Oh what a time it was!

Here we are on the cusp of the end of not only a year, but an entire decade. A decade has passed us all by. It's amazing when you think about how fast time really does go by us all.

So much has happened in the last year. Two and a half days are left in this year and I'm really unprepared for not only a new year but a new decade. Holy cow....how do you even begin to plan for something like this? So many thoughts swirl through my head about this last year. It's been good in so many ways and challenging in so many others. Big personal internal life changes have occurred, I graduated, I moved into a bigger apartment, had a few car repairs, spent some time traveling (not nearly enough) and honestly when I look in the mirror I can barely recognize who I even am anymore. Not because physically I've changed but the eyes staring back at me are so different from any I remember seeing before. It was a year of living out loud and pushing the envelope and I had my soul and heart torn up a bit but overall, it was a year of growing and pushing and learning about myself more than any other I've had in a really long time.

I probably am putting more pressure on myself for the new year than I need to but New Years is a time to celebrate new beginnings, new choices, new opportunities and I feel if I don't make a plan for it, make some decisions or choices about which path to follow I will be lost. I don't know that I can leave it up to chance or the fates or anyone to make the choice of what my year will bring. I need to pick a path and start venturing down it. I'm really really tired of sitting in the back seat of my own life letting the fates or the Universe pick my direction....I need to get in the drivers seat and put the pedal to the metal. I need to feel the wind in my hair.

I am so lucky and blessed to have some amazing friends in my life that get me....they really get me and they ride along with me on all the crazy paths I venture down and they support me in my troubled times and forgive me in my bad times. I can't imagine not having people like that in my life. I have so much to be grateful for, so many things I can't even begin to count high enough to be thankful for them. I think I probably need to make a list...perhaps I'll end my blogging with the list.

For now I continue to think ahead to a new year with new hopes and plans and goals for a better 2010. I will create a list of all the good things in my life but for now I will will create a list of what I want in my new year - now keep in mind these are off the top of my head/heart, they may need some fine tuning:

• Health
• Happiness
• Lots of laughter
• Time with my friends
• Girls weekends
• Long drives
• Unplanned adventures
• Continued employment
• Love returned
• More time with my nieces and nephews
• Peace
• Travel

I realize they are kind of general but overall I want 2010 to be a year that let's me look back on it and say - what a year this was and look where I ended up.

Awesome.

Gently falling

As I laid on the couch last night staring out the window at the gently falling snow pondering life I thought about how fast life changes. How quickly things go from good to bad and visa verse. As I thought back over my year and all the ups and downs I realized how fast life does change. Between my parents health issues, finishing school, working both full time and part time and the disaster of a mess I've made of my personal life.....it changes in the blink of an eye.

I started this year planning on a NO RULES kind of year and mostly I had that but even the best laid plans have their flaws. NO RULES does have it's consequences as well. Can't really have a NO RULES plan without a consequences plan. There was the flaw in my plan. I wanted to live a life without thinking, without planning, without anything and the problem was that when you do that, it upsets the delicate balance of life and things change. Things happen and you can't avoid them.

I let myself go down a new and unknown path, I experienced life in a out loud kind of way and I challenged myself to live a life I never expected I could. I had fun in the moment but my heart kind of took a beating. It's funny the things we forget about on our journey to find ourselves. I forget we are one whole package, we are one being and everything is dependant on something else. We can't live a life without seeing the entire picture. I spent a lot of time this year thinking. I don't know that I am very good at thinking outside of myself.

So....once I figured that out and got back on some kind of track it was late in the year and now here we are at the end of the year and as I look back on the entire year I think it was OK. It wasn't a terrible year, it wasn't my best but it wasn't OK. I did a lot of new things, I expanded my circle of life in lots of new and exciting ways and had fun while I did it but now as I sit here planning my new year I wonder what will I be thinking at the end of 2010?

Right now I feel pretty average, pretty middle of the road, kinda blah. I don't feel like I have a plan for the new year, I don't really feel like making one either. This year is so close to being over and I really need to make some decisions about next year but I am a little unsure about making plans for the new year....I suppose if I don't plan it however, it will plan itself. So I better make some decisions.

I am lucky enough to have some amazing friends that have stood by me through the thick and thin of this year and my family who are the most resilient group of people I have ever known. I have my health and I have a job and I have a place to lay my head at night. Overall I have an abundance of things that I don't really count every day and who knows what tomorrow will bring but for now...I have enough. I am enough. I do enough. I am OK.

