ONCE IN A BLUE MOON

Maybe it is the season, the cold of winter, or the short days, but I have been thinking that this is not where I would have expected to be at this age and stage. This isn't the life I had planned.

Not unlike anyone else, I had hoped for things that have not materialized.  People disappoint us, people hurt us, people leave us. Our expectations crumble and topple. We lose money, we lose friends, we lose our hair, we lose our glasses and our keys, and we lose connection with what we had fancied our lives might have been. 

What do we gain?  Perhaps patience, serenity, confidence, and the knowledge that we don't have to be the best and greatest in the world afterall.  We no longer have to torture ourselves with self importance. Not everything seems possible anymore.  But that is okay.  The good news is that the script can be tossed away.  And for me, this year the script will be tossed away.  I intend on making myself comfortable, comfortable in my own skin, and I will wait.  Wait to see where I am being guided.  Perhaps then by being unflappable and unpreturbed, the things I am missing in my life will materialize.

This new year begins with a winter blue moon. As I contemplate the things I have not achieved, the people I have lost, and the dreams that have evaporated, I am going to do some things that some would consider wild and crazy, at least for me.  Maybe I will have ice cream for breakfast, ride with the top down in the cold, listen to Joe Cocker sing "Unchain my Heart", ride a motor cycle, dance and sing and generally let people think I've have lost it!  I will live the life I have been blessed with!

As I listen to Joe Cocker's raspy throaty voice belt out, "You Can Leave Your Hat On" I say a prayer for my friend that died a little over a week ago, for the lady down the street with Alzheimer's that can't find her way home from the mail box, for the soldiers who face horrific nightmares and flashbacks, for my friend's dogs Morgan and Maggie who are in  their later years struggling daily for quality of life, for a little boy in the hospital, and for a special friend whose beautiful words literally take my breath away, and for you who find yourself reading this on New Year's Eve and for those of you who believe.

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"At the end of the day faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It's like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And it's not so important happy ever after, just that its happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you , and once in a while people may even take your breath away.”

~ Meredith Grey