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Tears in my Ear

It’s 7:53am and I am in a comfortable bed on the third floor of a nice hotel somewhere in Arizona. It’s 75 degrees with a forecast of 100 today. I am still and quiet. The room is cool and silent. My covers are soft and comfy but are twisted, crazy, and all over the place. It seems like a fight ensued throughout the night and the covers won. It’s so quiet that I can hear the compressor from the little black fridge across the room. As soon as I said that, the air conditioner kicked on as if it’s jealous. Nevertheless I ain’t moving. Skye my daughter, is sleep and will be so for a minute. She’s fourteen now and kids her age like to stare into phones all night and sleep like vampires during the day.

I was laying here enjoying what feels like a cool island coastal breeze blowing over me from the vent. At the same time, I am trying to figure out how I was going to manage to make it home today. Somehow we’ve overextended our budget and the hotel has frozen too much of my funds at one time. I hate when they do that. It’s for incidentals Mr. Wilford. Daily? For the same room? What are we talking here? Do you think I’m housing untamed Llamas and planning a Motley Crew concert in my room? Maybe I should pay you for half of my stay and give you the rest at check out?

We had a great time bonding as father and daughter as always. I am amazed at watching her grow up and formulate her own opinions about life. Well, she’s in a deep sleep so it’s good to see her resting. You never know what these kids are going through. Surely the parents are the last to know. I at least try to stay close enough to sense it.

In the meantime, I’m on my end of the condo slash hotel room relaxing but kicking myself for doing too much and not doing enough at the same time. Somehow we always want our kids to be happy at whatever expense that cost us. It’s a bill that we willingly to pay to see them smile. We internally beat ourselves up a lot or at least I do for not doing more. The good part about this is what happens while I am whipping myself for not being a better father.

I get a notification that I have an Instagram message. It’s a picture of a purchased copy of my book that Mia got in the mail. On the picture, she typed a few quotes taken from the book. This made is special and personal. For some reason this hit me emotionally and hit hard. Now I’m laying on my back on my super soft white pillows looking up at my phone and her words of thanks. My eyes begin to water. I blink once and my tears take off as if they are drag racing down both sides of my face to see who can reach my ears first. Now my vision is blurred, I’m feeling thankful, and I want to write to say thank you but I can’t until I clear the tears. I blink again. Now, more tears seem to follow the path pathed by the first tears like a herd. Down into my ears they go. I text my appreciation for my morning inspiration to thank her for supporting me.

Why the emotion? Was this the first book sold? No. Why the tears in ears? It took me back to how long it took me to publish this book. I shared with her that I found the first draft of this manuscript and it was dated 2002. This means that this book idea has been in my heart and on my mind for fifteen years. I had the thought and desire to write it fifteen years ago but never chased the dream. I didn’t think it was a dream. Somehow we think our dreams and ideas are just random with no real purpose. I use to think that everyone has the same thoughts and dreams as me. It wasn’t until I started chasing some of these thoughts that l learned different.

For the last twenty or so years, I’ve worked in a space that requires you to continually recreate yourself, your vision and your theme. I love it because it forces me to turn inward and work to manifest a new me.

In short, I think it’s deeds and days like these that help to encourage and inspire you to believe that your thoughts are right. You have to listen to the inner voice within. Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you get it wrong. It really all depends on what you call right and wrong. You can never go wrong following your instincts. Rather it leads you to riches or rags is a horse of a different color, but it doesn’t mean that You were wrong because You hit a dead end. I’ll just turn around and go in the other direction.

Tears in ears? I thought it was a deep idea worth chasing. Maybe this blog is deeper than just a confession of mismanagement of funds in a hotel somewhere in Arizona? Maybe it’s more than just a note of support from Mia and a thank you? Maybe it’s more than just a moment with God that you are reminded that everything you need is within you and we need to chase after it? Maybe it’s this special experience that is only exclusive to a few people? If you’ve never felt warm tears in listening ears, it’s exclusive to only a few.

This is for people who have been forced to be still for a moment. Laying on your stomach seems like a position of choice and control but on your back feels like surrender and vulnerability. Life throws us on our backs where we are rendered helpless sometimes. It’s a good place because as least we can look up. Maybe it’s why God places us there? We’re not looking down at others, we are not looking around at what others are doing, we have only one recourse and that is to look up!!!! Maybe the realization of who God is and what He is doing in our lives in spite of us, forces the tears out of our face and down our cheeks.

Your have to be still. You have to be on your back. Tears that run down my face usually end up on my shirt or stop somewhere along the contour of my cheekbone, or get caught by a tissue. The warm tears that escape your eyes and travel to your ears, may very well be on a mission to deliver a message. I’ve heard of messages in a bottle but maybe there are messages in our tears that are assigned our hearing. Are you listening? I don’t know about you but I am truly not interested in cold tears. Maybe dead people cry when they have run out of time and have not completed God’s assignment for them. That has to be a cold tear. When God says, “You have no more time!!” Your heart stops, life freezes and the last thing that transpires is two cold tears of regret are dispatched and set off on a journey to deliver a message into your ears….I don’t know what that message would be but I don’t want to hear it!!

Let me be about the business and giving attention to the thoughts and ideas within my head and heart. Let me develop avenues to bring these ideas to life. Let me inspire and encourage others to do the same.

Thanks Mia!! I am so glad that my warm tears were tears of thanksgiving this morning.

Maybe we all should spend some time on our backs possibly in a nice hotel somewhere out in Arizona? It did me some good.

#WarmTearWil