One Is Just A Number

I've recently had a friend return to my life. We were co-workers who become great friends, we spent every evening together after work. I took care of her kids while she went back to school to finish her bachelor's degree. I'm not exactly sure what happened to our friendship. Changes in both our lives caused us to drift apart and when I changed jobs, the ties that bound us together disappeared completely. A couple of months ago, I received an invitation to her retirement party. I was so nervous to go, to see all the people that I used to work with but had lost touch with. But when I walked into the party, there was a familiarity to the setting that I was instantly at ease. And when my friend told me that I was the one person she hoped would come to the party, it meant the world to me. Unfortunately, we haven't seen each other but once since then, at another retirement party. But we're now Facebook friends and I've thought of her often. Then last Sund...

When I read this word, taking chances automatically comes to mind. It's sad that it no longer means the playful version of the word, or does it? The times I'm jumped and taken chances have been some of the best times. My mom, sister, and I talked for years of taking a trip to Disney World at Christmas time to see all the decorations but every year we would chicken out because of the uncertainty of the weather in our part of the country at that time of year. Finally a couple of years ago, we jumped and booked tickets just a month out from when we left. And it was a wonderful trip! The decorations did not disappoint and the three of us made memories that still warm our hearts. I am often guilty of paralysis by analysis. I want/need to fix up my house but get stuck because I can't decide if I want to stay in the house or fix it up to sell it. I have been sitting in a place full of half finished projects for (insert a number of years that is really embarras...

Here - not in the past, not in the future - here. Here - not with people who have left, not with people I want in your life - here with the people that are present in my life now. I've thought a lot about these ideas recently. I dwell so much on the past and how I thought things would have been or dwell on how I'd like things to be in the future that I don't enjoy here, where I'm at now. Sometimes I'm afraid that I'm going to look around one day and realize that there was this great life going on around me and I was so busy looking back or forward that I didn't look side to side to what I had right then. I'm also bad about this when it comes to people. I miss people for a really long time, holding on to what could/should have been. I also long for people that I think I want in my life, people I think will make me matter. When I stop that kind of thinking, I realize that I currently have some pretty great people in my life, people that are pr...

Oh the after - I have been kicking and screaming through my after. I know that there are positive things that have come from this after-my-divorce life but I still miss the before. I miss my old life. I know that in the after I have amazed myself with the things I can do on my own. I can set aside money for a rainy day and still build my TOMS shoes collection. I can do things like back my car into my 45-degree-angle driveway with a hatch so full of mulch that all I saw was bags of bark in the rearview mirror and manage to not hit my house or the neighbor's fence. I was able to carry my 50-pound dog into the emergency vet's office and deal with the news that she was gone. And most importantly, my relationship with God has grown so much deeper in the after than I think it ever would have in the before. I still struggle with accepting the after. I so often feel like if I look like I'm happy, people will think I'm awful because I'm not curled up in a ball ...