I am resting and resetting. Life has become so chaotic and utterly insane, there were days where I even forgot my first name.
I was able to read and am happy to say, complete a book. (Granted I started it in May, but hey - I finished. Yes, Amy B. & Julie G. I finished the latest SPQ installment!) For you non-SPQ fans out there, SPQ is the Jill Conner Browne non-fiction and insanely hi-larious series: The Sweet Potato Queens. [Trust me: You just have to read it to understand the whole gist of it. I guarantee you won't regret it.]
Anyway. The Queen herownself wrote 'nother book: "Fat Is the New 30: The Sweet Potato Queens' Guide to Coping with (the crappy parts of) Life." [Again, trust me on this one...]
While she is the Queen of humorous writing, she does get down to the icky part of life and reality. I apologize here and now- I'm totally going to ruin the ending for you. I was so struck by it, that well, I have to share and have to write about it. Here goes:
"If you keep one foot in yesterday and one foot in tomorrow ALL you can DO is make a very unfortunate mess all over today. And today is all ANY-body has ever got. Let go of yesterday, quit worrying about tomorrow - grab hold of today and get your money's worth out of it. See if you can make only NEW mistakes today and be grateful for the goodness of the moment."
~ Jill Conner Browne
Yes. Breathe. Is it just me or does that lend itself very well to the BEing part of my New Year's Resolution? Halfway through the year. Full or empty - doesn't matter to me - time marches on - like it or lump it. "grab hold of today..." Oh how many times I feel I came up short on that one, but the beauty of this whole idea is that it doesn't matter now. What matters is today. Is the here and now. Granted that might be a tad conflicting with my Dream part of my resolution, but I can sort that one out later. Don't think it is as complicated as one might expect.
"Grab hold of today..." What did you do today to grab hold of the moment? Did you contact a friend? Did you smile when you reeeaaallllyyy wanted to scream? Did you pause because that ladybug landed on your arm while you were basking in the sunshine poolside? (Yep, that'd be me.) Did you remember to put out the trash, pick up the mail, send the payment? Sometimes those things are important too.
Where do you struggle? Where do you succeed? Have you thought about how you might straddle both worlds of the past and the future leaving you no choice but to 'mess all over today'? I do like how she gently says what you really did - squandered and shat upon today?
I make no qualms about me struggling with BEing - it is and continues to be my biggest challenge and struggle for my personal growth. But if you know me - you know I don't back down from a challenge. I want to learn to BE in the moment. To BE present in today. To not worry about tomorrow. "Worry is the thief of joy." A quote I saw one day and immediately wrote it down. Six simple words, but poignant and true.
I am grateful for the pause that vacation affords me. The opportunity to truly be one with myself and seek strength from within. Sunshine helps tremendously. I can assure you of that. Oh yeah and a good book too.
I truly wish I could commit to continued writing when I return from vacation. Who knows. Perhaps I will surprise myself. I won't worry about that now. What I will focus on is today. Is now. Is here.
No comments:
Post a Comment