Un-do-over-able?

Are there just some things you can't "do-over"?

I think about some of the things I've done over this last year and I want to do some of them over because I know I can do better, I can get better results, I can give more, I can not say something out loud...."do-over" but it made me think....are there some things we can't?

Things like your first kiss - you can't do that over. You can't change that moment, that feeling, that butterflies flying wild and free inside your gut. You can kiss new people for the first time but it's not really the same as your VERY first kiss. How about the first time you fell in love, I mean truly and seriously IN LOVE? Oddly enough my first kiss and my first love were the same person....Andrew something. I really loved him.

I remember the moment I fell completely head over heels for him. I was 14 or 15 an we lived in these town houses in Country Club Hills, Illinois. It was summer and the big thing we did was play hide and seek and I remember him grabbing my arm and pulling me with him. We hid together and he whispered to me that he thought I was the prettiest girl he had ever seen and we kissed. I almost died. It didn't occur to me that this moment would later become something you hold all your other first kisses up too. That moment was so perfect and etched in my brain as magical despite the fact that it took place in a industrial sized garbage dumpster. There was lots of new construction going on in my neighborhood and for some reason we thought climbing into this dumpster full of wood, nails and God knows what else was a brilliant place to hide.

I wouldn't re-do those events. Even all these years later it makes me smile. But there are many other things I would like to re-do but when I think about them is it even possible? I mean haven't I become the person I am today because of events that have happened or haven't happened? If I do them over will that change me? Will it change where I am? Is that what I really want?

There are somethings I'd like to DO. Things I have always wanted to do....thus my "list" but do I really want do overs? Maybe on somethings and I guess I get to choose what I want to do over. I know there are things I could do better on like a test or a paper or an article I've written, maybe a dinner I've botched.

There is a fine line between reality and pretend.......the reality is you can't really do over the first time of anything. There is more than the event attached to it. Emotions, feelings, memories, the entire experience. Pretending the event never happend......I guess that can be done. Why not, we do that all the time. Isn't that what the words "I'm sorry" are for? Sort of like a Tide stick for your life.

Say cheese!

"The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good friends, good conversation - they are the happiest people in the world. They are not only happy in themselves; they are the cause of happiness in others."

Lately I've had this love for pictures. I love taking them, I love looking at them, I even kind of enjoy being in them again. For a long time I avoided them. Mainly it was more about how I ended up looking in them. My internal mirror was covered in Vaseline because I used to think I looked good and then I'd see a picture of myself and be like reall? What the hell...why do I look like a hobbit? Anyway, now I find that if I am taking the pictures (self portraits have really become my specialty!) I can control that better and I actually like my pictures - well I do make some crazy ass faces sometimes but overall, I enjoy them.

I was adding a few new pictures to my picture wall last night and it occurred to me why I like pictures so much - it's a moment in time that made me really, really happy. It's a moment, an event, a situation that I was with others who are choosing to be with me at that very moment. I look at these pictures and the whole event comes flooding back to me and it makes me really happy. I love pictures! I love that with one snap of a button I can capture an event that will always be with me. It's funny how that saying is so true - a picture is worth a thousand words.

Sometimes I look at old pictures that I barely remember or that I wasn't a part of and I wonder what was happening at that time? What made this moment in time happen? Was it planned, spontaneous or a surprise? Did they mean to wear that? Especially old pictures from my parents. What ever happened to my grandparents pictures? They must have taken pictures at different points in their lives...what ever happened to all of those moments in time? What will happen to my pictures? When I am dead and gone no one will even care or know who these pictures are of. Will they end up in some second hand shop that some stranger will pick through someday? I can't stand the thought of them not having meaning.

It's funny - I never realized how much power a picture has. I mean I know they can evoke emotions and they have meaning but really, in the entire scheme of life they have power. Take my parents wedding pictures for instance. I bet they planned and saved and took the time to be sure they had all the "right" pictures to capture that day, that moment, their "love" and then twenty some years later they are simply shoved in a box in a garage rotting away just like their love did.

Strange how a picture at one moment in time can mean so much and after some time it just doesn't. How can something go from meaning so much to just being a simple colored image of people?

