1. Vanilla of String Too Short to Tie Sunday posts usually are based on a Bible verse. Today’s verse was from Job. One of the comments was from Vee and she said something that I think we should always keep in mind, in service to being kind to ourselves and others.

She said “Being reminded of Job’s trials makes mine seem trivial – but not less real”  

How many times have I talked about being ashamed of complaining about something in my life because there are so many people who are far worse off. Whatever problems or challenges you are facing in your life, regardless of how they may stack up against some others, they are REAL.  They are yours, and they, and you, deserve consideration. This should be extended to those around you, whose very real problems may seem less dire than your own.

Yes, there are people whose complaints elicit next to no empathy from me. (Oh, your Mercedes is in the shop again? So sorry.) And while I often deride the phrase “It’s not all about you” sometimes it just isn’t. But that doesn’t mean you should not be as kind to yourself as you are expected to be to others.

2. I rarely get headaches. Mostly when there’s a change in the weather there is a change in me (and that reminds me of a song which has nothing to do with this). Saturday afternoon I had a blaster of a headache, so bad that I actually took pills. I never take pills. The odd thing was that along with the headache was a pervasive feeling of not belonging here. That I wasn’t real; that I was in the wrong place. That I was slightly amorphous. But definitely feeling like I didn’t belong where I was.

The headache never really went away, and this morning it is still there and the feeling of being not quite here, not belonging here, persists.

It is very odd.