Day 303: Monday, Monday

Today was Monday and I was tired, but I had a choice what attitude I would have. The past week or two, I have just been counting days, struggling against the world, but have I been living?

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." -Thoreau

I can't spend 365 days waiting for him to come home. Today, I ran late to get to my orthopedic doctor's appointment, which makes me feel crazy, then sat waiting for a hour just to get into the exam room. The nurse took an x-ray of my knee, then told me if the problem ends up being in my hip, I have to call my general doctor for another referral. Of course after two minutes, he tells me I have fluid on my knee and he needs to see an x-ray of my hip too. Lucky me, I have to have two surgeries. I am already imagining the fun this will be with a baby. I ran to the grocery store because we were dangerously low on everything. When I got home, I was rushing to get stuff done before heading to daycare to pick up the baby. I shattered the coffee pot. So I had to make another trip to the store. Or go without coffee . . . HA, yeah, right!

Froggy Bottom Baby

I had all these things go WRONG and came home smiling. I downloaded a Michael Buble song and danced and sang and played with my daughter for an hour, making her giggle over and over. What joy!! I could have spent this afternoon moping and sad and scared and frustrated, but what is it going to solve? Nothing. I am still going to have to figure out what to do with the baby on crutches and have six-twelve weeks of recovery time. I would have wasted some precious hours with Lil Bit if I let my attitude get down.

Another friend of mine has been struggling with what to do during her husband's first deployment. She was great as a wife, but has been some one's daughter, girlfriend, fiance, wife, not yet a woman. She doesn't know who she is. She has been trying to fill her time with stuff, jogging, dining out, maybe a part time job, but deep down, she knows she needs to fill that void with HER. Whatever she needs to do to figure out how to live deliberately.

None of us want to realize when we come to die that we have not lived. But sometimes it is hard to find a way to live deliberately. Be in the moment. Worry about now the most. Keep the future in perspective. You have to think about it, you have to plan for it, but you don't have to worry quite so much. Find one thing to smile about and hold onto it as long as you can. Crying will happen, it is part of life and living it, just don't let it be what fills your time until tomorrow. Live deliberately friends, otherwise, you're just not living.

Day 346: Autumn Promises

A former student of mine said she read this today and it was something special to her. It is a good reminder to me as well, that I need to take risks too. Life get shorter and shorter everyday. Hope you enjoy!

Autumn Promises
A crisp apple wind
causes rust colored leaves to stutter step
down graying blacktop
and across deep green lawns.
The September air is warm in the bright afternoon sun,
but betrayed by the undercurrent of autumn
trailing the heat,
and for a moment
I can almost feel an old flannel shirt
and hear the high school band over the cheers at the football game.
I feel myself tumbling
like the leaves
back to those minutes
where everything was as fresh and new
as I was,
new folders and notebooks
waiting for me to write in them,
a new year of promises
daring to be kept,
where life was something waiting for me
instead of a pathway of regret
trailing behind me.
I also remember
being afraid
of what life would bring after the safe cocoon of high school,
so I found cocoon,
after cocoon,
to encase myself,
as if I could protect myself from risk,
from failure
finding hollow victories in being just good enough
to get by
without putting too much of myself on the limb,
but realizing now that the regrets that trail me
are more the regrets of what I didn't do,
the risks I wouldn't take,
the life I was afraid to lead.
I pull the sharp, cool air into me
with all of its hope
daring to believe,
that I can now write the pages of my future,
breaking out of my safety chrysalis
and emerge the butterfly I was always supposed to be,
casting off the past,
its hurts and failures,
willing to risk what I am afraid to lose,
in the hopes that next fall
I will again be that girl with the cotton candy dreams
and tomorrows lining up before her
breathless for each challenge and
grateful for the wonder of each day
in the crisp apple wind.