Well, it took me 355 days to use the word “love” in the title of a blog post this year.
I was about to say, “Shame on me,” but I stopped, because:
- Shame doesn’t do me any good, so I would like to stop using that phrase (and let go of shame) as quickly as I can, and
- I am already suspecting that my first sentence of this post … is incorrect.
That is, I think I MAY have used the word “love” in the title of a blog post before.
Therefore, ladies and gentlemen of the blogosphere, I shall now, with my lovely assistant, WordPress, search all my previous posts, for a title using the word “Love.”
This may take me a little while, but the time will pass by quickly, here.
.
.
.
Wow. Some interesting things have happened, here in Ann Time.
I haven’t checked my old posts yet. Instead, I noticed, after I “paused” this post, that I was feeling unusually cold. And when I checked the digital thermostat, I saw that it was blank. I didn’t take a picture of that, but here’s a close-enough representation of what I saw:
Eeeeeeeeeek!!!!
So in the middle of writing a post on love, I was experiencing my old friend, fear.
I assume that nobody wants to feel cold, or to see a non-working thermostat. However, some people may be more afraid of those things, when:
- It’s very cold outside.
- You are alone, when you encounter the problem.
- No help is available, to solve the problem.
There are times, in my life, where the above factors have been true, for me. But none of them were true, today. However, I felt fear AS IF those three things were true.
Why? As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are reasons why I might feel a more intense fear, initially, when the heat goes off and the thermostat is not working:
- Since I was a little kid, I’ve depended upon machines and batteries (specifically, cardiac pacemakers) to keep me alive, so I tend to overreact when machines don’t work, or when things run out of power.
- When I was in the hospital as a little kid, the temperature was often too cold, and I had no control over that (as I had no control over many other things).
Hey, guess what? I just got interrupted, again, in the middle of writing this post.
But before I tell you about THAT interruption, I want to tell you what happened, regarding the thermostat and the cold.
After my first reaction (Eeeeeeek!!!!), this is what happened:
- I noticed that reaction of fear.
- I used coping skills and techniques I’ve learned throughout my life, to let go of the fear.
- I concentrated on the reality of the current situation.
- I came up with a theory of why the heat was off and the thermostat was blank.
- I called the Heating Guy on my team** — Tom Prendergast — and he agreed with my theory. As a matter of fact, he offered me a job on his night crew.
- We discussed possible solutions.
- I implemented a solution.
- The heat came back on and so did the thermostat:

Then, I called back Tom Prendergast, and left him the following message: “We are both very smart, I do not want the night job, and thank you for everything.”
And — to go back to the title of my post today — I had feelings of love, then. Because I felt safe. I knew that I was not alone. As a result, I was able to let go of fear, connect with my own wisdom and experience, ask for help, and solve a problem.
Yes, doing all those things, whenever I can, helps me get in touch with my feelings of love.
When I first started writing this post, there were other things I wanted to say about love. I wanted to allow room for all — random and otherwise — thoughts about love, because I (like other people) can have fears about using that word.
However, right now, I have some unfinished business to complete, in this post.
I need to tell you about the second interruption I mentioned above, which occurred as I was writing this post. That interruption was a phone call, from a dear old friend, who would like to accompany me here:
And that conversation helped me get more in touch with love, too.
One more piece of unfinished business: DID I use the word “love” in the title of a previous post this year?****
You know what? It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: I’m using it now.
Thus concludes our post for today, dear reader.
Thanks to all my friends (old and new), everybody on my team, and you — of course! — for reading today.
* I found this image here.
** For more about the concept of “My Team,” see here and here.
*** See here, for more about escaping to there.
**** I did, actually, use the word “love” before (here and here), plus I used a variation on the word (“lovable”) here.

