Sorrow gives you wings

Things happen for a reason. That's what we have to believe. We are all born full well knowing that the outcome is always death. At some point in time we all die. It has to be. The most you can hope for is to do something amazing while you are here, to make a difference, to leave your mark, to love and be loved along the way. If not...then what is it for?


Dealing with death is exhausting. So many little things you don't think about that suddenly you have to think about....for someone else. It's exhausting mentally which eventually turns into physically which in turn effects you emotionally...it's a toll. But there is always good with bad, sun with rain and right with wrong.


Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to find the light again. The death of a loved one sort of forces you to stop and take a look at your own life. I've learned I am more capable of handling more stress and sadness than I thought possible. I've learned that sometimes, even though your heart is breaking you have to keep moving forward...that tears are healing and sorrow can give you wings you never new you had.


The Universe tells me this today:

You might call it spiritual logistics, but sometimes you have to move away, to get closer. Either way, it helps to remember it from time to time.
Tallyho,
The Universe

And while we're at it, sometimes you have to let go, to stake your claim. Be still, to move forward. Give, to receive. Cry, to feel the joy. Pretend, to make it real. Fake it, before you make it. And sometimes, oddly enough, you must first decide to feel the love, to find it was there all along.

I love the line sometimes you have to move away to get closer. It's like when your writing something...you have to put it down, walk away and come back to it with a fresh head. I guess life is a lot like that, you have to walk away from it until you can see the light again.

You can't catch anything if you never fish.

The Rainbow Connection

Legend has it that at the end of every rainbow sits a leprechaun with a pot of gold. If that’s true, apparently I’ve only been finding the wrong end of that rainbow for a long long time.

Rainbows occur when sunlight is refracted through rain droplets and create an arc-shaped spectrum of colors in the sky…this is the reality of what creates a rainbow. But what about the metaphoric rainbow?

As Kermit the Frog sings : Why are there so many songs about rainbows, and what's on the other side? Rainbows are visions, but only illusions, and rainbows have nothing to hide........Who said that every wish would be heard and answered when wished on the morning star? Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices? I've heard them calling my name. Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors. The voice might be one and the same. I've heard it too many times to ignore it. It's something that I'm supposed to be. Someday we'll find it, the rainbow connection. The lovers, the dreamers and me.

Life seems to constantly get harder as we get older. When we are younger it feels like we are protected from a lot of life's issues. Our parents try to protect us from death and scary things. I remember as kid a firework factory blew up. I was in grade school and when it went it sounded like bombs exploding. Of course no one at the time knew what it was so panic ensued. I was in school and I remember sitting in the hallway crouched over with my hands over my head, like that would stop concrete from crushing me but hey, that's what we did. As it turns out it, it was nothing and my parents tried to brush it off. When my grandfather died when I was 12 they sort of brushed that off too. At some point though, you can't brush off life's issues. You have to deal with them and face them head on.

I know that old saying that things only make you stronger. Dealing with death, illness, job loss, failed relationships....it all serves a purpose in our lives. We have to deal with these things as adults...but sometimes I'd like to live the life of a protected child and look for that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow instead.

Staying with the story long enough

In this day and age everything is disposable. Friends, lovers, jobs, relationships......food. It's all about convenience. How quickly you can get something and how quickly you can be done with it. There is something to be said for saying with something through the good and the bad. I like to use my grandparents as an example.

Annie and Miles were married for some 50 odd years. They had certainly seen their fair share of both the good and bad sides of life. They had two children and worked hard their whole lives. They finally retired and moved to Florida where they enjoyed a good life before my grandfather got sick and died....my grandmother followed just about 10 years later. They struggled their whole lives against things life threw at them and yet they weathered the storms. They stayed together and finished their story.

My nieces and nephews (and their kids now) have no idea what it's like to finish the story. The minute things get hard or mucky they walk away. They leave, stop, quit and it's really sad....they will never really know a happily ever after if they don't stay and fight the good fight. It's so easy to quit when things get tough. When you hate your boss or if the partner you've chosen is not the dream you once thought..but how do you know when it's time to stay and fight through it or to walk away? If you always walk away, how do you find a reason to stay?

All endings are happy endings - if you even believe in endings. Do you beleive in endings?

Searching for yourself

Have you ever googled yourself? Or searched yourself out on a website like Dexknows.com? I was looking for my friends address so I could send her a birthday card and I searched her on dexknows. I was surprised at the information readily available...it's kinda creepy actually!!

It listed her family members, their names, ages, and if I wanted, a map to her house. So I put myself in and pretty much the same info...except oddly enough my friends address came up as my address too....but I've never lived there. Weird.

I find the internet a wildly facinating device. You can find out anything you want to with the click of buttons. Amazing.

I wish life were that easy.

Giving up or accepting?

There are somethings I know for sure:

• I know I'll never be a super model
• I know I'll never be without grey hair again, well without some help
• I know I'll never have children of my own.
• I know I'll never wear a size small of anything

These things I accept. I know these things for sure, but when do you decide to accept your own realities and short comings and when is it giving up?

Do I give up the battle against the grey hair and let it go? Every morning I get up and I try to look decent. I shower, comb my hair, put on make-up and attempt to be sure my clothes match or at least make me look some what acceptable for work. Some days are a miserable missed attempt but overall, I do OK.

