On God in The Bathtub

I have this bad habit of draining the water in the bath right as it finishes filling up. It's as if I can pat myself on the back for for a job well done, the bath got filled, and I can go home now.

Each time I realize I've done it again, I'm reminded of the quote: "The way you do one thing is the way you do everything."

"Really?" I think.

"Pretty much," I imagine the quote would follow up.

I suppose it wouldn't be wrong to analyze my tub habits and arrive at a sense of hurriedness. I guess you could also accurately deduce my inability to sit with my reality.

The quote wins again.

When I think back, I know surely there was a time when I was able to bathe at a proper pace. As a kid I loved splashing around--maybe even for too long.

Then I think, are these merely two sides of the same coin: avoidance. Avoidance in either escapism and leisure or in constant commotion and running.

I start to wonder when did this avoidance sprout?

The complexity of human nature means this avoidance must come from a few different sources. Which, luckily for me, means my mind's game of projecting blame has endless directions to search.

Sure, I could blame growing up gay. Being fearfully closeted fractured my soul into the inner gay part and the outer "playing straight" part. This led to a bifurcation of personas: the one that I perceived to be safe to present and the one that I feared revealing. I could say that this led to adult me having to sift through all thoughts with the hopes of figuring out which is the authentic voice and which is something I constructed to protect myself out of fear. I could say that this led me to avoiding sitting deep in my reality and pushed me down the slope of a bad habit of perpetual avoidance.

Sure, I could also cast blame on the years of growing up on a stimulant, and in turn, extending a piece of the blame to the parents who were afraid of my ADHD. The years of essentially being on meth pumped me with vitality; and now without the drug, I feel slouched and lacking the energy to participate in my reality. Sure, I could blame ADHD.

I could blame my avoidance on the stickiness of struggling to find an income. It feels wrong to rest, I could say. Ironically, this same feeling comes with a wave of paralysis too. Trapped in the in-between. It's the depression of not having a stable career and (obviously therefore also not having a) purpose.

My racing ego mind then arrives at another idea: Could I blame God?

Well in order to blame it, I think I would need to define it. So I guess I conceive of God as a coordinating higher power and force operating throughout the universe. Maybe not a white guy in the clouds, but perhaps there is something to a force that impacts all. So if there is this higher power, what could it possibly be sending me in my inability to sit with my life?

Shouldn't God come and give me a sign?

Where is it?

And then I start to wonder maybe God is that feeling in my gut. Or there's a part of him in there. It's like a morsel of this mighty force, like a nucleus, sitting as my inner guidance system. Cliche as it may sound, but this little thought that came under the layers of blame, told me to look within.

The ego then yells, "bullshit!"

My fractured personas at war again.

But I try to contemplate the possibility that there's a little life force in me that helps me operate and has its own map. Or it keeps me along the geodesic of my soul's expansion and growth. There's that little part of God within everyone. That's God's tin can telephone to send messages, and it's within me while I sit watching the draining bathtub.

When the water empties, I close my eyes. I think about how each time I send energy toward the outer projections of blame with the hopes of creating a healing balm to my ache, I am actually getting further from the higher power within. Blame makes me a worse version of myself. I am ready to break up with blame and grab the tin can telephone to the knowing within. And it doesn't matter who or what force is waiting on the other end, as long as my ear is tuned to my gut.