sparkle from scratch.

I was so busy being thankful this November I totally flaked out on last month’s blog post.  I promise I will make it up to you next Thanksgiving with five of the most inspired paragraphs about turkey anyone has ever read.  

But for now...let's talk tinsel shall we?

I was out in middle-America this week enjoying my "other life" which primarily involves non-stop work with the occasional break to sleep, eat a bowl of something (soup/cereal) and enjoy two fun filled hours of me time each evening for:

a) exercise 
b) getting my nails done 
c) shopping 

Last night I decided to go with option B since I "forgot" to pack my sneakers and well, this girl wanted some red glitter no-chip polish in a big way.

I headed to my fav Illinois outdoor shopping city (I mean mall) and picked my color at the fanciest "PICK YOUR COLOR!!!" nail salon you’ve ever seen.  This place has roman columns and looks like the inside of a mausoleum.  (Those Midwest ladies are apparently not joking around when it comes to getting their nails done).  

The nail tech, David, came over and introduced himself.  He made some polite small talk as he evaluated the two week old chipped polish disaster I walked in with.  

At first we kept it light.  We talked about the frigid Chicago temps and the best places to get a good bowl of pho in the area.  Small talk eventually turned into real talk - work, marriage, children, life.  David told me all about his beautiful wife and their six children - and how he had been a mechanical engineer in Vietnam before relocating his family to the states.  I told him about the family I leave behind when I pack it up for Chicago twice a month and what it's been like for them.

David the nail tech and I chatted and laughed for a full hour while he prepared my nails for the festive weeks ahead.

  

Right?  David's got skills.

Toward the end of our visit he asked what I do for fun when I am in Chicagoland.  I told him not much, that I mostly just work, because I don’t really have any friends in the area.  David looked at me with no ulterior motive and complete sincerity and simply said:

“You have me.”

There we sat surrounded by some serious suburban Midwest holiday bling, yet it was his words that shined.

It was his kindness that sparkled.

We put a lot of effort into making the season bright don’t we?  We decorate our homes, clothing, retail stores, airports, vehicles (can someone please explain to me the antlers and Rudolph nose on the car thing?) – we even decorate our fingernails. 

It's easy to say it's all commercial and over the top, but here's what I think.  I say it's a good thing.

The trimmings and trappings that come standard with the holidays remind us that it’s time to get to work on the important business of being human.  The overdone holiday entrance to Target reminds us that it’s the season to connect, and the stuff in the $3 bins is not how we will do it.  

It whispers “It's that time. There is more to it than this.  You can create your own sparkle from scratch”.  The beauty we see around us reminds us to create something beautiful within us.  

things like:

Police in Chicago spending a day bowling with inner city at-risk youth to help them feel safe and comfortable with law enforcement.

*sparkle*

A single woman in the office volunteering to run the company Toys for Tots fundraiser.

*sparkle*

A husband and wife spend an evening making homemade Christmas cards for kids at the local children’s hospital.

*sparkle*

Parents donating gift cards to their local elementary school so families less fortunate can put something special under the tree.

*sparkle*

Two women turn a simple small town tree lighting ceremony into a night of singing, crafts, hot cocoa and pure magic for kids (thank you Bonnie and JoAnne).

*sparkle*

Together Rising donates millions of dollars to support children in Aleppo.

*click here to sparkle*

A nail tech in the Midwest tells a perfect stranger she has a new friend.

*sparkle*

This is how we make the season shimmer friends.  Genuine human connection is our tinsel.  Gestures that say “I am here, I see you, and I care" are the decorations.

This is how we strengthen our communities.

This is how we teach our children to be givers.

This is how we show one another we all have the same value.

This is how we fill our hearts.

This is how we heal.

This is how we create sparkle from scratch.

merry merry friends.  xo - juli

the bathroom floor.

I recently read something that described the current political situation in our country as the United States of America being "on the bathroom floor".  The claim implied that we are officially at the lowest point in political history, and there is nowhere to go from here but up.

