It's just like that.

We're out of natural gas. Gas that we heat the house with, gas that we heat the water we shower with and gas that fires the stove that we cook on. Has it even been a month since we filled the tank? Whew! I don't think either of us anticipated this kind of expense. Breathe. Breathing. Run through a quick mental list of ways to cut gas expense... turn the heat down on the house and on the hotwater heat. Stop washing clothes in hot water. Decrease the amount of loads of laundry we're doing... drying costs money! I need to make window coverings. Pronto! Measure, cut and sew!

I picked up my pocket guide to Pema Chodron and opened it. It opened to a passage I've just read recently. Powerful then, impactful tonight...
"Things falling apart is a kind of testing and also a kind of healing. We think that the point is to pass the test or to overcome the problem,  but the truth is that things don't ever really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and they fall apart again. It's just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy." Pema Chodron

I was trying to explain this to KH recently... that even though it sucks when PTT and her DH are insensitive, arrogant dick heads, they are also wonderful, loving friends, partners and mates. Thats just how it is. We fool ourselves into thinking we can change ourselves so simply so why can't the guys? What illusion we are under! As if we are truly successful in changing ourselves, that part of ourselves that makes our men wince, hide, ignor and snarl at us. We're not more successful at changing than the men are at changing the behaviors that make us irritable, snipy, resentful. Thats just the way it is. We come together and we fall apart and then we do it again and again. The secret is, of course to make room in our hearts for good and bad things, for things to just be and to quit fussing with everything.