The clock ticks dull and rhythmic and the heat pump is straining, causing echoes down the hall.

It is dark and I’m wrapped and anchored, a layer of blanket held down by the big puppy.

I’m remembering the fall asleep reading of last night.

A book that intrigued, “Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine” is honest, irreverent at times, but made me want to know more, made me long to understand the mystery of her trauma.

Thinking it was years of working with abused children that called towards the book and then learning it was more, it was Eleanor’s story.

And mine.

“My life, I realized had gone wrong. Very, very wrong. I wasn’t supposed to live like this. No one was supposed to live like this. The problem was I simply didn’t know how to make it right. Mummy was wrong, I knew that. But no one had ever shown me the right way to live a life, and although I’d tried my best over the years, I simply didn’t know how to make things better. I could not solve the puzzle of me.” Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine

To see her heroic, an overcomer redeemed from the hard years.

I got to the meat of it finally. The hard truth, the flailing soul at her lowest low, Eleanor Oliphant deciding not to go on.

Graphic were the paragraphs describing her vodka induced departure from living.

I thought of times I prefer not to think of, of circumstances that will stay just memories, won’t become written for sharing.

But, the honesty on last night’s pages, it was fulfilling to read them. They were relatable.

The main character at her lowest low, at her most honest.

A friend complimented me yesterday, he watches my life through my writing.

I go honest and he says keep going.

I feel I’m failing and he says no you’re just getting started.

You are so “locked-on” to where you want to be that you often don’t realize you are living that journey. As I peel back my layers, I keep finding all the junk, bugs and detours.Some day, when I grow up, I want to be like you. Ray V.

I’ve yet to reply to Ray’s comment sufficiently, to say thank you for seeing me, seeing the undercurrent of struggle that quickens my stride.

That if I’m not careful “trips me up”.

The fictional character, Eleanor Oliphant is an atheist and yet she’s convinced her life can be better, she just needs to make it true.

It’s futile, this force towards stories we aim to rewrite or to decide its up to us to change the ending.

Oswald Chambers met me with truth this morning:

“When I stop telling God what I want, He can freely work His will in me without any hindrance.“

Utmost for His Highest daily devotional

Maybe another way to say this is just stop forcing what you believe is yours to capture.

Stop measuring your value based on what you think you did without.

Be where you are now, reconciled that this is so very much enough.

Know you’re not finished, there’s so much more knowing to be known.

Eleanor, the one falling apart in a self-induced stupor is greeted by a friend when she is roused to open the door.

A friend, concerned and asking to be let in. He hadn’t left her thus far.

I’ll finish the book today, reminded by a friend David Kanigan that Sunday is meant for rest.

David Kanigan

I’ll be hoping Eleanor rested finally, put to rest her traumatic before and settled her soul in the goodness of her now.

Hoping for the ending of the story to be better than fine, to be redemption.

I know it’s fiction and Eleanor has decided God is not real, is not her friend.

Still, I can hope.

And I can believe.

Continue and believe.

You weren’t equipped back then, Lisa. DR, another wise friend

Thankful for a Sunday, for friends and for God.

I do believe in the three and they believe in me.