Happy Love Day!

 

Hi!

Valentine's Day, the day to celebrate love.

Well, the day for which all the ads tell us that we need to buy expensive gifts.

Another one.

Well, it's been my experience that if expensive gifts and grand gestures are needed to convince your Valentine that you care, there is definitely something bigger going on.

Am I saying you shouldn't buy gifts or put forth grand gestures? Absolutely not! If that's what blows your skirt up, do it! All I'm saying, is that it should never be required.

What you do on Valentine's Day is not a litmus test, or any other kind of test. 

It's not an annual performance review of your relationships or any other part of your life. 

From where I sit, romantic love, love of family, love of friends, love for others walking the planet, should be celebrated every day. Just imagine what the world would look like if that happened. 

Being 40 years deep in a true ride-or-die romantic relationship with my hubby, I can tell you this...

The rom-com version of romance actually accounts for a much smaller percentage of your overall relationship than you might think. The majority of it is spent growing a bond that nothing can break. It's caring so deeply that the thought of hurting them, even by some accidental slip of the tongue, makes you sick to your stomach. 

It's enjoying the things you have in common, while supporting and respecting interests that light them up, but might bore you to tears.

It's about getting through life's shit storms, each taking a turn holding the umbrella as needed.

It's about finding solutions to impossible problems in a way that, though may not make you both happy, you both can get okay with. 

It's about rolling with the changes that are inevitable. Kids, no kids. Kids activities, Kids leaving home, kids staying home. Health challenges, losses of loved ones, changes in jobs and finances. Where to live, where not to live. 

Everything is a compromise. Not because you have to, but because you choose to. Because you chose to create this team. This team in which you are co-captains. So you choose, each and every day, to do everything within your power to make your team stronger.

You create this team with the person you can't imagine a life without. You plan to be together forever. You keep striving to make it better, each and every day because, as you get older, you begin to understand that forever isn't nearly the vast distance you once thought it was. 

Time is precious, don't waste it by celebrating love only one day a year. By celebrating only one kind of love. 

Happy Love Day! 

When Beautiful Is Mistaken For Broken...

 

Hi!

At first glance, if you choose not to look too close, these images can seem to depict something shattered or broken.

But, if you take just a little bit of time, you soon come to realize it is simply beautiful. A result of the extreme. When things get so cold, when the bitterness seems so deep you feel it, not only in your bones, but in the marrow, buried within. 

The world seems to be drenched in the extreme bitterness, hate, and fear, wielded by those who believe they are the most important, smartest people in every room... always. 

If you don't look too close, the world seems broken. The misguided overreach from those who believe the world functions on bullying and greed. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely facets that do run that way. Facets that feed the greed, the greed that created an entire demographic called "the working poor." Greed on behalf of those who already have more than they need is the only reason that demographic exists.

If you look closer, you see those who are fighting against it all. They may not be as loud, they may not wield the same individual power, but as a collective? Never underestimate those who have truly had to fight for everything. We get tired, but never tired enough to make us give up. 

The beautiful. The coming together to fight a common enemy. Greed of money, greed of power, the bullying tactics that try to push through policies that benefit only those who already have too much. 

Although it feels like the current of corruption is strong, it is beatable. A tsunami of kindness and acceptance is coming. 

Those who cling to these hateful, antiquated ways are in the vast minority. They know it, we know it, and they are scared. The number of people who follow and believe in what they say and do is diminishing. The followers are finding that the "education" they receive through toxic, misinformed means, doesn't work in the real world, where they are regularly confronted with reality. The reality that most people are NOT okay with spewing hate. The reality that your toxic behavior will get you fired, or keep you from getting a job at all. The reality that most people don't want to hang around the kind of willful ignorance that goes with these twisted views of the world. 

These are the last desperate breaths of an old, sick, corrupt, backward, ignorant way of walking the earth. They are clinging to a power they should have never been so blindly given.

There will be a lot of swill to walk through to get there. We will have to fight for every right they try to trample. We will need to use every ounce of our power to slog through this muck to get to fertile gardens.

We will cease to support brands that support, or come from a place that supports those who want to be kings. We can aim our dollars at inclusive businesses who pay a living wage. When you are buying whiskey, when you are buying groceries, when you are buying cars... pay attention. Make sure your money is going where you want it to. 

To those who are living in the delusion that we are broken, that we are kind, therefore we are weak, that they have worn us down to the point of giving up... know this... you are wrong. 

History proves over and over again, that no matter how much damage evil does along the way, we always come back. Your power is temporary, you know it, we know it, the coming-of-age generations you have traumatized absolutely know it, the people of colour, the people of the LBGTQ+ community, those with souls not encrusted with evil  know it.

The world runs on people power. The cogs, the gears, the labourers, this was never more evident than when the world shut down. Nobody was missing the CEO's, the yacht owners, the tycoons. We needed the nurses, the grocery workers, the delivery drivers... the people who actually keep the world moving. 

Let them have their bravado, their evil nonsense, their delusions of superiority. We know the truth, and we will feed it to them soon. 

Let's go to work. 

We are not broken. We are beautiful, and we will be more than happy to show you what that looks like. 

Never Give Up...

 Hi!

The world seems a bit crazy right now, okay, more than a bit. I'm sure it has seemed that way in some way, shape, or form during every decade, every generation.

These times, though, feel more precarious than any stretch of time I can remember. Basic rights are in perilous positions. Kindness is being presented and perceived as weakness, as something to be ashamed of rather than something to strive for.

Caring for those who struggle to care for themselves... instead of being the very least we should be doing, is labeled as unnecessary, and uncalled for. They should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps, right? Except, in order to do that, they have to first, have boots. 

