Yes. There Is Even A Special Day For The Delusional. Happy Festival of Popular Delusions Day!

We all carry our favorite delusions around in our back pocket:

• The 5-second rule for dropped food.
• Barack Obama is not a natural born citizen of the United States. (For all you conservatives out there.)
• Sarah Palin believes she can see Russia from her house. (For all you liberals out there.)
• Global warming. (I just threw that in to irk my husband.)
• Summer is a great time to get things done while the kids are out of school.
• Irregardless is not a word. (So sad. It is so widely used it has become “nonstandard” English and now appears in virtually any dictionary. Look it up.) 
• It takes 7 years for  gum to pass through your digestive system.
• Eating turkey makes you sleepy. (Actually, ground beef and chicken contain the same amounts of tryptophan as turkey.)
• Santa Claus. (For all of you. Because I still believe.)
• That your boyfriend is completely faithful.
• Saint Patrick was Irish. (He was English.)
• Walt Disney is being preserved in a cryonic chamber.
• Friday the 13th is an unlucky day. (When you’re a glass-half-full gal like me? It’s just another day.)

There are things we want to believe because it makes us happy. There are things we believe because it provides order and an explanation, no matter how irrational the belief may be. There are things we want to believe because it gives us hope. There are things we believe, not because we want to, but because we’re too lazy to look it up.

There are things we choose to believe because it’s the world we have created for ourselves and we like it that way.

Put me in that category.

I like my rose colored glasses.

I choose to believe that there can be a world without the need for war or weaponry. I believe in Disney magic and Santa Claus. I believe that the Mayan calendar would start all over again if the Mayans were here to produce a new one. I believe in the 5 second rule. (Depending on the surface on which it falls, of course.)

I choose to believe the unseen truths that comprise my faith. I believe that someday my mortgage will no longer be upside down. I choose to believe that I will not turn into my mother.  I believe that if I break a cookie in half the calories will fall out.  I believe in fairy tales and miracles. I believe that people are born good and fate has a nasty way of twisting those who succumb to evil. I believe in goodness and light and kindness and joy.

So.

Call me delusional.

I don’t care.

I’m much happier this way.

My Heart Going Boom Boom Boom

I absolutely adore the song “Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel. As melancholy as the lyrics can be, it is always a happy, hopeful song.

“My heart going boom boom boom” – A song full of promise. Change. A shift in perspective. That’s what happening to me now. Yesterday the shift was a bit scary, a bit depressing. Today, I am filled with hope.

“Open doors would soon be shut
So I went from day to day
Tho’ my life was in a rut
“Till I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut” – There have been some revelations in my life recently that have caused me to stop, reassess, adjust. Some days it felt as if a door was slamming on my foot. Other days I was struck dumb. Then there was the re-evaluating relationships. The struggle. But the tempo of the music matches my mood. While difficult and uncomfortable, it’s been freeing and cleansing. I feel so much lighter today.

“When illusion spin her net
I’m never where I want to be
And liberty she pirouette
When I think that I am free” – I don’t think I realized how stifled I was. How I am not myself when I am preoccupied with pleasing and compromising. I have a cautious appreciation for change. And the change in myself that I am feeling now feels right.

“I will show another me
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom boom boom
“Hey” I said “You can keep my things,
they’ve come to take me home” – Home. Within myself. Feeling comfortable in my own skin. Knowing what is important to me. That is the space I find myself today.

I was surprised to discover that Sarah McLachlan and Dave Matthews have versions of this song, both artists I love. But their versions were dull in comparison to the original. They didn’t make it their own, as Simon Cowell would say.

But I wouldn’t want them to make it their own.

It is perfect just the way it is.