The Gift of Perspective

.My favorite constellation is the Big Dipper, it's easy to find and from my backpacking and camping trips in my youth, it was always for me a way to get my bearings while in the dark of the mountains.  I look for it every single night as I stand barefoot on the damp ground no matter where I am. My feet on the Earth  and star watching centers my soul no matter what the day has handed me.  The Big Dipper looks over my mom,  my siblings and their families, my children who are scattered around, their spouses and my grandchildren.  It looks over my girlfriends, it watches over me me and everyone I care about. It looks over our dark world.  and just over the handle of the Big Dipper is a big dark empty spot in the sky. Or so I thought...  this is what is really there.

Can you even believe that beauty???? We can't see it because it's so far away but the Hubble telescope can because it sits and waits for the light to come through.  Someone on Earth created the tool to see farther than we can imagine.  I find that to be a wonderful thought.  There is so much more than what we can see.  Let me say that again.... THERE IS SO MUCH MORE THAN WHAT WE SEE.

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You guys... I wrote the above on a Sunday October 1...  Thinking about amazing stars and things like that.  I was texting with a dear friend who was in Las Vegas. At the Route  91 Harvest concert.  And then her texts changed... at 10:38  

"OMG There is shooting everywhere"

  

There was more  but none of it made sense.  My friend, her husband and another friend had been in the middle of one of the worst mass shootings in our nation's history and my blood turned cold with fear and worry.  I got a call from her from the airport the next morning to let me know they were okay and heading home. Exhausted, scared, traumatized and so ready to hug their children. I didn't even know what to say except that I loved them and grateful that they were safe.

It's taken me a bunch of days to find words and even now as I type it feels so insignificant, far better minds than mine have contemplated the nature of our collective anger, hurt and shock.  I don't have the ability to do more than offer my perspective and thoughts.  

I wasn't at the concert, I have never had to run for my life or be so afraid, yet I feel changed... This shooting....fires all summer in the Northwest,  floods, hurricanes and now my state of California is on fire...it's all grabbed my attention. So much real suffering and loss.   I've allowed myself to be the hostess of some ginormous  pity parties lately...which is craziness because life is pretty sweet for me and I am ashamed that at times I have taken the best of it for granted and wallowed in the stuff that isn't meeting my expectations. I've let stupid petty words and actions undo me and given away  time and energy to situations that aren't deserving of such time and energy. I've allowed little things to be bigger things and dwelled when dwelling served no purpose. Wasted time and emotion on things that didn't matter much. What can I do in the face of everything that is going on?  Stop it . That's what.  I can do better first for myself so I am available as a human being for bigger and more important things. I can love my people even deeper and show them every chance I get that they mean the world to me. I can be kinder, slower to anger and goodness, I can stop holding one bit of judgement or assumption in my heart. I can raise my standards of behavior and fix the words that slip out of my mouth. And every morning when I wake up in a warm home with enough food for my children, I can remember that these things at not to be taken lightly.

I can do small things rather than nothing.  People's lives have been changed in all the rolling disasters that we are experiencing right now.  I can't fix it all but I surely can love a little deeper and appreciate a whole lot more.   Appreciate wildly the gifts and blessings in my world. Be positive and shining in all things.   Stop whining  and just  live my best life... regardless. Give more than I get, love more than I cry, let people know that they are seen and that they matter.  Appreciate Appreciate Appreciate.  Because there at in the midst of all of this, I believe there are  still days upon days of goodness and possibility. I believe in the middle of chaos, the best of us comes to the surface and we will learn to hold on to each other a little more and find what binds us together and reach out a hand in anyway we can. I believe in the middle of it all, we are changed for the better...

So above the Big Dipper, when you go out and look at the stars, you will see that big blank space, remember it is actually filled with the brilliant and colorful light of  a few trillion stars and galaxies,  you can't see them but they are most certainly there, waiting patiently for us to look hard and long enough.  And in the midst of what feels like endless disaster and tragedy, there will be trillions of points of  light that will carry people through, I know I want to be that.....   Perspective, gratitude and love....count on those....

Love Wildly, Radiate Love

Barbara

27 Gifts

 I've been gone a while...about a year.  I've been pretty much hiding and trying to find myself at the same time, really just getting by and trying to make it feel like enough.. A move I didn't want to make and well just life and what it throws around.   But now seems like as good a time as any to show up, like really show up.  You see this is a time of what feels like the most important days of my life.  I'll tell you why.

