Just hold on loosely, but don't let go!

 Happy 2025!  So far?  So good!  Now I say that as if it's all been sunshine and rainbows.  I ended 2024 in a magnificent place, with this hope in my heart and joy in my soul.  It was a really nice change of pace from the last (dare I say) almost decade?  I am trying to keep that momentum going during this beginning of the next decade and I am doing a pretty good job.  Does this mean that things are smooth sailing over here in the Midwest?  Umm no!  I am human, after all, and I have a pretty big birthday looming around the corner which I must admit is attempting to affect me the way my 20th and 30th did - not well bitch.  My 40th and 50th were not terrible.  I don't usually allow the number to affect me, but this one?  It is not my friend.  I feel certain age-related things creeping in - and between me and you?  I am not allowing it.  Nope.  I refuse to feel my age ever.  I type this I can't deny there are tears welling up in my eyes.  How did I get here?  I still feel like that 20-year-old girl adjusting to my parents moving away and having to attempt to be a grown up.  What happened to the last 40 years?  So much and yet not enough.  How do I get myself out of this funk and these thoughts that are threatening to consume me?  I will tell you how, by remembering this little tidbit - Life can change in an INSTANT - good or bad - so it's best not to get too far ahead of yourself or look back too far.  

When life seems stagnant or like your dreams are not going to come true, I urge you to think of a time when you got a call or a text or a meeting that changed everything very unexpectedly.  Life can change in an instant.  As I am typing this so many of those moments are racing through my mind.  Feeling sad or alone and you get a life changing phone call or text or email from someone you were not expecting.  Life will never be the same.  Having a good day and then an argument starts, and everything crumbles, and you feel like the rug is pulled out from under you.  Life will never be the same.   A random meeting with someone new that changes everything.  Life will never be the same.  Some of those moments are burned on your brain and you remember every detail - you can even put yourself right back in that moment.  Some you can barely remember but you know it changed life as you knew it.  I think a lot of us focus on the bad change moments - those I can usually remember very vividly - a summer night in 1998 coming home to find out my husband was not who I hoped he was. Walking down the maternity hall and seeing your newborn in the nursery and being woken up an hour later with frantic doctors asking you to sign release forms for a spinal tap.  Leaving the hospital without your newborn 4 days later (yes, my middle son kept me on my toes!) A Wednesday before Thanksgiving in 1999 when my middle son nearly choked at the mall after I was told my $20 bill (given to me by a cub scout mom) was counterfeit and my husband came home and told me he lost his job- two weeks later I had a horrific car accident with my middle son in the car and my car was totaled. Another summer day in 2004 when I had just had surgery, and I found out my husband lost his job. Yet another summer day in 2009 when I found out my middle son had cancer at the age of 10.  Christmas Eve 2013 when my oldest decided to tell me what a horrible mother I was and disrupted the entire home and it turned out to be the last Christmas I would spend with my mother - this is depressing I think I will stop that train.  

There are a few life changing moments that were wonderful that I do remember just as vividly. The birth of each of my children.  Driving across the country and seeing the "purple mountains majesty" while entering New Mexico. Walking into your first brand new home that was more than you could ever dream of.  An email out of the blue from someone you thought was left in your past. A phone call/text/facetime announcing engagements and pregnancies. A random message that starts a relationship that changes your life. A first kiss that made the rest of the world fall away and shook the earth. A conversation while taking my son to college at a restaurant that led to him realizing he was ready to propose to his girlfriend. Picking my daughter up to find out she made Varsity cheer in her freshman year - these are but a few.  During most of these moments I had no idea what would come next, just how quickly life can change.

So, when I am in a not-so-great place I remind myself just how quickly life can change and we don't have to know how or when, we just have to trust that what is meant to be will always find a way.  And if something doesn't happen, then perhaps it wasn't meant to be and something even better than you can imagine is around the corner.  Be kind to yourself - forgive yourself for things you wish you had done differently.  I also want you to remember that miracles happen each and every day, and yours can be next!  And on those not so magical days remember - it's just a day in the life!

Everything I knew but I didn't know

 

It's the last Monday of 2020.  Some are saying Thank God it's almost over.  I say Thank God it happened.  Thank God that I had these 365 trips around the sun.  I learned a few years back not to evaluate my life by the numbers on the calendar.  Every year has challenges and blessings.  Some have more of one than the other.  For those who are so over the top disgusted with 2020 because of the changes in their lifestyle I say, you are a lucky person.  When I look back on "bad" years it was because horrible, terrible things were happening in my life.  Not because I can't go out to eat with my friends or find toilet paper.  It is all about choices and viewpoint.  I am choosing to bless 2020 and thank it for the things it taught me and the happiness it brought.

2020 started with my oldest son in a very bad place. If you had told me then that by the end of it he would be where he is I am not sure I would have believed you.  For that alone 2020 will be a year I would relive gladly to get to where we are today.  

Later in January we were blessed with my great niece being born.  She is a light in this world that God knew we needed.  Her mere presence in the world makes it a better place.  She has not had an easy start---allergies, eczema so severe she has to work like Houdini to scratch the itch, and coming into the world when everything has been on lockdown for most of her first year.  Yet, Miss Lyla is a fighter.  That little girl is going to change the world just by being in it.  2020 will always remind me of the blessing she is.

We had cancelled trips a plenty, fear of losing jobs, shocking deaths (not Covid related), prom cancelled, graduations cancelled, Weddings cancelled just like everyone else.  Is it difficult?  Of course, but really?  In the grand scheme of life those are things people experience all the time.  I am choosing to look at the blessings.

My Godson graduated college to go on to his Masters program, it didn't look like he thought it would but someday he'll look back and realize he's not alone and a lot of people will have some crazy stories of quarantined graduations.  It makes us have to work a little harder to make moments like this special.

My dad celebrated his 90th birthday.  I was lucky enough to be able to spend it with him but I know it's not what anyone expected or wanted.  But the important thing is that we have been blessed to have him celebrate his 90th birthday.  That is a gift denied to many.

My son turned 22 and although the cruise he had planned was cancelled they made the best of it and took a weekend away at the beach where they got married in 2018. My daughter and I were lucky enough to spend his birthday with him on the beach and if he had been on the cruise it would have been the first birthday we didn't get to see each other.  See how I turned that around? 😎

My daughter's junior year is not looking like she thought it would but she's finally being "homeschooled" like her brother's were and she's realizing it's not too bad to do school from her pajamas.

We finally took a trip to NY to meet my beautiful great niece and were lucky enough to be there when my niece Katey got engaged!  How lucky was THAT!  She was supposed to be in San Diego that week and the proposal would have happened there.  Thank you 2020 for allowing me to be part of that amazing moment in her life.  Had there been no pandemic that would never have happened.

We got to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas together as a family and also with my daughter in laws family which was such a huge blessing and so much fun! We have gotten so close and it is truly a joy that 2020 has given us this time.

My son and his beautiful wife bought their first home.  It is being built as we speak.  Because of that they have been staying with me on and off and we are lucky enough to have the beauty of my son's "last Christmas at home" for probably the third time 😉.

My daughter in law finished her college classes.  She will be graduating in May.  Such a huge accomplishment and I'm so proud of her!  

Thank you 2020, for these and many other blessings that I can't write about.  Thank you for the lessons and the changes and the growth that you've brought.  Here's to another 365 trips around the sun with the ones I love, because after all----it is just a day in the life.