I immediately had two thoughts (not in any particular order):

1)  God I hope that's true.
2)  I love the idea of describing something as being on the bathroom floor (I actually had a third thought and which was "man I wish I wrote that").

It's just such a positively perfect way to describe being at the lowest point of something - and it can easily apply to so many things.


An addiction.
A career.
A project.
A marriage.
A life.
A presidential campaign being led by a racist, misogynistic, self important crybaby.

(Obama telling Trump to quit his whining.)

The bathroom floor is the place we lay on our back, stare up at the ceiling and ask ourselves how in the hell we ever got here.  We reflect back on our path and the choices we made that landed us in this space filled with regret, confusion and pain.  

Yet as our tears fall on the cold tile we realize we still have choices.  We can either accept to stay there, or we can decide it's time to scrape ourselves up off the ground and start rebuilding.  The bathroom floor isn't the end unless we let it be.  If we take the pain and lessons that brought us there and turn them into energy it can actually be a beginning.  

Yes, the bathroom floor is where a new chapter starts, but interestingly it's also when we are in our most vulnerable and fragile state.  

We have all known someone in this place haven't we?  Someone who found themselves in a financial crisis, a marital crisis or (my personal favorite) a midlife crisis.  We can hear the vulnerability in their voice and see the uncertainty in their actions...and for good reason.  Chances are their whole world just got rocked and they don't know what to believe in anymore.  They may not even be sure if they can believe in themselves.

I will admit that in the past there have been times when my initial reaction was to shy away.  To listen politely but not "get involved".  Aren't we all a little nervous that if we support someone who is down on their luck too much we might catch the bad luck bug ourselves?  So we look but don't touch.

It's easier to question their choices.  To assure ourselves that we would never have been so careless or selfish or foolish to end up on the bathroom floor as they have.  We would have done it differently.  We would have done it better.

That's not at all how I see it today.  Whether it's ourselves or someone we know who has hit that low point I think it's the perfect time for learning.  For growth.  For compassion.

More importantly, it's a time for grace.

When our knees hit the floor and it feels like rock bottom, that's the time to show what we're really made of. 

It's the time for us hold ourselves, or someone else, or this country in our hands as gently as possible so the healing can begin.

It's our time to bring our best self forward.  

It's our time to not turn away.

It's our time to rise up.


xo - juli

PS - If you're looking for me between now and Nov. 8th you know where to find me. ;)

An Honest Habit.

I can’t believe how long it's been since my last blog entry.  This can only mean one of two things:

1. I have nothing left to say (anyone who knows me would agree this is highly unlikely).
2. I have been out of my mind busy.

I think it is a hybrid of the two potential causes above combined with the truth that when you are constantly feeding one thing, chances are pretty good something else is starving.  For the last few months I have been feeding my career as I transitioned through a change and as a result, the fun writing I so enjoy has starved for a bit.

Along with just about everything else in my life.
  
I have been putting all my energy into figuring out what my new normal will look like.  I've asked myself questions like:

 - How will I manage my time on the off weeks I'll be working from home?  

 - How will I juggle the kid/family schedule when I am not there to take care of things in person?  

 - How am I supposed to replenish the paper towels, juice boxes and cat food if I’m in Chicago?

I didn’t have the answers, but then, when I started this new job I didn’t know what changes would trip me up the most.  I did know one thing however, my "new normal" would involve lots of airplanes and hotel rooms.  I knew from past experience with business travel that if I was going to be a frequent flier, I would need to set some good habits in place from the start.  I would need guidelines to help me avoid getting depressed about being away from my family, having daily hangovers and gaining twenty pounds.  I would need to lay down some new habits.

They were admittedly a little rough in the beginning, but they went something like this:

Juli's Guidelines for Maintaining a Shred of Sanity While Spending Half Her Life on Business Travel

• Resist the urge to buy a new celebrity rag every time you walk into an airport.  They're expensive and essentially junk food for your brain.
• No alcohol on the road.  Yes, you read that right.  (This guideline exists for oh-so-many reasons but primarily because I need to be on my A-Game for work).
• Exercise every day if possible (this habit is for mental health first, physical health second).  
• If there is any “me time” left over I will spend it reading, not watching TV.
• Avoid eating dinner in restaurants.  Plan meals ahead (so far "planning ahead" has meant eating an apple from H-Mart and a package of Funny Bones in bed while answering emails).  I justify this as still being better than eating out.  As I type this I'm thinking this guideline could use some fine tuning.

does the fake peanut butter count as nutrition?

