hard lessons

then i started this idea i thumbed back through my memory.  it seemed looking back that the only why i have learned lessons in my life have been in the typical "hard way" - that is...for myself.  never taking the word of wiser people before me, i charged ahead and cleared my own paths.  and it seemed i never made much head way.  at times i would shake my fists and stomp my feet that surely life was just NOT meant to be this hard for me.  and then...i would look around and see that life is hard for many, many, many people.  so...i face myself in the mirror and dealt with it most days.  but....honestly it took a long time to be able to do that - face myself in that mirror.  to really be honest with myself and say it was my responsibility to do that.  actually the light bulb went off in my head watching "you've got mail."  i love that movie - not just for the romantic aspects of it but for what she goes through.  here is this life she has built for herself - all nicely tied up in a bow - the perfect business, the perfect man, the perfect job...everything.  and her world changes.  and at first she's mad at him ... but it turns out in reality - all changes she had to make for life to be better.  and one of the sayings i engrave on my heart.  "it's not personal, it's business."  when things happen - change - too often we look outside ourselves for the solution instead of facing what we have to change.  and as i also discovered yesterday - simply having the faith to make the impossible possible doesn't guarantee the process will be easy.

sometimes the world changes on us and we have no clue why - i actually think i'm a lucky person if i do discover the "why" or have that type of closure.  sometimes, the is only the acceptance we can achieve that something was unknowable.  (is that a word?)  i will never know why my brother was one of the rare exceptions to get his disease and die at 13.  i can't imagine the pain my mother dealt with in letting two children go from death - i do know for many years i blamed - and yes, sometimes hated - my parents for the sacrifices they made to raise we survivors.  and the sacrifices i made - wondering at times where money would come from to pay electricity or water bills.  dealing with my parents' issues from having children die long before they were 'supposed to' - a valium addiction, depression, cheating - the gamut of what they call 'coping' mechanisms. 

i've now become wiser and have some perspective on my mother's life - i was fortunate to get pass the place of anger in my life to acceptance that 'it was what it was' - there is no changing the past and all we can do is accept it's place in forming the me that is me today.  i'm a stronger woman for it. 

getting back to the movie...and it's not personal - it's business.  the biggest lesson that i've learned lately is that my job does not define me.  that at the end of the day, i can say i do a great job, i work hard and then i go home to live the life for me.  as so many wise people before me have said - work to live, not live to work. 

if you have gotten this far - thank you - you are a blessing in my life.  you are the sounding board that allows me to have a voice to the outside world and i appreciate you.