Angels are lovely, but they take so long to get here

Anyone heard of angel cards? They are a product of the woo-woo culture, a novelty I’ve kept by my bedside since college (which was a long time ago, btw). Like a deck of cards, you draw one to take as your daily inspiration. They each read one word—Strength, Healing, Purpose etc.

I don’t pay the angels much mind anymore, except to poke fun at Captain Daddy when he’s grumpy. Nothing like selecting a card reading “Peace” and thrusting it under your over-stimulated spouse’s nose to drive him completely off the dock. And sometimes I use them as bookmarks. And sometimes the chickens use them as confetti, as in, to throw a ticker tape parade for their Groovy Girls.

Anyway, I was at Powell’s Books on Sunday selling off some old reading material. The clerk pulled an angel card from the pages of “Blindness,” a book I started like eight years ago and never finished. (I thought it was depressing and unforgivably bleak, but what do I know, they made it into a movie last year). The card read “Freedom.”

“Thanks,” I said to the clerk, smiling. I felt downright gifted with my own personal allotment of freedom. So that’s where it’s been. I stuck it in my back pocket and went on my merry way.

Flash-forward to yesterday, when I pulled clean laundry from the dryer and discovered the shredded remnants of “Freedom,” washed to destruction before I could even enjoy its blissful sweetness. Drat.

I had quite the little self-pitying episode there in my laundry room, mourning the freedom I’d have to live my entire life without (as well as my inability to master the art of laundry), before truth smacked me in the head. Duh. You don’t need a small inspirational card in hand to stake claim on a little freedom, or any other longed-for life state, for that matter. These things are yours for the taking. Don’t you get it yet? Make them yours, for God’s sake. You’re almost forty. It’s about time.