A Good Filter

I started this post over a week ago. On that Friday morning, I woke up at 5:00 am.  Plodded downstairs with the dogs following close behind.  I poured beans in the coffee machine and turned it on, then went outside in the backyard with the dogs and walked around in the cool air as the dogs sniffed around the yard and finished their morning routines.  As we all trooped back into the house, I could smell the aroma of the brewing coffee. Yum.  When I went into the kitchen, to my dismay, the coffee and grinds were spilling all over the counter.  I quickly pulled out the plug and threw a near by hand towel on the creeping coffee before it poured over the counter and onto the floor. What the heck happened?  I opened the filter section of the coffee and found that the filter was not there, it was still sitting in the dish rack.  I cleaned up the mess, put the filter basket in with a clean filter and started the whole process over again. 

A good filter.  If you don't have one, things can get messy.  Just like a coffee machine, your brain needs a good filter.  If you don't develop one, your thinking can spread in all kinds of directions, most of them unhealthy.  If we don't filter out all of the negative talk we hear and the talk in our own minds, we can lose track of what is truth and start believing a lot of untruths about ourselves and others. 

Life is still on track, here. It will be two months next week. It seems wonderfully longer.  She is still working at the job she hates. She is not a telemarketer, but she is on the phone a lot (that's all she does) verifying addresses for the company she works for. A lot of the time people are mean to her on the phone. She really hates that and I can hear in her voice when we talk at lunch, how sad it makes her.  But I am so proud of her for sticking it out. I think in the long run, that will help her repair her inner filter. I know words are powerful, however you give them the power.  Learning to not let everything someone says to you burn holes in your confidence is important. Especially, people who don't know you.

I am still working on my own filter.  Though I couldn't be happier, it is still a work in progress for me. It comes in waves, the hint of fear that this may all change. But then, deep inside is that inner voice that whispers to me that everything is on the path as it should be.  So, I readjust my filter so that I can discern the fears from what is actually happening.  Those fears of 'is she thinking of buying alcohol...maybe I should ask her,"  get tossed.  I've learned to not blurt out every thought that comes into my mind.  I have been learning that I don't need to revisit the past or that I don't need her to clarify a moment in the past when something happened when she was drinking.  Why would I even think to ask her that? Why would I want to resurrect those memories?  But I do.  Something inside me always wants clarification when in reality, it doesn't always happen and often takes the form of beating a dead horse.  It's over.  The past.  Done. Gone.  Even if I did get the answers, what is the point of reliving that hell?  Why drag her thoughts back there?  That is how worn down my filter is, so I'm mending it day by day.  One day at a time works for me, too.