I’m not very good about using it (yet), but I do keep a notepad on my nightstand. It used to be drugs that would keep me up at night. Now it’s just plain ole’ crazy. You know, just like yours, racing thoughts, most of them random, but some are genuinely stressful. Those nights when I do manage to write them down, my anxiety and stress levels are usually put at ease.
Exhausted one night though, I was wanting to ignore the continual loop playing in my mind. The sandman and I were wrestling for his magic dust, when suddenly I sat up. What I wasn’t writing down was pretty significant. I would forget by morning, lest I wrote it down. And I did, write it down, but only one sentence…
A scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was repeating again and again in my head. Charlie Bucket was having his golden ticket meltdown. Whining to his mother, “In case you were wondering it won’t be me. In case you’re wondering… I won’t be one of the lucky ones.”
Charlie was wrong. And I was too. I had been for decades.
But I’ve got a golden ticket!
Everyone that wants a golden ticket, gets one!
We are all entitled to an exclusive backstage pass and the rights to happiness that come along with it. You can do what I had done, just take the tour, only buy chocolate off an assembly line. But, I think we’re all golden ticket holders.
Unfortunately, the little boy who found my golden ticket has been an angry, bitter and resentful for a very long time. Justified or not he only wanted the tour. And Wonka didn’t give his factory to any of those brats for good reason. It turns out angry, bitter, resentful children make lousy factory owners! And as adults they tend to drink too much.
Ever add alcohol to chocolate… it seizes up.
Wonka was dead on, a child’s imagination is a wonderful thing. And I am very much a child at heart, an attribute that has contributed to many situations in my life. But couple that with a hurt child, one hindered by shattered trust development and suddenly, not necessarily, an adult you want making your decisions.
Call it what you will, another late life miracle, an epiphany or just call me stupid. Stupid, because it’s taken me so long to understand what so many have known for so long. Maybe, stupid is as stupid does, but it’s much easier to say, “get over it”, than actually getting over “it”.
I do wish I had “gotten over it” early in life. I posted this today partly because, it’s my anniversary. I was adopted by great people on this great day. And if it were that easy to get over I would have. Most assuredly with their help and there was plenty of that, there still is. I love you, mom and dad. Happy Anniversary to us.
Better for me, though, to know at my life’s halfway benchmark that chocolate needs to be whisked, than to keep on scorching it.
I needed to ask my little ticket holder for a huge favor or my chocolate was going to continue to seize and leave bitter tastes in my mouth.
I would never to be able to chose the ingredients, write my own recipes or run the factory unless he could forgive, let go of his pain and move on.
It has become clear to me, that forgiveness, is a miracle unto itself. I keep finding that it isn’t for those I forgive, it’s for me. Setting me free from anger, bitterness and resentment. Making me a happier, better version of myself.
It was honestly that easy. I just sat up reached for the notepad, and wrote,
I’ve got a golden ticket!
With little effort, some compassion for myself and others, mixed alongside some self clarity, but most importantly forgiveness, I am finding I like running my own factory.
Interestingly enough, although, Life is like a box of chocolates… I am enjoying every single piece now. Even the colored nougat ones.
As always thanks for popping by. God bless us, Duane
Moment by Moment 