I’ve  been drinking more tea lately and have discovered that certain brands of tea have little quotes, quips, or encouraging words on the tag. Truth be told, I love this kind of thing. The idea of sitting down with a hot cup of tea while reading something inspirational.

This, however, is most often not the case. Generally my tea bag tag says something like “A smile is a frown turned upside down”. About as inspirational as a dollar store greeting card. My apologies if you happen to be a dollar
store greeting card writer. I mean no disrespect. I guess it’s just that I want something I can really sink my teeth into. Something deep and moving. Something that spurs me into action or causes me to spend a quiet afternoon contemplating the deeper things of life. Something that causes a single tear to glide down my face and slip silently into my cup of tea.

I went to see a psychic recently and realized I was looking for the same thing from her. I wanted her to speak deep meaningful truths straight into my soul. I wanted to know if I was on the right path. If all my struggles were going to culminate in something wonderful.

I think more than anything I wanted someone to assure me that I was going to be ok. The logical part of my brain kept telling my face  “do
not emote!” Because I wanted to hear what she had to say without my emotions giving her any clues. It became more difficult when she said things like ,”I see that you’re carrying around a lot of sadness.” Yes! I have been! She spoke of a relationship from my past and had a great deal of clarity about that too. Erie. Being the classic over-thinker that I am, and despite my extreme effort  to take everything she said with a grain of salt, I found myself really considering everything she said and trying to figure out how it might come into play in my life. I wanted direction.

And when she said that I did indeed had a soul mate I should have felt relieved. But it only led to more questions. So many more questions. When will I meet him? Have I met him already but didn’t realize it? Should I have joined that book club I was considering? Maybe he attends that. Should I wear my favorite blouse on our first date or save it for the second date? Sheesh. Ridiculous.

Gratefully, I caught myself in the shameful downward spiral and realized something that I think I already knew. There should be a word for that. Realizing something for the second time. Kind of like deja vu. Would it be deja knew? Yes, I have a wandering mind.

My realization was this;

There are no simple answers.

I know. Not anything groundbreaking . I think I just needed reminding that more often than not, we all are just bumbling our way through life. We’re hoping we’ve made the best decisions possible based on the knowledge we have at the time. There’s no magic ball, no fancy tea bag, no psychic reading that can give us perfect clarity or lead us to  perfect outcomes. The world doesn’t work like that. And while there may be some tea tag quotes that make me more introspective than others,  there certainly aren’t any that can predict my future or inspire me to do much more than smile while I drink my tea. (Perhaps those come with the more expensive teas?)

So, for now, I’m going to sit back, sip my tea, and trust that my fate sits snugly in my own hands. As it always has. And if I need to take in something wonderful and moving, perhaps I can watch a Hallmark commercial. Or something with Sarah McLaughlin singing in the background.