The human part humanity seems to be taking a back seat... a blindfolded walk into the abyss.

So what can we do? Those of us who still care, those of us who understand that until all humans have the same rights, human rights don't really exist. Those of us who understand that every human that walks the earth is deserving of safety, food, and shelter. What can we do?

I'll tell you what we don't do... We don't give up. We don't give in. We don't allow ourselves to become so exhausted we become apathetic. 

If we, the ones who get it, give up where does that leave those who need us most?

So, that just can't be an option.

I can't sit in the belief that we are in the minority of living, breathing people who are sharing this planet, in this moment. We just can't be. 

Right now, it can feel dangerous to be loud in our inclusivity. We don't want to put those we are trying to protect in bigger danger. But my fear is if we are quiet, if we become silent, those who need us most will think we have left them to fight this fight all alone. 

If we become quiet, those who wield the hate will assume victory and stomp the souls of the precious even more than they already do. 

Those who find themselves tiptoeing, wanting to give in to the urge to hide, those living scared... please know we are still here. We are still fighting for kindness, equality, inclusivity, and acceptance. 

Tactics may shift, the "how" may change, but please know, we are not abandoning you, or the idea of a world that can be peaceful and safe for everyone. 

If you can be loud, be loud! If you need to be subtle, be subtle! If what you can do lives somewhere in the middle, do that!

Just Don't Quit!

Never Give Up!

Exhaustion doesn't erase the need. 

The best revenge is to restore the joy they think they've destroyed, and live in it, at least in some small way, every... single,,, day. 

A Big Life Lived Quietly...

 

Hi,

I hope you will indulge these personal ramblings, as another chair that surrounds this big family's table finds itself empty.

The eldest Auntie, a Nun, but not the traditional type that you instantly just conjured in your mind. She was the Auntie that, as young nieces and nephews, flitted in and out of our lives, not because she didn't love us, but because her life called her to grand adventures where she touched the lives of countless people in faraway lands in the most profound of ways.

I can only speak for myself, but until she became older and was assigned more stationary posts, she seemed more like Indiana Jones than the boring nuns who taught us at school. 

Now, don't get me wrong, she would not want to be painted as a saint, although she might have accepted the title with her mischievous wink and a nod in family conversation. No, she was a real, full, flawed, person. She was stubborn, could definitely be, shall we say, persuasive, but always and forever curious, mind open, willing to learn and test boundaries.

Now, she is free of the weights of humanity, getting to witness the entire truth of what awaits us. Oh, the wonder that must be enveloping her ever-curious soul. I can picture her reveling in the awesomeness of our unknown. 

Her biology is no longer binding her to an earthly life that she could no longer fully experience or enjoy with her whole self. 

She was blessed with a peaceful transition into what the rest of us can only wonder about, reunited with all the loved ones who cleared the path. 

A big life, lived quietly. Her impact, international, generational. 

Forever felt by many.

We'll miss you Auntie Val. 

The Home Stretch...

Hi!

So, where I call home, once the new year gets underway, it kind of starts feeling like the home stretch of winter is upon us.

Does that mean the days are longer?.... Well, yes, but we are getting there about as quickly as a snail crosses the length of a football field. Each day brings a minute or two of extra daylight. As crazy as it seems, it does make a difference, even if it's a small one, at least to me. 

In life, there are countless times we find ourselves in a home stretch of something. Home stretch of school, home stretch until we are on our own, home stretch planning a wedding, home stretch of a pregnancy, home stretch of becoming an empty nester, home stretch of ending a career, and finally, the home stretch of life itself.

Of course, none of us experience the same home stretches, and even if we have some of those in common, we don't experience them at the same points in our lives, nor do we experience them in the same way.

We are but beings of constant transition. If we take advantage, and do it well, we allow ourselves limitless growth and limited judgment of others. 

As we reach each home stretch, we bring with us bits of the walk that brought us to where we are. It's what makes us human, shapes who we are, and who we become. It all has a hand in the shape and colour of our souls. The trick is to learn what to cling to and what to let go. 

What that is for each of us, is again, unique. I have no way of knowing the depths of what you need any more than you can know mine. Discovering this about ourselves is difficult enough, I wouldn't dream of assuming anything about another's journey. 

For others, all we can do is offer space and support. We do what we can when asked for help or advice. We definitely provide a safe place to land.

For ourselves, all we can do is our best in any circumstance, willing to reach out when we finally remember we don't have to do it alone, that we were never meant to. 

So, here's to the home stretches! They all lead us to where we really belong... until the next one...

 

If You Are Wired...

 

Hi!

At this time of year, I find myself gravitating toward images of warmth and space. 

With all the crazy talk of world domination from people who are supposed to know better, wildfires, wars and the rest of the horrible crap going on, sometimes it's okay to step back and take a breather.

My heart breaks for all who are suffering, it sincerely does, but right now, right in this moment... today, there is nothing I can personally do to change any of it.

If you are wired as a fixer like I am, that can be a tough pill to swallow. I'll rise to do whatever I can another day. But, today, for my own sanity, I need to scroll through pictures of lakes and fields, watch gameshows, old sitcoms, and play silly, mindless games on my phone.

The way stress hits each of us is as varied as the coping skills we use to get through whatever is causing it.

It can be physical, mental, and often, as it is with me, a pretty gnarly combination of the two.

So, I truly and deeply hope things in your life are going really well. 

But, if they are not, it's okay to do whatever you need to do to get through. Just try not to do anything too destructive, that, generally, just adds stress down the road. 

In the long run, everything tends to work out just as it should. And we generally land in a better spot than we left. But the transition can be rough. Sometimes really rough. 

So, I hate to write and run, but I have some episodes of Happy Days to play Candy Crush through. 

Take Care Of You!

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