Doesn’t life on the road sound like a total drag?  Guess what?  It isn't.  

I miss my family a ton (this is another post entirely), but it's positively dreamy to sleep a full uninterrupted eight hours every night in a huge bed with fresh sheets and way too many pillows.  I wake up to a peaceful shower and hot coffee waiting for me when I come downstairs.  To me, the Hampton Inn every other week feels like some sort of rehabilitation center for women in their late 30’s.  Say what you want, I like it there.

After three weeks on the job I am pleased to report my new travel habits seem to be working out pretty well.  My home office habits on the other hand, leave a lot to be desired.  For the last two days I have found myself eating ice cream out of the carton at three in the afternoon.  

This can't continue.

I also realized quickly that my home office life of conference calls and no in-person meetings means my physical appearance is less important.  Which means showering is kinda optional.  It wasn’t long before I started to feel generally gross and started the habit of getting up, getting clean and getting some eyeliner on.  If I’m having trouble mustering the ambition to execute I have found taking an unflattering selfie (sans filter) is usually enough to get my ponytail-rocking, no-bra-wearing self upstairs and into the shower.  

The one habit I am working the hardest to establish however, is probably the most challenging.  Yet it's critical to the success of all the others.
  
Part of my commitment to read more books while on the road led me to Love Warrior by Glennon Doyle Melton.  This book is powerful and inspiring (not to mention the most beautifully written and utterly raw memoir I have ever read).

READ. THIS. BOOK.

  

Glennon talks about making a habit of “living on the surface” as much as possible.  Not surface in a shallow sense, but in the exact opposite sense actually.  She talks about showing the truth about who we are, and making our vulnerable, honest self as visible as possible to the people we encounter.  She argues that is the only way to have healthy, authentic and successful human relationships.

Her book helped me see this is also the only way to truly break old habits and establish new ones.  For us to live as close to the surface of ourselves as we can bear.  To own our truth and see ourselves as the broken, beautiful, messy people we are.  To resist squinting a little to tweak the image, but rather to force ourselves to stare and say “Hi Self.  It’s okay that you are *XYZ* (fill in the blank with whatever your crap may be... god knows I've got plenty of my own material).  I love you anyway. Now stop all the punishing and get to the more important business of doing something about it.”

Start from there.  Make a few small, gentle changes, that will eventually take root and grow into bigger ones.    

Break some old shitty habits because you deserve the freedom that comes with living on the surface.  Because you are absolutely and without question worth it.  Because people will find it easier to relate to the honest version of you.  Because we are all a little broken.  And because rolling through life as the most authentic version of who we truly are is, well, just a good habit.

{and happy fall by the way!  xo - juli}

So much still.

I was finishing up my senior year of college and was having one of those "I'm not sure I'm up for this whole adulthood thing" days.  I was mentally juggling an internship, final exams, a new relationship, moving and preparing for a full-time gig in corporate America that was waiting for me post-graduation.  My twenty one year old brain was on overdrive.  (In hindsight I probably could have used a few counseling sessions, but therapy wasn't really a thing in the late 90's and I didn't have the money back then to afford it anyway.)

What I did have however, was Patti, a dear childhood friend of my aunts who had known me since I was born.  Patti lived a short drive from my school and had just given birth to a baby girl.  I had always admired her for her professional success, quick wit, and the fact that she had a hot husband with shaggy blonde hair who built custom canoes for a living.

Yes please.

She's also great company and one hell of a good time.  I called her up to ask if I could come by to visit with the new baby, but truthfully...I just wanted to talk. 

