Another Year Older But Another Year Wiser? Hmm, What Was The Question Again???...

Alas, a not so landmark year came and went today, rather uneventfully of course. Thank goodness "some" of my closest friends remembered my birthday today otherwise it would have totally been the shits!

Aging has never bothered me as far as the numbers racking up. My problems with birthdays always comes around to, "What have I accomplished this past year, am I any closer to my goals, dreams, etc, etc, etc? Or did I merely stand like a stump for an entire year and watch 365 days pass me by without any new achievements or memorable occurrences?" This past year has been a toss up. Yep, I'm still kicking, and my children have survived my parenting skills for yet another year, which in itself should be momentous! But as for me? Well this year I think I'm a little more wearier for the wear.

I'm still wondering what I'm going to be when I grow up (yeah, I know, you would think at 41 I would have figured it out by now!). I still keep looking towards tomorrow wondering what it will bring and I tend to dwell on yesterday a little too much. So for my next 365 days I suppose I will concentrate a little more fully on "today, the here and now," the "what is" rather then the "what was" or "what could be." Because maybe, just maybe, when all is said and done, that's all that really matters..........

Memories In the Making.........

I recently returned from a weeks vacation in beautiful Cancun, Mexico. As anyone with children knows vacations away from home can be exciting, amazing, stressful and exhausting! Our first five days were spent with major rain storms off and on throughout the day and night.

Family vacations were always the most vivid memories of my childhood. As a young child I can recall my parents dragging my brother and I across the country to visit relatives that lived on the east coast (Maryland, West Virginia). Every trip was packed with sites along the way. Educational trips to Washington DC seeing monuments and being taught History 101, watching American Civil War enactments in Gettysburg, PA, seeing the Liberty Bell in Pennsylvania, and standing in front of the eternal flame in the middle of July in 100 + temperatures. Despite what memories we took away with us they were in fact memories.

My children are 5 & 6. They have been to South Carolina. Utah, California, Oregon, Hawaii and now Mexico. I'm quite sure there are many things they may never remember but I also know there are things that they will, things I never imagined they would. Watching Captain Cook's Pirate ships sail by in the darkness of the night, with their sails strung with lights and the roar of their cannon's as they battled each other (tourist dinner cruise) amazed my two boys five of the seven nights we were there. But sitting with them on the beach and watching the sunset and the sky turn a dozen shades of crimson and trying to explain that the sky was in fact not really on fire it just looked that way, will always be one of my favorite memories. Walking barefoot on the beach after five days of solid rain and looking up to see the beauty of a rainbow.

As I look at these pictures I will forever recall the squeal of delight as they experienced these sights for the very first time. Perhaps the memories I try to create for my children aren't just for them, maybe as I age and my memory begins to fade they will be my stepping stones to reality. A reality I could never imagine living without, even with a little rain..........

A little bit of paradise in the evening...

After five days of rain a little hope in sight....

Me, Defined..................

Not so long ago I was spending some time with an old friend. I'm not too sure how the topic came up but she spoke about her husband. She said, "He's the smartest man I know." My first response was, "Oh my God, how does anyone fill those shoes? But I said nothing I just listened to her words and logged them mentally in the back of my mind.

Days later I recalled the conversation and I wondered, "What am I?" What words would people use to define me? Certainty I am not so naive to imagine myself a being of intellectual superiority. I don't suppose that's ever been an ambition of mine. Intellectual dominance has never ranked high on my priority list. Don't get me wrong, stupid people annoy me. But then again stupid can be defined in a number of ways, perhaps even the smartest people can be stupid. It's all subjective I suppose. I kind of consider myself middle of the road intellectually. I don't sit around the kitchen table with my friends and contemplate the speed the earth rotates on it's axis or ponder quantum physics. The importance of any of this does not weigh heavily at night when I lay my head on my pillow!

So what does define me? In the rolodex of life what category would I be filed under?

I am a mother, a wife, a nurturer. I aspire to accomplish great things but I imagine my greatest aspiration is to raise my two boys to be caring, compassionate, passionate, inquisitive, happy young men.

I'm pathetic at joke telling but I can make a person laugh when they are feeling at their lowest. As a rule I'm fun loving, easy going and I love to be spontaneous. I love to trying new things, go new places and might have just enough stupidity in me to have a 'no-fear' attitude when experiencing new thrills.

I am competitive, determined and when playing games, not a very good loser! I will not quit and am easily annoyed with people who have a habit of not following through with things. Whatever I do, I try to do the best I possibly can. I tend to be a perfectionist with things that fill me with passion and I take pride in my work.

