Yesterday, I was sent on a search. I needed to find gold rope. Not just any gold rope, but rope appropriate for the occasion. Appropriate for stringing up just so, for coordinating with the other colors, for looking “nice but not too nice.”

I was sent on this search by my friend, the one with whom I’m attempting to create things. Was the gold rope necessary? Not really. But it is what came from her imagination and I had a spare hour so I searched.

Wandering through the craft store, it all just started to become a little bit much. Not only was I not able to find gold rope, I wasn’t sure I cared. I’m known for taking things on. Projects, people, animals, you name it, I will take it. I will take it and do it well and not rest until it’s done. None of that, however, means I’m passionate about it. Passion, for me, is not a command. It’s not run by a switch that turns on and off when I need it. It’s more of a spontaneous fashion type of passion (excuse the rhyme, I stole it from Barry). When I’ve got it, I’ve got it and, by all means, I need to take advantage of it.

This gold rope wasn’t doing it for me. And more so, all that comes with the gold rope. I’m creating the creations, I’m working on the work but something just isn’t making me gung-ho on this whole deal. My friend assures me that I’m doing fine but I’m not. I don’t have that gold rope passion that she has. And it struck me right there in the store: I need to stop this madness.

No longer purposeful in my search, I ended up on an isle filled with hundreds of Christmas ornaments. I stood in that isle, looked around, took a deep breath and said a little prayer.

Right there, surrounded by the mass-produced signs of the season, I was calm. I was calm and I knew what I had to do.

Later in the evening, I talked with my friend. I told her I wasn’t feeling this. I am working over forty hours a week, trying to meet writing deadlines, sitting on two different boards and training for a marathon. My energy is spread too thin to do the job I think I need to do, which is nothing less than perfection. I told her I’d rather be out extra cash and happy than trying to sell and stressed out with one another.

Being the great person she is, she understood, which is more refreshing than I can describe. She’s busy too, spread very thin, so I was afraid. In the past, I’ve had worse reactions. The reactions that say “no, I’m not mad” but what’s really underlying is “ I am going to be mad for six months and probably not talk to you for at least half that.” Thank heaven and earth I am past those days, those relationships. I had no reason to be afraid this time.

Now, instead, I have permission, from both my friend and myself, to take a back seat for a while. We’re still going to create things together and we’re still going to meet our selling commitments but now, I don’t have to worry. I may or may not be as productive. I may or may not make as much money. But I will still have my sanity and I will still have my friend, and I will not feel the need to aimlessly wander through Christmas décor searching for answers. Answers that, I know, are already in me.

I’m sitting at dinner the other night, having a perfectly good time. There’s a lull in the conversation and my mind wanders. I wonder, all in the span of twenty seconds, when the right time is to share certain things about yourself. When do you tell them your dog’s name or your favorite book? Do you tell them you hate chocolate? When is the right time to share that you’re about a week away from losing your first toe nail?

A monumental, disgusting fact of distance running, I suppose but nonetheless, a fact. I’m guessing you can really go quite some time without sharing this information and some people might never, but I’m a sharer. Not too much, too soon, but eventually, in any relationship, it’s where I find my comfort. It’s not so much what I’m sharing as the reassurance I find in disclosure. I keep and I keep and I keep and the times I can let a little go, well I adore those times.

That’s why I felt so great about my run the other day. Though I understand it’s just a small part of my life, I like to think that some things happen that have significance completely independent of any other force. It’s not true, but how else are things real? How else do we decide between good things and just mediocre? How does one occasion mean more than another? Is it because we choose to make it that way? I think so. And I think we do that by the way we choose to share it.

Which is where I find myself now; really having a lot to share and unsure of where to direct that energy. I’m well aware that a first date is not the time and place for toenail stories. I’m also aware that driving my friends and family crazy with disgusting stories is no wiser. But where does it all go? Well, it looks like right now it goes here, but how long will that work? It would be far more productive to have a place, I think. I’m also, however, aware of what’s under my control, and this isn’t.

I had a friend, that two days ago completed a 100 mile endurance race. His wife, was there for the twenty-eight plus hours and even paced him at the end for the last few miles. His words at the end? “There’s no one else I would want to share that with.” It meant a lot for him to finish, of course, but it meant more that his wife was there with him, to share.

I hear this over and over, that things mean more when you share them but I rarely have chosen to believe it. Sure it can make an experience deeper and more memorable, but it doesn’t make it worth more, does it? Well, turns out now I think maybe it does. Figures, the time this actually starts to resonate is when I realize I’m losing a toenail. How deep and meaningful is that? I know, it’s not. It’s just disgusting.