We sat and chatted in the kitchen of her charming lake house in the White Mountains for a couple of hours.  We covered all the major bases - relationships, work, school, marriage and babies.  I told her I didn't want to make the wrong decision about what would come next.  Should I leave New Hampshire?  Who would I live with?  Is this new job really the right fit for me?  Etc.  I told her I was scared to screw up what I knew was a pivotal time in my life.  She let me finish and when I was done she smiled and said:

"You know how everyone tells you life is short?  It's not.  Life is very long.  I feel like I have already lived so many different lives, and now I am starting a new one.  Don't look at all of this as some sort of final decision.  There is so much life still for you to live."

Why would I ever pay for therapy when I had Patti right down the road?  Her words centered me and helped me frame the seemingly huge decisions I was about to make as simply what they were - the decisions I was making for that time in my life...not for the rest of it.

Today I can feel Patti's words more than ever.  In fact, I am about the same age she was when we had that visit in her kitchen nearly twenty years ago.  I now fully relate to the idea of living a handful of mini-lifetimes inside of one larger life.  Not only was there so much still to come for me, but it turns out there was actually more than I ever thought possible. 

This past month I found myself at an adulting crossroads.  I was presented with an opportunity for change that took me outside my comfort zone and demanded I put my big girl pants on.  So I did.  And while I waded through the uncomfortable feelings that always accompany a potential change I tried to remember the peace I felt that day when I learned there is not one single decision to be made...but rather there will always be another decision to make.

It's never too late.  There is more time still.  And that is a great thing.

There is time to make a different judgement call.  

There is time to reassess our priorities.  

There is time to explore an underdeveloped aspect of ourselves. 

There is time to take up a new hobby.  

There is time to go back to school.  

There is time to change your mind.

There is time to change jobs.

There is time to say you're sorry.

There is time to fall in love again.  

There will be another season to watch the first green signs of spring appear and the last orange leaves of autumn fall.  

There will be another night to watch the sun set and the moon rise.  

So don't stress.

There is so much life still for you to live. 

xo - juli 

merging words.

My daughter goes crazy for any book by Sandra Boynton.  I'm quite a fan too, since they are cute, fun to read, and super short.  Those nights when I am tired of reading yet she's still begging for "just one more book" I always know I can bang out Snuggle Puppy in about a minute and ten seconds for the mommy win.  I can recite Snuggle Puppy from memory...holding the actual book is more of a prop at this point.  Another Sandra Boynton favorite in our house is "Opposites". 

Opposites is a sweet little book of child friendly binary terms.  Each page contains an illustration and a few well-chosen words to describe opposing sides of a given concept.  Think:

Hot and Cold

Young and Old

Wet and Dry

Low and High

There are cute hippos in winter jackets and bunnies in swim trunks and sunglasses illustrating the differences in size, time of day, age, weather, distance, etc.  Learning about opposites is, of course, important for kids.  For a child to understand what makes two concepts different, they first need to understand the meaning of both words.  You can't imagine hot if you don't understand cold.  You can't imagine young if you don't understand old, etc.  

After my daughter and I finish reading the book we'll play the opposite game for a minute or two.  I'll think up a word and she has to guess what the opposite of it would be.  Guessing correctly makes her feel accomplished and confident.  It's all very cut and dry.  Something is either one or the other and there's nothing in between...which is perfectly reasonable.  To a five year old. 

As a thirty eight year old however, I find myself thinking less and less in terms of opposites.  I don't see much in life as being two parallel sides of a street that goes on forever without merging.  I believe there is a little bit of something in everything else.  I have seen good come from bad, love come from hate...and don't even get me started on right and wrong.  

I recently held a workshop at my company to promote LGBTQ awareness and inclusion in the workplace.  Words like "binary" and "spectrum" were used generously in the training materials.  In fact, all four quadrants of gender and sexuality contain their own unique spectrum (I wasn't 100% clear on this two months ago myself, so in case you're curious they are):

1. Gender Identity 
2. Gender Assignment 
3. Gender Expression 
4. Sexual Orientation

The more I learn about each of these four quadrants, the easier it is for me to embrace the generally fluid nature of gender and sexuality.  Taking the time to explore the place where seemingly opposite concepts overlap can be complicated or even uncomfortable at times...and it might take some effort.  But taking the time to do that work is the path to full acceptance without hesitation or fear.

