Category: life lessons

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

A Tiny Pause For A Big Thank You

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If you have never visited the site of DrBillWooten@wordpress.com – I enthusiastically encourage you to do so.  Dr. Bill provides me with a daily dose of thought-provoking quotes paired with amazing pictures that enhance the inspirational impact of his posts.  He was kind enough to include me in his list of Sunshine Bloggers, and I am very appreciative.  Rather than respond to the questions – for which I still haven’t answers, I am excited to once again acknowledge some blogs which I now routinely visit.  I’m trying not to repeat the names of ‘old friends’ (six months being the definition of ‘old’); I trust you know how much I think of your writing, your heart and your humor.

First and foremost there’s kizzylee@wordpress.com – She included me in a game of tag, and I think I’m still ‘it’.  I may be a failure at the game, but kizzylee hits it out of the park every time she shares her perspective on life and family, challenges and joy.  I think she writes as she must speak – fluid stream of consciousness that is a joy to follow.

Momentumofjoy@wordpress.com – Joanna doesn’t ignore the tough stuff, she just refuses to give it any power over her approach to life.  She has amazed me with her writing, but also on a personal level with her knowledge of me (without ever having met or spoken with me).  She shares her gifts with heartfelt generosity – I am but a lucky recipient.  You will leave her blog always the better for having visited.

PaperKeeper@wordpress.com – Bonnie calls it as she sees it – but always with a smile on her face and in her blog.  I am a relatively ‘new’ visitor, but am thrilled that I have made the connection!  You will be too.

AGratefulMan@wordpress.com – Russ makes me want to be a better person.  Don’t ask me how he does it – it’s just reflective of who he is.  Genuine, funny, deeply caring, observant…I could go on, but I’ll sound like a mush (ok, I am a mush).  Russ is a grateful man; he is also an amazing one.

TeacherAsTransformer@wordpress.com – I think many of you already know Ivon’s beautiful work and equally impressive photography.  If you have not had the delight of reading his blog, please visit – you’ll be so glad you did.

SusanDanielsPoetry@wordpress.com – I found this site through HelpMeRhonda@wordpress.com – and I am continually amazed at Susan’s talent and her prodigious ability to make words leap into your heart or challenge your perspective.

TracyLouisePhotography@wordpress.com – The most amazing images from an amazing talent (who is so self-effacing she doesn’t even realizes how talented she is)…You’ll be awed – and she’s self-taught!!

There are more, but I want to save some up just in case I get lucky again and get to share more with my friends.  Thank you again and have a superlative Sunday!

 

discretion, friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

In Friendship Friday

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“This is how it works.  I love the people in my life, and I do for my friends whatever they need me to do for them, again and again, as many times as necessary.  For example, in your case you always forgot who you are and how much you’re loved.  So what I do for you as your friend is remind you who you are and tell you how much I love you.  And this isn’t any kind of burden for me, because I love who you are very much.  Every time I remind you, I get to remember with you, which is my pleasure.” — James Lecesne

It’s that simple.  And that complicated.  Coming out of my little migraine haze yesterday, I found that in a 24 hour time span, I had missed a lot of important stuff.  Stuff that is important to me.  My circle of friends is small – though it has grown in miraculous ways over the last six months.  At the ripe old age of not-so-young,  I hold my friends close.  Perhaps it is because I lost one of my closest friends to suicide ten+ years ago.  I’m not ready to write about that just yet.  But I would call her Winnie (long story) and she would call me Piglet (a size thing – not so long a story) and though we held few secrets, I never thought she would need to leave this world.  I truly believed that as long as she knew that I was always at the end of her rope when she reached it, she’d hold on.   But she couldn’t.  Again, a story for another day when the sun is shining and my heart can risk the mention of her name.

Yesterday one of my friends was circling the abyss which is filled with doubt and dread and darkness.  I wasn’t worried that she would slip, I worried  that she didn’t know that she had safe haven from the awfulness that was riding on a non-stop carousel in her head.  She kept switching seats;  some of the horses were magnificent (and went up and down); others were fierce though immobile, yet too seductive to ignore.  I’m not blessed with a sixth sense – but I do begin to feel uneasy.  Not hearing from Simon made me worry enough that I couldn’t let it go until I heard from him.  Reading a message that held a more important message behind the words sent me to a very special friend to check in.  The silence before she responded to me was interminable.  The fact that I caught her on the merry-go-round as she flew past one horrid thought after another was luck.  Luck and the evidence that there are invisible connections between friends that bind them in amazing ways.

