"On Silver Linings"

Roo has bugged me for some time to get rid of our home phone but I have resisted.  Not because I think we need the phone, but rather because I didn't want to give up the number itself.  We've had that same number for close to 30 years and it's the number that the entire free world has for us.  Every government organization, every doctor and lawyers office, every bank and insurance company.  Then we seized on the idea of porting the number over to Roo's cell phone and that met with my approval.  The beauty of it is that her and I now have a matched set of cell numbers (one digit different) and we still retain the former land line number.  Gradually we will wean various callers off of her number and on to mine as appropriate.  And if we ever decide to go back to a land line we simply move the number back.  Although that will be a cold day in hell since I'm pretty sure that Bell is the only option we have here out in the country?

Anyway, I only give you that preamble in order to lead you to the little moment of inspiration I had the other day.  Because I was so attached to the number I was very nervous about possibly losing it in the change over.  When I made all the arrangements with Telus(they were fantastic by the way), they told me it would be anywhere between 3 and 48 hours to complete the process.  They warned me that during that time we may lose service on one or both of the phones(land line and Roos cell).  Actually her phone went dead almost immediately but the land line continued to function.  I started to get nervous right away about my friends at Bell.  Would they refuse to release the number(even though they have to by law),or worse still, would they just close my account and put the number back in circulation?? Then they seriously aggravated my anxiety with the harassing call I got from Carole.(my nickname for her also starts with C).  

Somewhere along the way I got over that, and even further along the way I realized what the phone call actually did for me.  Without that call my anxiety over my number would have started at 3 hours, and built with every passing minute/hour/day.  I now knew that I had nothing to worry about, at least until the 48 hours was up, since Carol assured me that only over her dead body was it gonna happen any sooner!! And sure enough!  Almost to the minute, Roo got a text from Telus advising completion of the change, and simultaneously the land line went dead!!

The moral of the story.  Often we don't see an obvious silver lining until it's too late to take pleasure in it.  Pain is always obvious, but pleasure in the form of avoided pain, not so much so.  I need to not just be alert to these hidden moments, but  need to actively search them out.  I know for some people this comes naturally, but unfortunately, not for yours truly.  Maybe if I practice?

Basement ride, 60 minutes.

"Every cloud has it's silver lining, but it's sometimes difficult to get it to the mint"---Don Marquis

Love
Peter