I can nurture your soul and elevate your spirit. I'm a loyal supporter and I have the ability to help people see light at the end of their darkest tunnel. I believe in the impossible and the unseen. I see potential in the smallest things. I prefer not to surround myself with pessimists, naysayers and people who give off negative energy.

I'm a spiritual soul though religion doesn't play a heavy role in this spirituality. I believe in God, Kharma, fate and destiny. The very things 'smart' people love to dissect and attempt to disprove and mock. There are things I know with every ounce of my being that I can't explain, an inner sense if you will. If I betray or fail to act on this sense, I always end up on the wrong side of right.

O.K. with that said, "What category do I fall into in the rolodex of life?"

Life Revisited.........

My "Ah-Ha" Moments...........

Oprah often has a section in her magazine titled my "Ah-Ha" Moments or "What I Know For Sure". While it's taken me quite some time to recognize these moments that define the things that truly matter in my life, I believe I finally have. As I approach my 41'st year (hey, I never said I was a quick learner!) life is becoming a bit clearer. While I'm having one of those enlightened moments of clarity I guess I should recognize a few of those "Ah-Ha Moments" so when life gets a little hazy again I can look back and remember just what they were, in no particular order...........

Life is too short to live for what was, what could have been, what should have been. Life is for living the reality that is. If we don't like our reality then we must change it or learn to accept and thrive within it.

I've truly loved very few people in my life, not all of them loved me to the same degree as I did them. Love isn't about changing people to fit our needs, we can't 'make' people love us or desire us to the same degree we do them. Not everyone we meet in this life has the ability to meet all our needs and maybe just maybe that's enough.

People change for the good and the bad, perhaps that's the circle of life. If we do not change we do not grow. But when we do grow, we don't always grow in the same direction, at the same pace. Without growth we wither and die losing the spirit that makes us thrive.

Happiness and contentment cannot be found in another person, another environment, another circumstance. True happiness can only be found from within. If we are not content in our own being we cannot possibly expect to find it elsewhere.

People who have never had children can never possibly understand the impact they have on your life! (yeah, I know all you mommy blog hater's are rolling your eyes!) For all my life I've wanted children. I've always known they would play an important role in my life. Children are the essence of life. Through the eyes of a child you can imagine anything, believe anything, dream anything and have they have the faith of a 90 year old monk! My children have taught me that despite what goes on in my world, all of it seems miniscule when it comes to their world. At the end of a long exhausting day nothing can pick you up more then a hug from your child or hearing the words "I love you Mommy".

Inner peace keeps you alive. We all make choices daily that we must live with. While we may make the same choices we deal with them differently. We all have a different center of peace. We can all justify our choices on an individual basis and we may quite often disagree. Inner peace isn't up for debate, it isn't a thing that needs to be agreed upon. It's merely something that puts your soul at ease as you lay you head on your pillow each night. As we grow we learn what makes our souls thrive and what harms it. It's up to us as individuals to keep the essence of our being alive.

Life is full of moment's that bring clarity to each of us. We all have our "Ah-Ha" Moments or things we "know" for sure. What are yours?

Haloscan..........

I just added Haloscan to my blog to help with posting comments. While in the future this may be a positive thing it appears I have lost all my previous comments (damn!). Hopefully this will be the only negative of the whole process!

A Little Good News......

O.K........ I am going to date myself here. For the last week this song has been popping in my head non-stop. Yeah, yeah, maybe, I wasn't the hippest kid on the block. I've always been a sucker for "words" that touch my "heart" and speak to my "soul", words that have meaning to me. Perhaps if I put the words on paper I will finally be able to get them out of my head and stop singing/thinking about them in the car, at the store, at work, at home. Maybe, my kids will stop staring at me and asking what I'm singing and what it means? Maybe, just maybe....... This world won't seem so screwed up!

A Little Good News.......

I rolled out this morning...kids had the morning news show on
Bryant Gumbel was talking about the fighting in Lebanon
Some senator was squawking about the bad economy
It's gonna get worse you see we need a change in policy

There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band
One more sad story's one more than I can stand
Just once, how I'd like to see the headline say
Not much to print today can't find nothing bad to say

Because...

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'd, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

I'll come home this evening...I'll bet that the news will be the same
Somebody takes a hostage...somebody steals a plane
How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair
And how we cleaned up the air...how everybody learned to care

Whoa, tell me...

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today
And in the streets of Ireland all the children had to do was play
And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA
We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD'd, nobody burned a single building down
Nobody fired a shot in anger...nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today

By: Anne Murray
Album: Best...So Far (1994), Little Good News (1983), Country Hits (1990), Now and Forever Disk 3 (1994)