I believe the truth about almost everything lies somewhere in that middle space. 

The place where words begin to merge.

When words merge in my mind they start to look a little different.  

Suddenly gay and straight become STGRAIGYHT.  (Really?  You find that tough to pronounce?  Just humor me for a minute here.)

Good and bad become GBOAOD. 

Love and hate become LHOAVTE.

Right and wrong become RWIRGOHNTG.  

I know you can't pronounce these non-words silly.  Neither can anyone. That's not what matters...what matters is that we can feel them.  

When we see crazy amounts of love and compassion come pouring out of a tragedy like the mass shooting in Orlando it's nearly impossible to mentally draw a line down the middle of the situation...to assign it just one word.  So much beauty coming from such an ugly event.  Strangers sacrificing their own lives to save the life of someone else inside that club.  The calls for action in the form of new legislation and the general acceptance that everyone should be free to love who they choose without fear of consequence.  All stemming from an act of intolerance and rage. 

Acceptance and compassion don't just apply to religion, sexual orientation, skin color, ethnic background or gender.  They are woven into every human interaction we have with every person we touch throughout our day.  It's the willingness to embrace the way other people choose to run their show.

It's the willingness to do the work and learn.  

It's pausing to understand fully rather than judging so easily.  

It's being open to the idea of merging words.

"I'm not really a big fan of tolerance.  

I'd much rather love everyone wildly."

- Brian Andreas

Permission Granted.

At the suggestion of a colleague and friend I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert's (woman who wrote Eat, Pray, Love) book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear.  I agreed with Elizabeth's thoughts so fiercely I actually found myself saying "Yes.  Yes.  Yes!" out loud to absolutely no one in my car as I listened to the audio book on my commute.  The girl crush was almost immediate.  I have a tendency to give an overly detailed Cliffs Notes version of books, but not today and this post will be no exception.  I can't help myself.  This book is, as the title would lead you to believe...magic.

Elizabeth discusses the various aspects of how to live an intensely creative life.  She argues that every one of us is inherently creative, so much so that calling someone a 'creative person' is actually redundant.  After all, we human beings were creating art before we mastered agriculture (like way before), which says we found creating useless but beautiful objects more important than feeding ourselves since the very dawn of man.

We were making this back when our food was just as likely to eat us as we were to eat it.

This idea of making stuff, any stuff, and how the making of that stuff contributes to our lives, our health, and (at risk of sounding dramatic) our world is really incredible when you think about it.  Creating anything - a beautiful meal, a painting, a piece of furniture, a piece of music, or a new vaccine benefits the creator just as much as the audience.  It feels good for a bunch of reasons.  It feels good because:

• Creating this thing is what our soul is calling us to do.
• We enjoy the process.
• We will ultimately have something to give, to share.
• We are bringing an idea to life.

But here's something I had never considered...

It feels good because we don't need to ask permission.  

If you want to create something you can just go ahead and create it.  You don't have to ask anyone if it is okay with them.  You don't have to fill out a form.  We can decide to create something and start right away.

No permission required.    

It had never occurred to me that this is one of the main reasons I enjoy creating just about anything so much.  It's why I like to cook, to garden, to write, to make useless signs on old pieces of salvaged barn boards.  No one is going to tell me that I can't take an old piece of wood and paint words on it.  I can.  And I can do it right this very minute if I please.  

It's why I like the work I do for my little town on the Garden and Beautification Committee.  Want to plant some flowers for spring?  Go right ahead, nobody else wants to!  Want to put checkered ribbon on the wreaths this year instead of the plain red ribbon we used last Christmas?  Knock yourself out!  

...and I don't have to ask a single person if it's okay. 

