Searching for perfection.

I walked outside the other morning, cup of hot coffee in hand and looked up. In that moment, things were perfect. The weather, the sky, the energy I felt. Life felt good - even great. The moment of peace and gratitude hit me as if from nowhere. Like a love bomb from out of the blue

How did I get to that moment? Where did it come from so unexpectedly. It’s not like I haven’t walked on my porch – coffee in hand to welcome the day. I have spent countless mornings walking outside, looking at the sky, wondering when it would hit me…that feeling of things being just right. And there it appeared, on my back porch when I wasn’t even looking for it.

I feel like I have spent the better part of my life waiting - waiting for things to be just right, for life to get easier, for the right moment. Waiting until I am thinner or prettier or in the perfect mood or the weather to be precisely what I want. If I am being honest, it’s been an exhausting search.

I think I realized on my porch last week that things are really good enough. You just have to want to see it that way. Life isn’t what I expected it to be, but isn’t that true for most of us? Maybe the weather isn’t what I was hoping for or my thighs aren’t the size I wish they were, but if I step a little further back from that, I can see things more clearly. I am healthy, happy, and pretty lucky to have what I have.

Maybe striving for perfection isn’t really about perfection. Maybe it’s just about acceptance of it all. Maybe we just need to be grateful in the now to appreciate what is.

A New Year

We all seem ready to usher out last year right now. I have been seeing more about the change of the decade this year than I can ever remember before now…2020 seems to be the hope that we are all clinging on to in this firestorm of life.

That seems like a lot of pressure though…giving a whole set of unrealistic expectations and demands that it can’t live up to.

Don’t get me wrong… I get needing hope. I get wanting change. While I have had some bad years, this wasn’t one of them. But I have been ready to boot years to the curb. I have felt pain and grief and loss like you cannot even imagine. I have dealt with personal struggle that should have made me quit the game of life long ago. But here I am standing at the end of this year reflecting on what magic has become because I somehow managed to make it further along in my little story.

In all those bad years and in all the time that I was trying to heal myself, I never leaned heavily on the year or decade ahead to get me through it all. That’s a lot of expectation for something that may not be able to deliver. The work came from me. Facing it. Trudging through it all. Doing the work. Showing up. It was on my shoulders…nothing else could help me but Me.

While I love the concept of a fresh start on New Year’s Day, I am not keen on the pressure and responsibility we seem to be handing over to it - especially at the turn of a new decade. It seems particularly heavy and destructive. It’s almost like handing keys to a toddler and saying “go ahead and drive this car for me.”

So this year on New Year’s Eve, instead of remarking about what I am looking forward to and running towards, I will gently tell 2019 “Thank you for the lessons, both big and small. I am grateful for what you taught me.”

I am ready for your lessons 2020. Let’s do this.

Loss

I’ve been looking for that sliver of blue sky lately - the tiny slice of hope that keeps us going through the dark and stormy times - wondering if the sun was going to ever shine back down on my heavy heart again.

I am in a stage of loss right now – something all too familiar to me. I have experienced loss before… Parents. A sister. Aunts and uncles. Friends. Pets. To be honest, loss never gets easier. And it doesn’t diminish at any stage. The overall feeling is still the same.

Loss comes in many forms. And so does the grieving. It doesn’t have to be traditional - like a death. It can happen when a friend leaves your life or you have a relationship-altering disagreement with a family member. The loss of a loved one can have a ripple effect, too. Breaking up with a boyfriend or divorcing a spouse can lead to losing extended family that you thought you would be with forever.

A few years ago, I had some friends move back home to Europe. I remember the grief I felt when they were gone. It was a loss in it’s own way. I also remember having to hide it - stuff it down like it didn’t exist. They were, after all, not gone…or so everyone kept trying to remind me. But with kids in schools, different schedules, different time zones and expensive plane rides, the likelihood of us seeing one another often seemed like a fleeting hope as I watched them drive away that last time, my battered heart trailing behind them in the dust. I felt heart broken. I felt loss.

I feel it each time I drive by their street. I feel it on Saturday afternoons when we would be making plans for the an evening of dinner and conversations together that lasted late into the evening. I feel it when the weather warms up and we head to the beach, picnic in tow, empty chairs beside us. The pangs of loss can linger for a while.

But, as I sit there on the beach on these cloudy days with my picnic in tow, I just look for that sliver of blue over head. Because it’s always there… peeking through just to remind us that above all, this, too, shall pass and that that big, bright, beautiful, warming sun is always shining above those heavy clouds.

Winds of Change

The winds of change are coming. Blowing in from a new direction and bringing with it the waters to wash away the dust and debris that remains. Don't be afraid, friend. Embrace it - the wind, the rain, the dark times. The storm can be a bumpy ride. But in the end, the sunshine will come out and shine it's magical light in all the places that were once covered up and waiting to be found again.

Dreaming

Yesterday was truly a spectacular day. Warm. Breezy. Sunny. I could have floated around and gotten lost in that sky. Wondering and thinking. Dreaming and scheming. Just wishing days like this could be forever where everything is fine just as it is.