How have your thoughts surprised you lately?

Okay you quiet jellies, I will start.

I have a temporary ileostomy right now as an intermediate step in my surgery. Somebody online was confused about how a temporary ostomy is formed, so I went to search for a diagram to show them. Stupidly, I google image searched the term “loop ileostomy” which was not specific enough for what I was looking for; instead, the search turned up a lot of pictures of people’s stomas. One picture was of a really beautiful young woman, and I found myself being surprised by this. Then I was surprised by my surprise. I am not under the impression that only old people, or only ugly people get this surgery; that is irrational – anyone can get this disease and need surgery, anyone at all, and in fact it is more common in young people and also more common in women. So why was I surprised to see a beautiful young woman with a stoma? Now I am wondering if I’m not coping quite as well with the surgery as I thought I was, mentally. Of course I have body image issues over having a piece of small intestine on the outside of my body – who the hell wouldn’t? And it doesn’t help that the literature always has pictures of graying seniors on the cover. I don’t know, it’s something I’m going to be paying more attention to now, that’s for sure.

Okay, I’ll bite, but I am sure this is quite what you were meaning when wrote the question.

Shortly after I had my newest baby, I went shopping with my daughter (14) and the baby. My daughter was holding him while I was looking at some clothes. Some older lady came up and was saying how cute he was and then asked my daughter if grandma was enjoying the baby (she was referring to me, in case you didn’t catch that) My daughter was floored. She was speechless for a minute then she recovered and told the lady that was her brother and I was the mom.

This kind of surprised me on several levels. One, my daughter barely looks fourteen. She doesn’t wear makeup and is petite; I say this to explain she is not a 14 year old who looks 16 or 18. So, it was kind of shocking that it is so common for young teenagers to have babies that when someone saw two females with a baby and the younger was holding him it was assumed the young teenager was the mother. Two, although I realize how old I am, it hit me that if I had started having kids when I was 18 and they had a kid when they were 18, I really am old enough to be a grandmother.

All the time.
Stillness ‘speaks.’
When the constant mind chatter can stfu for a minute or two, consciousness comes into being. This allows us to access pure awareness and within this space of higher consciousness we are revealed to ourselves.

It comes and goes of course, no state is perfectly sustainable, but with practice you can train your mind/ego to get out of the way long enough to make a connection with your higher consciousness.

If it surprised you to see a photo of a beautiful young woman with a stoma, then you must not look in the mirror very often.

@Seelix (blush) Thank you dear. :)

I think about the future way too much…