I tried a piece of gooey chocolate cake with ice cream. I tried doing a home movie fest. I found some old incense I used to love and lit it with great anticipation. But contrary to my intention, all these efforts ended up aborted. They were not what I intended at all, and left me flat and dark feeling on the inside, almost seedy. Strange. I have tried to treat myself by doing what I have done in the past to treat myself. But truthfully, in the past, my pleasure has always been laced with self-destruction. I see that now.
As a mother of young children I used to covet my time alone, but I don't need it anymore the way I did then. I used to misbehave when I was not having to be responsible.... drink too much, and overeat, and behave in ways I wouldn't have wanted others to witness, which is partly why I needed to be alone. But I don't do that anymore. I have learned the blessings of good choices and good living. I have learned to live in the open with nothing to hide or sneak. I do not carry shame and secrets around the way I used to. I am free in a way I have never been before.
And as such, there is nothing to fix or assuage about the current transition of my life. I have only to experience it, right here and right now. I have only to ride the river of change. I don't have to force treats and pleasure and rewards on myself. The treat and the pleasure is in the experience itself, and all the attendant energy that comes along with it. My cup runneth over.
Instead of pushing towards some end-of-day goal, some act of getting through my work or meetings or whatever to experience some fleeting pleasure, I will make the actual experience of the day itself my treat and my reward.
