Overall, (and remind me I said this), I’m having a love affair with life. And love affairs are interesting….they have their highs and their lows…but just as Jerry Seinfeld exclaims in one of his many (by me, beloved) episodes of the Seinfeld show, ‘make up sex is the BEST sex.’ I’m grooving on the metaphor. After a particularly scurrilous day, few months, year or years perhaps, things swing back and the sun peeks behind the clouds. And I appreciate it all the more after all the dark, dank, dreary days.
I was tempted even tonight to post another story about a heartless email I received from someone lashing out at me unkindly, thoughtlessly. After thanking this person for information they shared, I decided instead to graciously not participate in their negativity. I won’t do it. That energy serves NO ONE. I know that. Better yet, I’m beginning to realize the choices I have with every moment.
And so, I today am reminded of the moments in life when a new person appears…someone you never knew, never expected arrives into your life. I’m focusing just now on the ones who have over my last year made a demonstrable, positive difference.
I know too that we attract those folks…energetically. I believe it’s rather scientific when boiled down. We attract exactly what we need, growth lessons, loving people, folks who give us what we need to grow. Yes, the naughty, annoying ones appear as guides as well. All that we attract might come in the form of hard lessons and angst, (drat all that) or the lover type energies, the people who maybe challenge, but with a softer touch, or the folks who just think you hung the moon and perhaps you feel the same about them. Gee, I love THOSE people! But they are all necessary AND important.
I am practicing something new in my life….allowing all these new encounters to tell me where they want to go or not go. I’m endeavoring to keep them where they seem to belong, simple and complete within themselves, whether they melt one way or another, to just be present with each interesting lick and turn and to be in total gratitude of ‘what is’.
It’s so simple that way, relishing moments with all the people who complete the cast of our lives, at one given point and time. No clinging, no projecting, no worries if your friendship with a pal changes or turns….to be with ‘just now’. It’s so freeing and lovely really. I’m practicing, certainly not seasoned in ANY of this. But I’m a dogged one, I know I’ll ‘get’ anything I want to ‘get’, in time, in time. I am challenged by it all daily.
And I am comforted with the thought that: Change is, afterall, our only REAL constant in life.
I met two new women last night at yet another industry networking held at the beautiful Atlanta Botanical Gardens, (a place I ALWAYS love to visit. The new exhibits and creative growth I see there each time I visit makes me happy to live so close to a thriving city). I sat down next to Katie, who works in a job, (…sigh), that is far beneath her potential though at 31 she is raising her 9 year old daughter and had to over a year ago move in with her parents. We agreed that returning to our biological families can make us feel immediately 12 years old.
I liked her immediately. Somehow or other we both started using colorful language to make our point about one rather intimate topic or another, as we easily got into ‘the good stuff’ together! Immediate gales of laughter filled the space between us as I then noticed her outstanding tattoos. ‘Wow,’ as I noticed a huge one on her arm and another on her opposite wrist. I’m not a tatoo girl at all, I like a blank body slate which I might adorn with jewelry or clothes, scent, muscles or movement…tatoo is too permanent a thought or mood for me to partake.
But I was intrigued. Katie rallied back, ‘oh, these are small.’ I pointed to the one on her wrist and smiled, ‘Small? How many do you have all together?’ Her lips moved as she recalled and recounted her body ‘decals’. ‘Ahhhh, 10!’ ’10’ I repeated. ‘Wow.’ Katie responded, ‘I love them, though, this one,’ she pointed to the big one on her wrist, ‘it’s a do-over.’ Apparently she’d outgrown one and had to cover it with what was a very large blotch of ink. I didn’t pry, though of course wanted to!
“My mom hates them, is always trying to rub them off. And my daughter hates them too. She always says, ‘can’t you be normal mommy.”’
We laughed together on that one, knowing we both just didn’t care to be what others felt was ‘normal’.
Yes, I liked Katie immediately. She then showed me the pretty script on the back of her neck which read, ‘Gracie’, her daughter’s name. ‘Does she like that one?’ I asked. ‘Oh yes, she likes THAT one.’
Katie then introduced me to her beautiful dark haired friend, a co-hort at the ‘job’ they both endured. ‘This is Victoria’. She too was lovely with a big, broad smile, Peruvian decent through raised up north as I remember. She too was a single mom, who ALSO had to forlornly, move back with her parents as well. They luckily started their lack luster jobs at the same time and became instant pals.
I wondered then, where were the men who enjoyed sex with these two gorgeous women and who left them to carry the load, financially and otherwise raising two children alone. The strength they exhibited and absolute love and devotion to their children had me in awe. I also considered how easy it is to forget birth control in the ‘heat’ of the moment and how guilty we all have been from time to time. Similar to texting and driving, the repercussions can be HUGE!
Katie and I discussed all manner of things, finding some quick commonalities. I felt the need to encourage them both…their deadend jobs, their current financial and ‘at home with mom and dad’ status, I reminded them of how temporary life is, our moments turning into seasons, decades. I felt mothering toward them. We talked about imagining and intending what we want and how powerful we are in attracting what we desire.
And then I had to laugh, totally LAUGH at my often hysterical and hilarious self….I need to tell ME those things…regularly!! I forget in the heat of one dilemma or another…that if I wait a moment, I know what to do….I know how to shift my thinking….I merely forget. So what a lesson these wonderful, young women gave to me.
Victoria then shared her Peruvian origins and that she had an uncle who apparently knew of the Quaro people in and around Machu Picchu. A sacred spot on the earth with high energetic vibration and people who live in tune with those energies, I have a very real desire to visit there. She shared that her uncle could take me all over the mountains and show me sacred spots.
You just never know how one moment might transport you to the next and how it might impact your life. I LOVE that….me focusing of course on all good! (When I remember).
And I wondered, here in the middle of the city, while nibbling small bits of lamb and couscous, the chatter of a run-of-the-mill industry networking event, you never know who you might meet who could change the course of your personal history.
Katie and I gave one another a big hug as she was leaving to pick up her little girl. Then she came back to hug me again, stronger…..’you’re so cool’ she said. ‘No, you’re so cool Katie’. A moment, a moment in time.
It’s then I remember my love affair with life and how lucky I am to unfold a new day, EVERY day.
BB Webb