Maybe a different example.  If I want to pay a professional to paint my kitchen I might want to cross check that decision with my husband and our bank account.  HOWEVER, if I decide on say a Saturday night when my husband is out of town to paint our entire kitchen chartreuse while drinking a bottle of wine...well, I did can do just that.  I don't even need to ask anyone if they think the color is okay...which it absolutely wasn't.  Three different times.

This was the color I chose.  When I say it was bad I mean it was bad.

The point here isn't my uncanny knack for picking shades of green that resemble an indoor rain forest.  The point is that life full of rules and reasons to ask permission.  This life insists we stand in line, fill out all the paperwork, read the directions on the sign, follow the instructions carefully and make sure the postage is correct.  But then we have this whole other life available to us, a life that asks absolutely nothing but to come alive.  Our ideas, our creativity belong to us and only us and no one can tell us how they should look or how it should be done.    

The things we create are the way we decorate our life, they are the color on our canvas and the beauty we bring to our existence.  The stuff we make (whether you can touch it or not) is evidence of our time here, and we owe it to ourselves and to each other to bring it forth.  Because these ideas and creations are ultimately the gifts we have to give, and maybe we can decorate someone else's life...without even knowing it.

And besides, creating is fun.  It's exciting and unpredictable and downright exhilarating at times.  But best of all?  You don't need permission.

So go on and decorate your life with something beautiful friends.

xo - juli

The Long Way Home.

Did you ever notice the best experiences are often the ones we didn’t see coming?  The best parties are those that didn't start out with a paper invitation in the mailbox.  The best family times aren’t the ones we spend thousands of dollars and months of our lives planning.

The best days of the warm weather months always seem to roll that way too, don’t they?  Those perfect days when one thing leads to another and another and before we know it, we’ve totally abandoned any agenda we might have had.  Those days when things just flow and we’re more than happy to let the to-do list go completely out the window (Market Basket will still be there tomorrow).  

I consider the day a success if by the time my head hits the pillow I am able to reflect back on three or more of the following:

• Spending more time outside than inside
• Cheering for my son’s perfect cannonball off the diving board
• Picking a wildflower and putting it in my hair
• Eating a PB&J
• Swimming in a river
• Wrapping my wet and shivering daughter up in a beach towel and hugging her close
• Drinking five Corona Lights (no, not all at once.  don't judge.)
• Laughing with friends
• Raising my face up to the sun “like a turtle” - as my mother always likes to say
• Having an unplanned adventure

The last point is kind of the secret ingredient to those killer experiences, isn’t it?  The high degree of fun we find in those precious days is usually the result of spontaneity…and getting a little lost.  Not in the literal sense of course, but rather taking a detour from the agenda.  The times we embrace the unexpected and just go wherever the road takes us, for as long as it takes us.  Forgetting about the clock and just enjoying the long way home.

(Norah Jones covering The Long Way Home. You're welcome.)

Getting a little lost isn’t exclusive to Sunday drives.  Sometimes we get lost on our own path, in our own lives – even inside our own selves.  We might feel for a time that we have lost that white-knuckle grip we had on our master plan for a happy life.  Maybe our priorities change, our needs change, our circumstances change, the family routine changes, or we simply change our minds.

Or better yet...we have changed.  

Sometimes we need to take a little detour to support a spouse who has taken a new job, or to help a graduating high school senior prepare for college and leave the nest.  Other times the detours are bigger. We welcome a new baby, go through a divorce, buy a new home, or relocate the family for professional reasons.  These are the times that can leave us feeling as though we've taken our hands off the wheel entirely.

It’s easy (and normal) to feel the urge to right the ship and get things “back on track” as quickly as possible - back to the steady state we knew so well.  We’re eager to return to the comfortable place we believe our happiness lived before change came along.  We say things like “it was easier before the second baby” or “maybe I should have just toughed it out at (Company X).  After all, I only had sixteen years left until retirement.” 

We think these things without realizing that the detour - the adventure - might be where our new happiness lives NOW.  Yes, these changes often challenge our idea of what things "should" look like, but they can also open the door to possibilities we don't even know existed because well...we just hadn’t gotten there yet.  And much like a carefree Sunday, going with the flow of life’s changes often yields the greatest rewards and is the surest path to happy times ahead.  We have all seen... 

