It's Never Too Late

I may have found a mantra to guide my journey to unknown places:

This may be the "map" I was looking for. 

When you know the starting point but the end goal is vague, how do you make your way? 

Perhaps Julia Cameron will offer some insight as to not just getting from "here" to "there", 

but helping me define exactly where "there" is...

Where Do We Go From Here?

I found this on my morning walk through Facebook and it spoke to me:

https://www.facebook.com/pg/YourCBDforLife/posts/

We made it through another 365 days and get to hang up a new calendar year tomorrow morning. I wonder what will this new page bring?

I don't want to talk about goals, resolutions, fresh new starts. I simply want to start from where I am today and set my sights on defining myself.

I was recently asked to define what I did, what I wrote about and basically "who" I was. I came up empty.

I work, I eat, I sleep.  I socialize when I must. I enjoy my family. I adore our cats. My favorite way to pass the time is to watch for rabbits.

I strive to become more than I am at this very moment in time. One day at a time.

No Place Like Home

It feels harder and harder to look forward to "getting away from it all". Why in the world would I choose to get away from a place that fills me up and brings me joy? Holidays have become equivalent to the gift of simply being able to stay home. Is it any wonder I don't want to uproot myself and go anywhere?

I had hoped this holiday would be that of a "play it by ear" variety. No plans. Simply pick up and go, if and when the spirit moved me and the opportunity arose.

Then I accepted an invitation. No regrets. As always, I know I will be glad I have followed the path of least resistance. Even though saying "yes" was met with the pulling of some home-bound-heart-strings, I knew "yes" was the right answer.

By the time I post this, I will be home again. I can predict the future. I will be glad I went. I will be feeling the afterglow of some perfectly imperfect memories. At the moment, there is a little bit of angst in the unknown factor of our visit. By the time we return home, all anxieties will be put to rest.

I feel anxious as the entirety of my little family who is home, will be in a car headed in a westward direction to visit family.

As always, I wonder what if we don't make it back home again? Who will take care of our cats? What if the house alarm goes off? What if ... what if ... what if ...

Here I sit, in the moments before we leave home looking forward to the moment when we drive up our street upon our return home. Safe and sound, the house still standing and anxiously awaiting the moment when we see what our cats have been up to in our absence.

Be it ever so humble ... there is no place like home.

Platitudes

Is it too soon to say this out loud? I am tired of the "Merry Christmases" and "Happy New Years" and all the other platitudes of the season. They have been used, over-used, recycled, refreshed and said so many times that I hear static in my ears when I hear or read the words. The words have lost their meaning.

I wrote this and went on to rant some more. When I started to run out of the meaningless things people say automatically, I searched the Internet for more. It seems one can always find someone who agrees with you when you search the masses. And I did.

I reread my rant (which I have now deleted), after reading someone who had more to offer on the subject. Then I started reading the comments. I am one of the worst offenders of spouting off some of the most annoying platitudes on the list. There are times when these used and overused phrases come from a place of wanting to say something, to fill the silence and try to fill the void with words.

My opinion is merely that. It is my opinion alone. The high and mightiness of my initial thoughts came from a place where I spent far too much time scrolling through Facebook over the holiday season.

I saw photos after photos of family and friend gatherings where food, gifts, Christmas trees and cheer galore were plentiful. I looked at the photos and saw "Christmases Past". The reminder was both heart warming and bittersweet at the same time. It was like looking into a mirror that was reflecting my thoughts of the moment.

There were "Merry Christmas" messages to all strewn throughout the page. So many. I thought of the times when I have posted something on Facebook and the validation I felt as the "Likes", comments and shares rolled in. I start to feel like less than myself when the "Liking" subsides. I felt empty when I looked at these Christmas wishes to all reverberating around the world of Facebook.

There is truly nothing wrong with it for those who are sending their wishes out into the world. It saddens me that these "group messages" have taken the place of sending Christmas cards and/or letters. What saddens me more, is that I have become one who didn't send out cards this year.

Our little family doesn't "do" Christmas in a traditional sense. My son said it best when he said, "For us, I believe, the lack of attention to standard ‘dates’ has made the everyday/any day much more memorable." I read his words and my thoughts immediately went to the everyday moments that accidentally became special. There was no agenda, no expectation or excuse. Little moments became bigger than we could have ever hoped for. Simply because we were there, together and open to whatever happened to unfold.

Whatever kind of day you may or may not be having, I do hope it is the kind of day you need. You don't have to be Happy or Merry or anything at all. I do wish you peace in your heart though. That is not a platitude. I mean this with all my heart.

Morning Pages Review

I have been diligently writing three, 8-1/2" X 11" pages, in long hand writing since August 26th. Four months. On my four month anniversary, I shredded every page.

No remorse, nor any wish to re-read a single sentence I had written. I shredded the pages as easily as I throw out the trash. There was no epiphany. No nugget of wisdom. Four months of whining, negativity, list making, dollar accounting, budgeting, lists of shoulda, coulda, woulda's. Gone.

It actually feels good to shred every word and toss it into the garbage. That is what it was to me. Exorcising my morning demons with no desire to revisit them.

I stopped writing three mornings ago. I cannot say if I feel better or worse for the lack of purging. Perhaps a little worse. I find myself drawn into the depths of my thoughts instead of the purge and release factor while writing my morning pages.

Will I start writing again? I think so. 

As much as I felt like those pages drained me of all the words I woke up with and left me wordless when it came to write anything here in my blog, I do feel that allowing myself the freedom to write anything and everything that came to mind was therapeutic. 

The magic of putting pen to page rather than typing? Surprisingly amazing. The times I have sat down at the computer to respond to an email or type out a text have felt excruciating. Picking the right word out of the air feels daunting. The shortest of replies take an extraordinary amount of time to type. 

There is something to these pages. Shredding them felt as cathartic as burning them. There were no deep dark secrets. The pages consisted of a side of myself I do not care to nurture.

Miss Negative Nellie is alive and well but I have destroyed the evidence of her existence. My fear is, if I don't purge these words in the morning, they may sneak out during the course of living my day. 

To err is human, they say. I'd rather err grandly in the privacy of my morning pages and do my best with the knowledge I usually find at the end of my third page. 

Morning pages? I'll be back ...

Fresh Snow = Fresh Rabbit Tracks

 I have had precious few rabbit sightings this past little while so I have been eagerly watching for new rabbit tracks in the snow.

The fresh fallen snow from a few days ago has taken a little while to gain rabbit track momentum but they were busy here last night.

Oh, how I wish I had seen the activity that produced this particular set of tracks:

The rabbits are still circling the stake where our Christmas light display was prior to its theft. I think they miss the lights too ...

Christmas Snow

May your day be exactly what you need it to be.

It doesn't have to be a Hallmark Christmas kind of day to be a good day. 

We woke up to a fresh new fallen snow.

It is ever so much easier to track our neighorhood rabbits presence with fresh snow.

Best Christmas morning gift I could have hoped for!

Wishing you the gift of waking up to whatever your day may have in store.