I try to make sure when I leave my house, I look like I care about my appearance and I try to keep my house in some what of decent shape in case the unexpected guest drops by....I accept this as part of who I am and what I have decided is important in my life. At some point do we have to re-evaluate that?


I see people every single day that don't appear to make any type of an attempt to groom themselves in a public friendly manner. They either have severe bed head, wrinkled clothes or really don't look like they put any or much effort into making themselves presentable. And who hasn't seen some hair that makes you go....my god...don't they own a mirror? But I wonder, is that their reality? Is that what they have accepted as the norm? Or have they given up?

How do you know where to draw that line in the sand?

Lately life has taken on a bit more of a hectic, frantic, out of control phase for me. Work, family, friends, part time work...all has it's merits as well as it's faults. Don't even get me started on my love life! So maybe that's wearing me a bit but really, when do you decide to stop fighting and just give up? Is giving up failing? Is accepting what IS the right thing? Aren't we suppose to constantly strive to make our lives better for ourselves by reaching outside our comfort zone to grow and become better and stronger than we ever thought we could be?

It seems utterly exhausting. I feel like I don't know why I fight it....why do I struggle for a better job? To have the right person in my life? To maintain friendships with people who clearly don't make me a priority.....what's it worth?

I think we do have to stop and ask ourselves...are we really going down the right track or are we forcing ourselves to stay on some path that clearly is wrong? When do we give up and accept that we are exactly who and where we are suppose to be?

If that's the truth....what's next?

It's all downhill from here

Being alone or by myself is something I keep struggling with. I don't know if it's the actual act of being alone or if it's more feeling based. It seems to be getting worse as I get older too.

Being alone to me feels like - I don't matter. That if something happened to me, if I fell or got hurt or died - no one would know. No one would care....no one would notice. I KNOW that's not the truth, I know it in my heart but it's there...it's in me...it's how I feel. I can't really separate that - yet....but either way, I am not a fan of it. Because of this I have to force myself to be at home. To do things around me house all by myself.

I am addicted to texting. Maybe because it makes me feel like I am not alone, maybe because it FORCES people to think about me, I don't know...I do know - I love it. I crave it...I can't go a day without it. Judge me if you must but it is what it is.

Anyway, I decided on Sunday that I wasn't going to be the first to text people...that I would wait and see how long before anyone contacted me. So I waited...and I waited...and my normal routine is I send several texts before 10 a.m. because I don't sleep well....that's a whole other issue....but Sunday, I waited. I never heard from the usual suspects until about 3 p.m.

I realize other people have families and lives and things going on besides me but that was a bit of a ---- I don't know, shock? disappointment? Kind of made me a little sad.

I then decided I would take the day and do things around my house I have been putting off. So I cleaned, I organized, I purged and got rid of some things and still I felt uneasy in my own space. What is that about?

I have had the opportunity a few times to get a roommate if I really wanted one, but I don't want one. The thought of having to share my space with another person isn't really what I want. I am a complicated duck...this I know.

I started thinking however, about how we become the people we are. How we become so entwined and dependant on other people to complete us. I think that's it....I need other people to complete me. To make me feel whole, to give me purpose, to give me a reason to do what it is I do everyday. I mean what is it for if not to make me happy and feel loved and needed by others? Hmm, I sense a bigger issue here.

Then I wondered....if you knew how your life would end up would you venture down that path? If you knew that the person you are in love with right now would turn into something different, something you didn't bargain for would you stay? Would you invest your heart and your time? Would the trade offs be worth it?

What about the job you have...if you knew it would change and morph into something completely different or outside where you ever saw yourself doing would you stay? The Universe posed this question to me a few days ago and its made me think a lot since then:

Would you ever take a journey if you knew ahead of time that you'd become hopelessly lost, have your heart broken into pieces, and sometimes wish you'd never been born?

Now, how about if you knew ahead of time that on that very same journey you'd also find yourself, fall passionately in love, and live happily ever after?

It's the "what if's" of life that always make me stop and pause.

What if's will eat you alive.

Adversaries

Do you have a mentor? An idol? Someone you aspire to be? Someone who encourages you, roots for you, is always there for you no matter what? A very best friend? We all have those people who encourage us, support us, boost us up when we are down and we need them. We are even those people to someone else. But what about an adversary? Someone who always points out your flaws? Who looks for you to fail...who is happy when things don't go your way? You have anyone like that in your life? Anyone who makes your days miserable or challenging?

If so - thank them. Yes I said THANK THEM.

These are the type of people who will help you grow. Who push you or challenge you to become more than you thought you could be. You ever have someone tell you "oh you can't do that" or "you'll never do that right".

What is your immediate response...do you agree and quit or do you push on with an attitude of power and purpose?

When I was finishing school I interviewed one of our executive vice presidents to pick her brain about what success meant to her, how did she achieve the lot in life she had and what advice she would/could offer someone up and coming in the world. She talked about working hard, giving back to the community around you and being sure you gave equal time to work and family but she also talked about this book her father gave her as a young child....Disputed Passages.

It tells the story of a young doctor who went to work with an older doctor who always pointed out everything he did wrong, how he didn't really know anything which in turn made the young doctor work even harder and learn more just to prove the older doctor wrong. One of my favorite quotes from the book:

"Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you and disputed passage with you?"

It's true, we learn most from those who challenge and push us outside our comfort zone. So when you create your list of idols, don't forget to include those who challenge you and dispute your passage.