2010 is so full of potential right now that it kind of scares me and at the same time feels so amazing. I want to ask for so much for myself for this year but I am afraid to ask for it in fear that I won't get it. I want to ask for love, happiness, peace, health, friends and fortune. Not to much to ask for is it?

It's snowing again as I am sitting here and from my windows it makes the world look like a snow globe. I want to grab it and shake it and see where it all settles. Gently falling flakes fall and blow around with no care where they land. It is what it is. It will be what it will be. No planning, no hoping it just is.

We could learn a lot from a snowflake. They don't care where they land or what they do, their only job is to fall gently and quietly from the sky and settle where they land. Here's hoping that 2010 let's us all settle where we land.

Bring on 2010

Life is a cakewalk

Been so busy lately between real work, part time work, the holidays, my life.....seems like I can't catch my breath. Every year at this time however, it tends to feel like this. I have so much LESS going on but it feels busier.

The Universe had this to say to me today:

You see, life isn't supposed to be all "cakewalk" and no "baking." Especially not for those who like to experiment, take risks, and be surprised.
Please pass the sparklers,
The Universe

I like that thought....remember the good old fashioned cake walks? A bunch of beautiful cakes were supplied and then a circle of numbers was made and when the music started you all walked in a circle until the music stopped and number was drawn and you PRAYED it was your number! You then got to pick your favorite cake. I like the thought of life being like a cakewalk.

I have said I'd like a soundtrack for my life but imagine if I had cakewalk like music and each time it stopped something happened. I would get to choose something. Maybe one time I'd choose sprinkles, another time something sinful, and yet another something senseable and healthy. I think sometimes I get so hung up on getting to that other point, across that bridge that I forget the journey there is sometimes part of the process. I always want to be at the end. I want the happily ever after. What if that doesn't exist? What if all we get is what we have? Is that really so very bad?

Overall my life is pretty amazing. I have my health, I have a decent family, amazing friends, a pretty awesome home, a stable (secure???) job and reliable transportation....what more do I really need? I have so much more than a lot of people and yet I always think I'm missing something. I look at other people's life and I want bits and peices of what they have but I don't know that I want the entire package. I don't know that I'm meant for long term, for permanent, what if I am only suppose to be the that short term person? Are some people only meant for that? Are we all suppose to be permanent?

Sometimes thinking of leads to better places and sometimes it just opens more and more windows.

Choose your destiny

I've been crazy busy lately. Can't really blame it on the holidays because it's not like it's been going to parties kind of busy. It's life maintenance and work and trying to squeeze in all the I should be doing these things kind of busy. I've been thinking a lot lately about what it is I really want...maybe WANT isn't even the right word.

Wanting is great....it gets us from point A to point B but is wanting enough? I mean I want to have money and I want to have someone in my life and I want my friends and family to be happy and safe but really....those are wants....maybe I need to re-think it...what do I NEED?

This time of the year always makes me a little....melancholy. I always wish I had the Hallmark Christmas....the family, the kids, the husband, the friends that you see on TV...but the reality is I have a good life. I have a decent family, I have great friends, I have a lot more than most people and yet it always feels like it's not enough. Not that I don't appreciate what I have but I feel like there is one piece to the puzzle missing and every time I think I have my hand on it, got it grasped tight in my hand it doesn't fit. As hard as I try to make it fit, it just doesn't.

The Universe of course weighs in:

Should you choose to go, do, and be, at the end of your life, shocked and dismayed, you'll likely exclaim that because of all the uncanny events, wild timing, weird coincidences, and sheer chance encounters, all of your life's good fortune must have been your destiny.

Or, should you choose to wait, wish, and hope, at the end of your life, shocked and dismayed, you'll likely exclaim that because of all the uncanny events, wild timing, weird coincidences, and sheer chance encounters, all of your life's bad luck must have been your destiny.
Do you see what the difference is?
It ain't me,
The Universe

Interesting. I know this....I get this...I understand I have a choice in my destiny...to an extent, that I get to choose that I am enough, that I have enough that all is well....but it's not, so until it is I can't get there, I can't be that person.

I've said it before and I'll say it again...it's hard to be an adult.

How do you find it? How do you finally get