One of my favorite pictures I own was taken in October 0f 1982 in Disney World. It's a picture of my grandfather in his golf shirt and polyester mustard colored pants with his hat on. He always wore a hat and he always wore a golf shirt....like a polo shirt - he may have been a trend setter in his days! He's standing with Goofy and he's smiling and there is this sort of calm joy about this picture. It's this one second in time where I'm sure my grandmother said "Miles go stand by Goofy and smile". I'm sure he grumbled the entire time he walked over to stand next to Goofy and put his arm around him and for this one brief second in time - he stopped, smiled and just was. He appears to be happy, healthy and really enjoying his time. This is the moment in time this snapshot captured.....it secured for me 27 years later this sense that at this very moment in time, in October of 1982, everything was right and good and happy. A mere 12 years later he would be dead from cancer.

We just never know when time will change - that's why I like pictures. I like the joy and the moments in time they secure, the emotions or feelings they can convey to me years later. I think I need to take more.

Hurry hurry, no wait wait

It's true the early bird gets the worm.
So does the late bird and the bird in-between.
Because by design, there are always more than enough worms.In fact, the only bird that doesn't get a worm, is the bird that doesn't go out to get one.
Oh, to be alive....
The Universe

I've always been the type of person that feels like I need a list...not necessarily a physical list, but a list in my head even of the things I need to do. Sadly as I've gotten older that list seems to get forgotten a lot so it's actually better now if I do write things down but overall lists have been a way for me to feel like I'm accomplishing something. I feel some significant pride and a sense of completion by checking things off a list.

However this weekend after having some downtime, I realized I don't really have a lot to add to my own "to do" list anymore. It's strange when one notices that things are significantly different in their own life. This opens up tons of opportunities for me I realize. I just want to find the right things to spend my time on. I don't want to just fill my time up to fill it. I want to enjoy what I am choosing to spend my time doing. I want to enjoy what I am doing and not just rush through it. It's going to take come conscious decisions to make this feel right.

Last night I laid on the couch staring out my window at the world wondering how to we know what are the right choices? How do we know that what we are moving towards is something we are not just trying to move away from? Life is constant motion and movement and I realize we have to keep moving, keep plowing ahead but when we do stop, when we pause, it kind of becomes muddled....at least it does for me.

Muddled meaning I start to question the things I am doing, seeking, wanting, working towards. Is it really what I want or something I've told myself I have to have, have to be or have to attain to matter, to be accepted, to be happy to be. I start to question all the things, people and events I spend my time on and I wonder what made me choose them in the beginning? What makes me continue to choose them? What makes them continue to choose me? Is there always something new there to replace something old?

So many more questions that answers. Isn't that always the case.

Saying hello

I admit it, often I live in my own bubble. I am wrapped up in my own thoughts, my own feelings, my own garbly gookiness that makes me "me". Especially in the morning. I get up and out the door pretty early most days and it takes me awhile to kick into gear. I usually drive to work with the radio blaring but I sort of stare ahead with a fresh from the grave glazed look. Probably not the best way to be driving but it's true.

Sometimes things happens to snap you out of your own daze and today I got the giggles as I came trudging into work and this moment happened.

Here's the scene: I am house and dog sitting for a friend, she has two labs who apparently don't appreciate a thunderstorm (me either) or rain....it kinda freaks them out so they climb into bed with me thinking they are lap dogs...they are not. Anyway....I woke up at 5:30am with these baby's...decided to get up, shower, feed them and come into work...my plan is to leave early. So in my daze I come trudging into the building dodging raindrops and as I am walking towards the escalators the cleaning woman who I see almost every day as I come in starts smiling and waving aggressively in my directiong while yelling "good morning"!

I snap out of my haze and wave back enthusiastically and yell back "morning"....that's when I see the confused look on her face. I am thinking....what? Did I forget to get dressed? Nope, I'm good but I am now quite confused. I turn to get on the escalator and that's when I see a person behind me....also a cleaning person, whom she apparently was waving and shouting good morning to. I start to giggle and kinda bust out laughing thinking she has to think I am a super freak.