Sometimes life overwhelms.  Despite all of our efforts to see the sky and believe in the beauty of all things, days can just…well, suck.  I don’t know that friendship can change the course of a day; it can perhaps slow down the carousel long enough so that someone can get on the ride and saddle up next to you.  You can each hold onto your pole and circle the darkness together.  Sometimes just having someone next to you makes the continuous rotation less dizzying.  The key to friendship is wanting to be there even if you hate carousels, if the depth of the abyss scares the hell out of you, but being present for your friend trumps any hesitation.  Other times you just have to hug hard and bring Kleenex.

Pain and confusion, the enormity of choices we make throughout the course of our lives – they arrive and take their own time to work through to resolution.  Friends can’t eliminate these realities; they are safe havens when someone needs it – whether or not they know it.  Friendship reflects the awesome power of love that won’t back down.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.  “Pooh?” he whispered.

“Yes Piglet”

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand.  “I just wanted to be sure of you”  (A.A. Milne)

That power of love – it can get you through an awful lot.  It can give you the gift of being your best self.  And in doing so – everyone feels they have received a prize at the end of the ride.

 

friendship, humor, life lessons, mindfulness, music

Which Way Wednesday

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This day started way too early, or the night decided to continue far longer than is reasonable.  I’m left with one of those days when my head feels three feet thick despite multiple cups of coffee,  my body moves as if it’s slogging through a swamp – forget about lightness and grace – just getting from Point A to Point B is a challenge (oh, the gym is going to be fun today – not).  It isn’t yet 7AM here…I could go back to sleep…nope, can’t do – too much java.  What to do?  Listen to JT…and pretend that the wind is blowing cool air, the pool isn’t a sickly green from algae that won’t leave (Andy insists I should pretend it’s a lake – but it looks radiated at the moment) and this isn’t a headache I have,  just the weight of too many ponderous thoughts…Let’s just go up on the roof.  Enjoy the music and don’t even think about relating to some of the hairstyles.

Which way Wednesday?  Whichever way you choose, I hope you choose to make it a good day..

discretion, friendship, humor, life lessons, love, mindfulness, work life

Take Me As I Am – Whoever That May Be

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There’s always a little voice inside my head that questions whether I’m good enough.  As I’ve gotten older (please note, I did not say “matured”), it occurs to me that I’ve got to get on the stick and kick this hefty can down the road and out of sight.  It’s rusty, dented and contains so much stuff that I will likely never resolve, so I might as well get rid of it.  Besides, I like the look of this guy…

It feels so defiant to say ‘take me as I am’.  So risky.  At least for me.  Of course it also suggests that I am completely sure who I am – and I guess that is sort of  a work-in-progress exercise.  I’ve never been an either/or person, the world to me is so resplendent with colors and shadings that absolutes are the bigger challenge (one exception – the words of one of my first bosses  “Today, you have full authority to do the right thing” – I try to remember that daily.  Other than that, all bets are off).

So despite my continued lack of personal clarity, I marvel at my friends who love me in spite of myself.  Jo and I go months without seeing each other and literally pick up conversations mid-sentence.  When we finally saw each other Friday night, all Andy could do was shake his head with a smile and say “I totally get it”.  I know her eyes, can see what they’re telling me; I can tell by what she doesn’t say, exactly what she wants to say.  This friendship from childhood provides a secure knowledge and confidence that the elemental aspects of who I am is understood on the most intrinsic level. Whether or not you are sure, someone with a historic reference  is sure I’m more than ok.  The joy of rediscovery.

The prism through which friendship is viewed, can be seen from a different perspective with new friends.  Carrie, Donna, Lori, Rhonda…I have been blessed with these women through serendipity (waiting for a manicure, Andy’s bowling team and through our blogs respectively).  As Carrie and I spoke yesterday over mediocre Greek salad (a nod to my Jenny Craig efforts – I am craving a milk shake about now), I realized how our friendship developed without pretense or guile – we passed those markers somewhere along the road and no longer have any patience for either.  I have connected with women who are wise and strong, experienced and romantic, tender and tough enough to have withstood their share of challenges and pain.  They don’t suffer fools, but they embrace you if you hurt.  They hug hard (figuratively and literally) and protect fiercely.  If I am defined in part by my newer friendships,  I’m feelin’ pretty damn good.  The joy of renewal.