I'm turning 60 in 27 days.  Seriously you all...60.  I'm sort of struggling with it and not because I wish for my lost youth back.  Really NO.....  But more because I'm not where I would like to be in life. I've let comfort and fear hold me here.  60 feels like the something is whispering...."Are you kidding me??? You are going to do it like this?"  I'm simply not living the life I know is my best life.  So that crap needs to stop.  I'm not going to whine, blame or deflect.  I need to change some things and some of those changes are going to be well...not so comfortable. I need to live free and happy to just be me and that is going to rattle some cages.   I must do better for myself.

I find that I'm deeply reflective but also ready to stop being so serious.  It's time to have some fun and take off the heaviness that I've worn around for more than a couple of years. I am by my very nature a extroverted introvert, a quiet and loud girl, tired and energetic, happy and sad, afraid to speak up and wanting to share my voice..  I'm a study in contradictions.  My own problem and my saving grace. And with all the over thinking and wanting simplicity, the one thing that comes back to me is my overriding need for connection and belonging.   In short, I need to love, be loved and live with my heart a little closer to the surface.  I need to live my life unafraid to be who I am.  Stop defending my way in the world and stop letting myself be where I feel wounded and small. And goodness knows I really need some fun.  Life has to be more than sadness.  I must  do better for myself.

So in all of this internal chaos, let's add in the impending empty nest.  Okay not totally empty but my last child of 5 is a senior in high school.  Since the age of 23 I've been mothering as my first job. I don't always get it right, goodness knows there are some things I wish I could do over and take back and make right and fix.  But I can't.   I hope they all knew I loved them first and foremost. I hope they understand that if nothing else.  So at an age when most of my friends are traveling and retiring, I find myself for the first time in my adult life needing to have my own adult life that isn't solely based on who needs me when and where and figuring out what they need to eat.  I find myself knowing that I need a life that isn't completely about my children.  That is exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.  While my youngest two are going to be around for a bit longer,( they have chosen to attend Junior College and live at home), life is changing fast.  When they are here, they are together, preferring each other's company to mine.  And that's as it should be. I know that these days are gravy.  On Friday nights watching my  youngest play the last half of his senior football season, I know the moments like this are ticking by faster than a stopwatch.  He drives himself to school and where he needs to go.  I go to the gym with them a couple of times a week and am grateful for that time and attention.  But clearly, I can no longer be all about their lives because as they find their lives, I need to create mine.  I must do better for myself.

I've spent the better part of the last couple of years, trying to shed sadness and fear.  I was in a dark place dealing with some hard stuff and so much pain. I knew for certain that I was not loved in a way that made any kind of sense to me. I let my value and worth be determined by so many wrong things.  I struggled with truths I didn't want and not to make it sound simple or easy because it wasn't at all.  But I was letting how I felt be decided and toyed with because I didn't value or love or trust myself.  When I was able to climb out of that dark damp place, I came out with the promise to put myself on the list of people I take care of and figure out what it is I wanted and deserved in this life of mine.  I started doing self care and investing in my own well being. (we are so going to talk about all of that, more than a few times).  I also knew I needed to make my way financially but honor my handmade life and desire to write.  I don't want to live broke anymore, with my hand out to ask for small loans from someone who is supposed to provide for me.  I had to figure it out so that the days ahead won't be so worried and I will have freedom.  There, I said it, I'm tired of being broke, I'm tired of being controlled by money and I'm not having it ANY MORE. I am capable and creative and it's time to be in charge. It's easier in my world to not do that but honestly, that isn't working.  I must do better for myself.

So I titled this blogpost 27 gifts and this is why.  27 days to the big 60 and I think it's a gift, this time in my life, it looks like nobody else's 60 and that's perfectly okay because I am not like anybody else, none of us do.... (shocker). I wanted to make a statement to the world, the people I love and mostly to myself that it is my time.  I've talked to them about it all and they aren't quite getting it.  So I'll say it here and now.  I'm taking care of me.  I'm surrounding myself with the best kind of people and experiences and I'm going to do what is good for the life I deserve.   27 gifts, one for each day until that magical birthday, when I will celebrate for myself with freedom from what doesn't serve me well.   Today..the gift was to write and speak up.   To let the light into this over thinking soul of mine and return to this blog,  a place for truth telling whatever that might be.  I deserve a life lived out loud, I deserve peace, I deserve happiness, I deserve all the good things that I want to give. I deserve Love and Belonging.. Here and Now.

Today this is my gift to me. SHOW UP,  create and write without hesitation, fear or second guessing,  .   Here and Now. A little stronger, a little happier, less quiet and pretty giddy.....

Love Wildly

Barbara