• The painful divorce that ultimately clears the path for new love. 
• The cross-country relocation that creates a whole new level of family connectedness.
• The layoff that ends up being the catalyst to figuring out how we actually want to earn a living. 
• The colicky infant that steals our heart and becomes the love of our life. 

Don't resist taking a few detours in the warmer days ahead friends - make them yours and take advantage of the possibilities they hold.  Listen to live music at an outdoor venue.  Go camping and read a book to your kid by the firelight.  Pick a bouquet of wildflowers and make them your "centerpiece" at the dinner table.  Go for a bike ride.  Kiss someone when they least expect it.  Host an impromptu barbecue.  Jump off a rope swing (even if you didn't pack a bathing suit).

Embrace the experiences we can only enjoy by welcoming change. 

Put your face up to the sun like a turtle and drink in the sunshine.

Take the long way home.

Happy Sunday.  xo - juli

unafraid.

A lot of shit went down in February.

I dislike labeling things as "good" or "bad", but the events I am referring to wouldn't necessarily be considered positive in a traditional sense.  I said goodbye to my Grandmother for the last time.  I blew out my ACL on Valentine's Day resulting in a reconstructive surgery scheduled for the end of March.  Work threw a couple curve balls my way.  I faced the reality that Donald Trump will likely be the Republican candidate for POTUS (No. You know what?  I'm comfortable labeling this one as "bad").

Of course, these events couldn't be any more dissimilar or unrelated.  But they all had something in common that tried to quietly weave its way through them like a single black thread through a pale pink baby blanket.

The thread is fear.

Fear is such an interesting thing isn't it?  Our fears try to tell us they are there to protect us and keep us safe, when really they are holding us back and making us vulnerable.

Despite knowing full well it's not productive I would be lying if I said I don't occasionally experience fear or worry about life's "unknowns".  

Sometimes I am afraid:

• Of my kids getting older (how many times has someone said to me "Little kids, little problems, big kids, big problems!") 
• I haven't done enough meaningful work in my life.
• Of taking big risks.  
• The lines on my face are only going to multiply. 
• I've lost my creativity.
• I'm not able to be for someone else (friend, partner, family member) everything they are to me.

Yet as these less-than-ideal February events revealed themselves I started to notice so much light shining through the cracks in each experience.  One friend offered to teach me to knit (and drink wine) while I am on the sofa nursing my ACL post-surgery, while another dropped off an all-natural anti-inflammatory to help bring down the swelling in my knee.  I realized I reallllly like exercise and vowed never to take a healthy, functioning body for granted again.  Surprise bouquets appeared in my kitchen from girlfriends after my grandmother passed.  

Yet of all the unexpected surprises that came my way these past few weeks perhaps what surprised me most is how completely unafraid I am.

I made the decision to not delay my surgery.  I want to get it done as fast as possible so I can start getting stronger right away.

I remembered back to years ago when I first read Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth .  

He talks about letting go of fear by separating the self from the event.  He encourages being mindful of the words we use to describe what's happening.  Rather than thinking "I can't believe this is happening to me!" instead try "this isn't happening to me, this is just what is happening".  

Removing fear from a situation is almost effortless once we start accepting and stop making it personal.

(*the bible of all spiritual self-helpie books.  Completely worth the read if you haven't already...just ask Oprah.)

I didn't plan it, but I guess you could say I kept fear at bay with what could be considered a three-pronged approach:  

1)  Find the light in the dark (focus on the positive outcomes).  
2)  Do something. Get moving on the solution.
3)  Don't let it become personal. 

I also realized these tricky little life patches have actually become my favorite times.  I love it when circumstances force me to the table a little more than usual.  When leaving my comfort zone becomes almost mandatory.  When I'm forced to dig deep, learn more and grow...these are the places where all the best stuff happens.

Spring is alllllmost here kids.  Soon the grass will be green, the bulbs will be in bloom and the windows will be open.

...and I will be on crutches for about three weeks.  But you know what?  I'm not afraid.