Synchronicity?

Recently, I was losing sleep because my anxiety meter suddenly reached its threshold and tipped into the "overactive" zone. If you know me at all, then you know that for me losing sleep is tantamount to sticking pins in my flesh and/or being forced to use margarine in lieu if butter. As in: not good.

I love to sleep and it is normally something at which I am quite adept. Not to brag. However, being really good at sleeping means that I am really bad at not-sleeping. Without plenty of rest, I am not my usual partially-optimistic self who is in possession of somewhat well-functioning reflexes and borderline satisfactory decision-making skills. In other words, without sleep, I suffer and the world around me does as well.

The reason I was not sleeping was due to something that seemed basically out of my control. Or so I initially felt. The issue was that my husband and I are almost ready to leave for Paris, where we will be spending the next year, and we had yet to find either buyers or renters for our house in Charleston. While it would have been fine, in theory, to just lock up the door and buzz off to France, knowing that our kind family members and friends would check on the house on a regular basis, such was not a possibility. Or, an even finer idea--again in theory--would have been to have one of the aforementioned kind family members just pop on in and live in our house for the year. Peace of mind for us, free for them...everyone wins! But, again, not a possibility.

The fact is that the darn mortgage is not going to pay itself. And so I was lying awake at night plagued by "worst-case" scenarios brought on by worries surrounding money.

How unoriginal, right?

As I expressed my concern over this particular dilemma, a few people in my life had mentioned St. Joseph to me. St. Joseph as in Joseph, father to Jesus and alleged carpenter extraordinaire. Apparently, Joseph, with his exemplary labor skills, was made into the patron saint of houses somewhere along the line. More specifically, a legend had developed that when one experiences trouble selling a house, the proactive and effective course of action is to pray to St. Joseph to intervene. In doing so, one also buries a small statue of him on the property and voila!: house sells.

The person who most recently told me about this St. Joseph business is a dear friend of mine, and I trust her wholeheartedly. She, however, was a bit wary when telling me and presented the idea by saying: "You are probably going to find this incredibly cheesy, but..."

I mean cheesy? Are you kidding me? I am the person who altered my entire diet, life-course, and life-philosophy due to what a reflexologist told me as I sat in what I suspected was a discarded dentist chair in her basement under a home-made butterfly mobile. I do rain dances, I have a vision board, and I read horoscope books for hours in Barnes and Noble. And burying a statue is cheesy? I think not. Sounds downright perfect.

And certainly right up my cheesy alley.

So I promptly ordered myself a little St. Joseph statue and prayer card. Well, statue would be a tad euphemistic. He is more like a plastic G.I. Joe figurine than a "statue." Anyway, he was $4.99 on amazon.com, and that seemed like an incredibly reasonable sum to pay for the potential reinstitiution of my healthy sleep patterns.

He arrived on Saturday, and yesterday I asked my husband to bury the statue with me and say the prayer. He, being a perpetually good sport (did I mention he is moving to Paris with me for a year when he neither speaks French, nor has ever been to Europe...not only a perpetual good sport, but maybe of Saint status himself), performed the ritual with me. And with a straight face too.

Post-ritual we walked our dogs and then, post walk, I noticed a missed call on my phone. It was our rental agent. While we were praying to St. Joseph and burying him in our yard, she was on the horn with a guy who was committing to renting our house while we are gone. One prayer to St. Joseph and the mortgage was no longer an issue.

Voila!, indeed: last night I slept like a baby.