much for their happiness but it just isn’t working out for them. I thought of that scenario going on all over the world. Over and over. The music made me blue. It gave me a heartache. I switched it off.
As I sank back into the sofa I remembered a childhood experience of mine. It was puppy love, that’s true, but even at the age of seven I was smitten. The boy was a handsome high school fellow who noticed me and smiled as he walked past me in the downstairs hall. The upstairs classes were for junior high and high school kids but they had to pass our lower school class rooms to enter or leave the school.
I’d see this fellow now and then and he always had a word to say, a smile. For me! I got to looking for him, even following him around as he walked with his friends downtown past the old courthouse and the grandstand in the park. His friends started teasing him about me but that only made me feel more special. “She’s cute!” they’d say, poking him in the ribs, “but aren’t you robbing the cradle?”
One day I waited, sitting on the bottom step during lunch hour, for him to come back. When he did I started to follow him upstairs. That was against the rules and his friends teased him more. “Look, she’s tagging behind you!” Then he turned suddenly and with glaring eyes and loud voice he called out, “Stop! Why don’t you get lost?”
I was instantly stunned, shot right in my heart, but as I retreated to my classroom I would not let myself cry. I sat there alone before the bell rang and I made a choice. I would never follow him again. I would never look for him or even at him again. I would put him out of my mind altogether. It was a wise decision for one so young but it was also cold and calculating. And I kept true to my word. Soon it was easy.
That little episode as a child may have robbed me of some element of romance throughout my life. I never was tempted to give in to a needy kind of love. My idea of super romantic love I enjoyed in movies but not in real life. Mine was a careful kind of love. I used my head as well as my heart and that worked for me. That’s why I worried about those two young lovers I spoke of. They needed each other, and I wanted so much to see them happy. That hasn’t happened and probably won’t.
As I rested on the sofa with thoughts like this running through my head I made another decision. The problems of those young people had made me sad for a long time and I needed to stop worrying about them. They will get their answers, whether they stay together or part, and I should mind my own business! I fell asleep and woke up around lunch time.The stomach ache? It was gone. I got up and fixed myself a lunch of avocado on crackers and orange juice. I felt fine.
Sometimes I think that we’re here on earth to learn all about love. I’ve learned quite a few lessons along the way and today I learned another. Let divine Love work out our love for others and theirs for each other. I can guarantee the one divine Love doesn’t even know heartache or indifference. But Love cares, and our love for others is nourished by this one all-embracing Love that meets all needs. By knowing this I lost a heartache and a stomach ache. And my morning was not lost after all. But tonight my favorite old movie channel is not featuring a romantic movie. Oh well, I'll get along.
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