What if? The question and quite possibly the answer...

My what if thoughts are really this… 

What if things work or don’t work out exactly the way they’re supposed to. What if the job you didn’t take, the appointment you missed, the random stop for coffee at the little shop on the corner, what if all these little random moments aren’t so random after all? What if the choices you made – even the bad ones – were the ones you had to make in order to reach your true destination. What if there is no such thing as random? What if everything has intention, push and pull behind it? What if every choice made – right or wrong – is the right choice even when wrong?

What if we’re meant to live exactly the lives we’re living to meet the people we meet in order to become the people we are so we can meet the people we’ve always been meant to know?

What if is infinite… 

It began before either of our stories began, long before you knew there was an I and I knew there was a you. Long before people like Patrick met Nancy and Eugene met Fran. So long ago in fact that the only thing we can believe in is that somehow we’re walking a part of a path that started with the footsteps of someone else and it’s our footsteps that someone else will be following one day…

Words of Wisdom

This too shall pass. 

There may not be enough numbers in the universe to count how many times this little quip has been thrown about. This simple statement covers just about any stumbling block or bump in the road regardless of size.

And at the end of the day, it's always good to be reminded that dark days do have a time limit and eventually either like a spring rain or a kidney stone, they pass.

It's a little sad however that the only other phrase popping into my head right now is "I'll give you something to cry about,"but I guess somehow in my mind these two go together as a sort of yin and yang, at least in my memory banks. Not a lot of wisdom in the second set of words but they were heard often enough around the dinner table when more than just vegetables were part of the equation that like a parasite its attached itself whether it belongs there or not.

Still the true wisdom is knowing what to do with the takeaway from a passing moment. Every situation has an opportunity to be a lesson learned (wanted or not) it's not enough to simply just wait for time to do its thing if its thing is only to clean the slate and wipe the board clean. We enlightened humans need to learn.

Maybe we learn how to cry and the lesson in not in the tears but in the letting go. Maybe we learn how to laugh and the lesson is not to overthink the things that don't mean as much as we thought. Or maybe we learn that the best way out is through, hard roads are high roads, people that are wrong aren't ever going to be right, doing the right thing first saves a lot of wasted time later. I could go on... And on... And on.

Einstein probably was a this too shall pass kind of guy... After all he was the guy who said (and I'll paraphrase) that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results was pretty much the definition of insanity. I'm pretty sure he would have been a strong proponent for making sure he got the big picture viewing after a this too shall pass moment. He wouldn't have wasted the opportunity to breathe a sigh (and I think it would have been a long exasperated one) of relief before immediately setting his sights on working out a logical equation to never, ever have to repeat the experience again.

This too shall pass is another way of saying, "I have learned."

All Good Things

Life changes in a blink.  People, pets, places...  And like the songs says you've got to just try to keep on keeping on...

I could have been thrown for a few loops this year.  I left a job after nineteen years, I broke up with a boyfriend after two, I lost my first cat Emma this summer at the cusp of eighteen and I lost my Sophie  just two shorts weeks ago after nine.  It's a wonder I'm not knee deep in a bottle right now with no intention of trying to find my way out.

Instead I'm doing alright and maybe even a lot better than just okay.

I have a precocious pup (Phineas) that just joined our troupe not even a full two days ago.  I have my lovely little Lucy girl sleeping at my feet.  My Cooper kitten is a year old and growing into a big old playful tom.  

I left a job that was taking more than it was providing and gained the confidence to make big changes.  Changes which I'm still taking a leap of faith to make.  And the ex-boyfriend, well he was a taker too...  

He took my joy and pressed it under his thumb of expectations.  Our relationship was another job, well at least for me.  Make him breakfast, make him lunch, make him dinner, do his laundry, drive him to wherever it was he wanted to go while catering to his every whim and want all the while my whims, wants and expectations were never even up for discussion.  The end of that relationship was a blessing to just say no.  

So I'm not going to end this year feeling sad or melancholy... I'm going to focus on my joy, the people and pets I love, the opportunities that I still have to take and a guy who makes me smile just by saying his name...  Life is good.

