Listen To Life!

At their regular Thursday night support group, Elaine, Lori-Ann, and Josh stared at Amy, waiting for her to pour out her hell with life and the chaos and insanity destabilizing her life, living, and world.

When she continued enjoying her meal in silence, Lori-Ann kicked her in the shin under the table, glaring at her.

She bellowed in pain and kicked back, saying in anger, “I listen to life, so I stopped complaining.”

“When did you start listening to life?” Lori-Ann demanded, rubbing her left shin.

Caressing her right shin after easing out from her chair, anger lines running across her face, Amy explained, “Three weeks ago, your greedy dentist charged me $575 to do a root canal. As I left my house, I couldn’t find my car keys. “

“You are always misplacing your keys,” Lori-Ann threw at her, still caressing her shin.

Amy glared at her, using her left hand to caress her shin, and went on, “I was in pain and wanted to hotwire my car. There was nothing to cut the wire. As I headed inside to get a knife, my house keys disappeared too.”

“You are making this up,” Josh mocked.

Amy gave him a dirty look with furled brows and continued, “Pain threw me off course, and I lost control. I sat in my car and cried for a while when my phone rang. The dentist canceled my appointment because I was late, and if I rescheduled, there was a $50 surcharge for me not showing up.”

“Damn, she is telling the truth,” Josh admits.

“But you still got your root canal the same day,” Elaine’s memory recalls.

“While your dentist’s secretary was trying to cheat me, Carla, my cousin, remembered that I had teeth problems and called me to let me know about the free dental services Dentist Without Borders was offering at her community center, and that day was the last day!”

“Damn!” Lori-Ann said.

“How did you get there after not being able to find your car or house keys?” Elaine asked.

Amy smiled, “Turned out that my car keys were in my back jeans pocket that I knew I checked before. I was sitting on my house keys and felt nothing.”

“Wow!” they said in unison.

“But how did you start to listen to life?” Josh and the others wondered loudly.

She sighed, going back happily, “I could have called Uber and been involved in an accident, because the route I was about to take and the time it would have taken me to get there, I would have been involved in that oil tank explosion.”

“Oh, God! We forgot about that!” they cried.

“But you said nothing.”

“I said a lot by not complaining anymore and just giving thanks,” she reminded them. “The moment I couldn’t find my car keys, I could call Uber or one of you to take me to the dentist and worry about hell after my root canal.”

They nodded in agreement, then Josh asked, “So you think life was actually speaking to you?”

“Life speaks to us in our own language every day. Many of us are so preoccupied with the hell we create for ourselves and others, we don’t pay attention to the tiny incidents that are happening in our lives and why.”

They nodded in agreement, and Josh asked, “So life sends us messages in certain situations?”

“It sends messages in every situation. Most people just make their own decisions,” Amy recalls the many times things happen that she didn’t understand, and later she realized why.

“So not finding those keys was life’s way of slowing you down, forcing you to think about what was happening?” Lori-Ann asked.

“Those few minutes I got frustrated while searching for keys that were in my back pocket and the ones I sat on that delayed me were life-saving me from something horrible. I sat on my keys and felt nothing. I swear,” Amy explained.

Silence spoke again, and Lori-Ann suggested, nodding, “My grandmother said her life is the way it is because she listened to life. I think it’s time I too start listening to life.”

They all nodded in agreement.

Life speaks to us every day in our own language in simple ways and situations that demand attention that we ignore. Annelise Lords

I, too, have days when life speaks and I don’t listen. Then I pay a hefty price for my disobedience.

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoy it.