The knowledge that I have gained from less-than-positive choices runs deep and is beginning to hurt less.  Learning the difference between providing a service to someone v. sharing in a friendship is a tough lesson for me to absorb.  This first year away from the firm has been painful in that regard.  On the one hand I am surprised at myself – I know a little bit about human behavior, what drives office dynamics and what distinguishes mutual understanding –  ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’  – from friendship.  I was unceremoniously dropped and the pain of landing on my butt was unexpected.  A year later, I wish I had chosen to be the one who walked away.  I certainly would have felt more graceful.

How cool to still have the time and luxury of finding me – if I choose to look – and to do so with the confidence that I may never know?  Better still is the feeling that I can look around and find the best, most flattering definition I will ever seek.   My friends.

friendship, inspiration, life lessons, love, mindfulness

The Beauty That Is Us

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..all of us.  I spent more minutes than I care to admit just marveling at these pictures this morning.  How can we look in the eyes of another human being and not feel connected to them somehow?  We love our families; want the next generation to enjoy a more peaceful, prosperous, kinder world; we value our traditions and celebrate love in a myriad of ways.   Our faces tell a story, our culture gives it context.  And each one of us weaves a story that is unique, marvelous, heartbreaking, celebratory.  I look in these eyes and I wonder – what is the story?   And though I may never know each and everyone, I believe with all my heart that there would be more that I would understand than not.

 

 

discretion, inspiration, leadership, life lessons, management, mindfulness, motivation, work life

Thoughtful Thursday

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Oh Al I swear, you’re a genius!  Even before ‘multi-tasking’ became part of the social lexicon, you were decrying its effectiveness.  Good on you big guy, and lucky for the woman you were kissing in the car.  Better to pull over and focus.  A taboo idea I know – doing one thing at a time and getting it right.

When I was at the firm, he who juggled the most balls in the air without dropping any, won.  Yes, there were migraines, emotional short-circuits, missed anniversaries and birthdays – but man, could people juggle conference calls, client meetings, intra-office drama, toggling between dual monitors in their offices while checking Blackberries and texting on their iPhones.  Conversations – if that is what one chooses to call them – were stolen in the Starbucks line, or in fifteen minute intervals, or checked in a box.

You’re right – balls got dropped.  Perhaps not the ones that determine the size of a year-end bonus, and most assuredly not those that would compromise the zealous representation of one’s clients.

I spent a lot of time with people who had dropped the other stuff along the way – without thinking that the ramifications would be so profound.  The parent who routinely watched her daughter play in a sports tournament while emailing on her iPad and chairing a conference call and genuinely fretting because she and her child weren’t close; the husband who couldn’t reconcile the wonderful woman he had married with the raging, angry alcoholic she had become – for she had never shown any signs.  The affair that grew over time because neither person was ever home long enough for intimacy and friendship to grow roots there – though they insisted they tried.  They didn’t intend for this to happen.  The thrown blood clot that resulted from excessive time on planes and trains.  The pseudo-friendships that ended up defining one’s inner circle because there was no time to cultivate genuine loving relationships, and the resulting  isolation and loneliness that prompted yet another script for antidepressants.  The young associate who wept in my office upon discovering that this brass ring for which she had sacrificed much was not what she thought it would be and didn’t want to ride the carousel anymore – but for the enormous debt, mortgage and car payments.

No signs?  Really?

I didn’t judge it then, I’m not judging it now.  I do find the sincere disbelief…well, surprising.  We all struggle to do the right thing in the face of competing demands and increasing competition.  But what do you want to win?  And who are you kidding if you think that everything you are juggling has equal weight and heft, allowing you to balance it all equally?  The reality is that those weights change and morph according to time and circumstance.  Sacrifices will be made and balls will drop – that’s the reality.  There is also this inalienable truth – you have to decide what to focus on, what values you will only compromise so much and how to give the people you love the best of who you are.  Maybe you should focus on that kiss.