                          

Emma and Sophie

Cooper, Sophie and Lucy

Lucy

Sophie and Lucy

Phineas aka Phnny

Cooper

Emma

First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining (Video)

All The Feels

Day 6:  5 Ways to Win My Heart

I almost made it to 4 a.m. this morning before sleep decided that I had had enough, so rather than try to pretend there’s any chance of going back to bed and getting any more shut eye, I present to you my blog post…

The truth is rum doesn’t ever factor into the equation… And I am of the mindset that love isn’t nearly as complicated as people try to make it out to be. Love to me is all about the small things that take up the most room in your heart. It’s the little things you do and say, the way you smile and how you laugh. The way your heart feels on fire simply by remembering something that your someone said or did that told you in a thousand different ways that you are loved, respected and cherished. Love makes you believe in possibility. It’s knowing someone is always going to be there with a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on and the belief that together everything is going to be okay.

It’s respecting your time together and your time apart. It’s the give and take of being all in but at the same time recognizing the need for personal space. In order to be the best me and the best you there has to be room to just be ourselves and you figure out together how that works. Maybe I need a few hours to get lost in a book or dig in my garden… Maybe you need an hour or two to get out of the house to enjoy a beer, a conversation with friends and have a chicken wing or two. Either way that time apart only serves to make time together better spent.

But time as a concept is equally tied to effort…

Grand gestures and elaborate plans while perhaps having their moments at some time and some point are not needed as the norm.  Effort to me is showing up, being present and accounted for. It’s saying without saying, “You’re my person.” And when you’re my person you won’t ever have to ask when or if I’ll be there for you, it’s the given. 

Maybe it’s a silly way to describe it but I think of things like if you had six cords of wood delivered that needed stacking, you’d never even need to ask whether or not I’d be there to help. I’d have my gloves in hand and be out to the wood pile ready to get the job done… Relationships are work and require effort, they are a job that needs to get done efficiently and correctly. Anyone who has ever stacked a pile of wood knows that you have to stack it right from the first piece of wood down in order for it to stay standing.

And you stand by being part of a team. In taking our combined strengths and balancing out our combined weaknesses to find balance, that place in a relationship when no one is holding too many or too few of the cards while realizing that there may be times when the balance moves from one side to the other in slight adjustments until it equalizes out once more.

Always talk to me… Talk to me about the mundane things like how was your day, what you learned, what you heard… And then tell me about your dreams, your passions and your concerns. Tell me about what makes you happy, tell me about what makes you sad. Explain to my why you’re angry or upset or tell me I don’t want to talk right now, but I promise we will later.  Communication is everything. You cannot shut the door and lock someone out without making them feel cold and inconsequential. Just leave the door ajar until you’re ready to find your words again…

Truly however the best way to win my heart is to make me laugh… Love is hidden in the laughter. It’s wrapped up in silliness. It’s the smile that lasts for hours and days and months and for the lucky a lifetime. Life if short, joy is forever… 

And lastly though I do believe this qualifies now as my sixth line item please love, like or happily tolerate my family and by default expect the very same from me. These are my people, all holding a special place in my heart, they are what makes me more me and are a marking spot on my joy meter. I may not always like them 100%, I may want to occasionally swat one of my sister’s on the back of her head and roll my eyes more times than I can count when my daughter is in diva mode but I love them always and there’s nothing that I wouldn’t do for them whenever and wherever that need arose.

This concludes my essay on why you should now you run scared for the hills… I’m as real as real gets and that means I ask for as much as I expect to give without any apology or qualms that what I need may be asking too much. For love it’s got to be everything.

2018 - The Year of Changes

It is 4 a.m. and I'm awake.  Not just awake, roll over look at the clock and go back to sleep awake but awake drinking coffee not going back to bed awake.  I blame going to bed too early for the predicament I find myself in this morning.  All in all not good as I'm out of town for work, practically a stones throw away from Canada in Northern NY and have three appointments and about three and a half hours of driving to get back home in order to start my weekend but better yet my vacation.

I won't complain too much though because in a year of change I'm setting about ending it with yet another.  Let me catch you up to date...

In July I left my job of nineteen years.  Something about spending my entire life at my job and living out of my office, a suitcase and an airport got tiring.  Worst yet my compensation in no way reflected the amount of work I did for and on behalf of that company.  I gave them everything and at the end of the day they just couldn't do the right thing, at least not until I gave my notice which was a little too little and a lot too late.