However, I think we are going to be BFF's now....for sure...because now we have established a bond, a connection- a relationship if you will and going forward she is going to HAVE to acknowledge and wave to me or it will be really awkward. ha. Isn't it funny when we start to live outside our own moments the things that happen. If I had just stayed in my daze I would have missed that moment and I would have just continued on my way and I wouldn't have this new connection. I can't wait to see this woman again so I can wave enthusiastically at her and shout "good morning"!!!

It's all about little moments. These seconds in time that we don't really think about, that we don't think matter or make a difference but then somewhere along the way it comes back to you and you think...humpf....that did matter, that did make a difference. My one friend and I call it "spreading our joy". We like to make comments to strangers about things they are wearing or doing or whatever....we like to make note of it. To make someone smile, to get outside of their own self for a few minutes and we have seen the effect it has on them. Sometimes we encounter the same person twice, like the barista at our favorite coffee shop and they remember us. They seem to greet us differently, or they stand straighter or they smile knowing we are there to add some unexpected joy to their day. It's all about these little moments.

Too bad we can't bottle them up and save them for rainy days. To brighten up our own souls when they need it. We need out own joy keepers.

Back in time

Isn't it funny how a song can instantly transport you back in time. Or a smell or a food? The past few days I've have several moments where a song or smell instantly transported me back in time.

The smell of Opium perfume takes me back to my 18 day trip to Hawaii when I was 25. It was probably one of the bravest vacations I had ever had up until that point in my life. I went with some friends but I purposely took time away to do things on my own several days and I couldn't have had a better time. I spent time at the Marine base there, made some new friends - like on the bus tour and then I was voted queen of the luau and then days later I'd be walking on the street and some random stranger would recognize me and scream out Alele lolo - which meant crazy queen. I'm sure I didn't spell it right at all but it's a fun, fun memory. I bought that perfume special for that trip...it was an indulgence and yesterday I smelled it on someone one and it brought a flood of memories back to me.

I remembered the flea market I had to buys so much stuff at and I don't own one piece of that stuff anymore. The pineapple factory I visited and the mumu shop...yes I bought one...ha ha ha. The swim up bar at the Ileki hotel that I wasn't staying at but I would sneak over and swim there and order drinks and randomly charge them to some room. Oh yes...I was a rebel! It's funny how a smell can bring that all back.

What am I doing now that will come back to me in 5 years or even a year? What will trigger memories for me going forward? I know you can't plan or control them but it's funny how somethings happen and you have no idea of their significance in your own life until they are way over. What are we doing on a daily basis to build that for our future days?

Is every part of our lives connected with the past? Do we ever get to a point in our future where we don't even think about, miss, talk about the past? Is our ultimate goal to keep moving forward, to keep sailing towards that next shore and just leave it all in our wake? How do we know what is worth hauling along for the ride and what's worth dumping on the shore?

Where is it all going?

I realize everything happens for a reason and at the time we may not even realize or know it but there is a method to the madness that is our own lives. Sometimes we don't see it or understand it until its over or past but it's all going according to plan. I just wish I had an idea what that plan was!
The Universe adds this as usual:

If you can just remember where this is all going, Dawn, no road will be too bumpy, no night will be too lonely, and no price will seem too great. Plus, with just a wink your confidence will bring peace to nations.
Careful now,
The Universe

It's hard to see where we are going sometimes. I mean we keep moving and trudging along our own life path and one day we realize we like where we have landed or we are content with where we are and we stay there...we settle down, plant roots, become engrossed with all that our lives have developed into and the something changes, something happens and we become uncontent. '

Is that even a word?

Darkest before the Dawn

Things change....can't stop it....life would be boring and uneventful if nothing ever changed but man....I just wish it didn't all come at once. Why can't it be slow and quiet?

My message from the Universe today:

How is it that with so many brilliant beings on your planet, so few recognize that when one's life encounters turbulence, choppy waters, or setbacks, it's always a sign that things are about to get wildly better than they've ever been before? And I'm not talking about the dolphins.
Don't fight it,
The Universe

Wildly better than ever? Really? It's hard to imagine that things are going to get to that point. It feels overwhelmingly unpleasant. I hate being content and satisfied with life when all of a sudden you have to re-shift and readjust your mind set to accommodate the new stuff....can't things just be like they are for a little while? Why do we always have to keep changing?

What's wrong with the same old for a short time?