So I moved on to my present employer and honestly I can't say enough good things about them.  They get it.  They've done the right thing since day one.  My co-workers, my boss... They're all great people.  My boss especially... The man is a whirling dervish of dedication and drive.  A salesman who lives, eats, breathes and loves the product he sells, the job he does and the people he interacts with.  If  I didn't need what I know I need to be successful, I'd want to emulate him in the role I'm playing right now.

This role however is not for me...  And while there is a part of me that feels as if I'm giving up too soon, a bigger part of me is more relieved to know that the job offer on the table will still support the job I do and the company I currently work for but will give me the structure I am so desperately craving to return to.

I'm not an outside salesperson.  I'm an inside manager who travels as needed.  Who keeps her finger on the button of control and keeps everything in front of her organized to the tenth degree.  This person I've been trying to be gets lost behind the windshield of her car and feels displaced, out of touch and unable to feel the pulse of the job itself.  In other words ineffective...

I've actually cried a few times in the last six months from the pressure of feeling for lack of a better word untethered and un-pressured.  And that's the thing, in this job those are the last two feelings I should feel.  If anything, I should feel the weight of the world on my shoulders and the drive to be the best.  But all I feel is lost and disconnected in an environment that leaves too much time for thinking too much about things that won't lead to my success and makes me doubt my ability to do the job as I know it needs to and should be done.

I'd like to think that my leaving will actually play out better for my boss and my job.  I'll become their customer and in my new role, I will absolutely sell - the way I know how to sell - the product, the brand and the reputation of my current company in a way that works for me, grounded with my feet on the floor, a desk in front of me, a steady stream of customers and projects to manage with my finger on the pulse of each and every single neuron.  This is what works for me, this is where I excel and this is where I have to go...

Pet Peeves: Top 3

In no paticular order of importance and annoyance…

• Inconsistency and/or a general lack of dependability. As defined by the feeling you get when plans have been made and you’re ready and waiting on your end only to get the call, message, text that the other party has changed their mind and is cancelling. Further defined as something that happens on a consistent basis and is not a one off. Also see: Obviously kicking a dead horse. Followed by just plan on going alone. Also defined as disappointment, a constant let down and a breeding ground for trust issues.
• Bad customer service. As defined by being ignored, being spoken to rudely, having to find your waiter fifteen minutes after asking for a to go box in order to get the check so you can pay and leave, standing in line in any store where the cashier is too busy talking to another employee to cash you out or cashes you out without ever acknowledging that you’re standing in front of them. An employee who hates their job and makes sure you know it the entire time you’re interacting with them. Also defined as indifference and apathy and the reason why you stop shopping and/or eating at certain establishments.
• People who eat pretzels. As defined as the extraordinarily loud sound a person emits when eating hard, crunchy pretzels making it necessary for you to leave the room so as not to hear them chew because the sound of their chewing literally makes you want to throttle them. Also see: slurping hamburgers. 

Old Thoughts Republshed

Small things change you and small things save you.

And life, no matter how hard it gets or what it throws at you, or who it brings to you or even who it takes from you goes on...

Transitions

My house is an absolute clusterfuck right now.  Big boxes, small boxes, pieces of this for that and that for this litter every single room in my small cottage.  Who would have thought that a simple, and yes, I know now that simple is not the right word, bathroom renovation could cause such chaos.  But complete and utter chaos is where we're at.  I can't think with this overabundance of clutter.  In fact, I think this clutter is really the psychical manifestation of a multitude of inner conflicts.  It seems I have some decisions to make that go beyond style and color and I do believe it's time to make them...

Losing Sophie

In an hour and a half my vet will be here and my Sophie who is napping will soon be asleep forever.  I can't pretend I'm okay with any of this.  My puffy eyes and my throbbing head should be enough to prove that today is something I don't want to do.  But wanting has nothing to do with it because this needs to be done.  Sophie would hold out forever or until her little body absolutely couldn't take the pain anymore to stay by my side.  But I don't want her to do that for me...  So today I'll take her pain and I will carry it for her so her little body can rest...  God grant me the courage to let her go with grace.

Cooper

Introducing our new harbinger of death, the lord of chaos and utter destruction...  His royal toe biting,  3 am sleeping dog attacking master of mischief and king of disdainful looks... Cooper.