I Will Not Pass This Way Again

Adventurous Introvert. 

My life could be summed up with a plethora of paradoxical statements like this. Always dreaming of adventure yet terrified when the opportunity comes along - that's me. 

Homeschooled from first through twelfth grade, passionate about all things book-related, and a naturally shy person, the label "introvert" has been easily slapped on me since I was six. Even among friends, I can feel out-of-place. 

Happily married for ten years and being an English teacher at a boarding school for troubled teens for seven years felt like two of the biggest adventures I could ever undertake. My husband is as extroverted as they come and lives life with freeing fullness. He inspires me every day. Teaching was away to inspire young minds and be a positive role model for future generations. 

I recently decided to make this summer my last one teaching and try my hand at something new. The desire to try new things and go new places became so strong, I couldn't stand it. But the fear has been steadily growing: what am I going to do now? Teaching is my degree. Teaching has been my life, my identity since I graduated college in 2007. Now, nearly ten years later, I feel an insatiable wanderlust. 

Then last week, my friend wanted to do something exciting to celebrate the beginning of her 30s and asked a group of us to bridge jump with her. This is something I've always wanted to do but have always been too scared to try, the perfect metaphor for my life. I drove my husband out to meet everyone, knowing I would watch like always. After two jumps, two of my friends came over and encouraged me to jump. I gave the usual response: "I'm too scared." And then my friend said, "But you know when you get home, you're going to regret it." And I came to the realization that I'm tired of watching life pass by, tired of being an observer of life instead of a participant, tired of, as Meg Ryan so aptly put it in "You've Got Mail,": "So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

So I jumped. 

It was easily the most terrifying, most freeing thing I've ever done in my life. 

Climbing up on that railing, looking down at the moonlight shining on the water below felt so metaphorical: This is what life is - a climb, looking fearfully at your future, wondering what it holds and how you'll get there and who you'll be when you emerge from it. And feeling my feet leave the protective railing, jumping from the known safety of what had been into the unknown perfectly sums up where I am in life. 

And then somewhere in feeling gravity take over and my descent, life stood still for just a moment. Exhilaration, euphoria, a delightfully free feeling of flying. Maybe making yourself jump is the hardest part. 

I felt the water wash over me and began my ascent. As my head broke the surface, I heard the cheers of my friends and looked up at the full moon. Fullness. Happiness. Contentment. Renewal. 

2016 is my year to live - to stop watching the dance and join in, to stop putting off adventures, new recipes, friendships, and experiences, to take that leap of faith because I don't know what tomorrow may bring and who knows when I'll get the chance again? 

I only pass this way once. 

Live Life To the Fullest - It Only Happens Once

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days - life kind of got in the way...

On Sunday morning, 10:42 a.m., our dear friend, Jason, lost his wife, Joyce, to ovarian cancer after a four year battle. Diagnosed in February of 2011, it had been a roller-coaster ride of good to bad to better to worse.

Joyce's death came on the heels of two celebrity deaths: Alan Rickman & David Bowie. She also passed the day before Glenn Frey, founder of the band The Eagles. While I didn't know these three men personally, I felt as if I knew them through their music and movies. My heart broke for the families hurting as Jason's was, and it's been hard to process these deaths as they've landed right on top of each other. 

Joyce's battle with ovarian cancer was one of the reasons I started this #ABetter2016 challenge to begin with. 

"I thought of my friends who had passed away or whose futures were uncertain - we're always so certain of another tomorrow, another chance, a 'someday,' a day for when we finally 'get around to it.' But none of us are promised tomorrow or this afternoon or this next minute. Why do we constantly put off visiting someone, calling someone, smiling at someone we pass when neither of us know what our futures hold? What if, I thought, I resolve to do something throughout 2016 that will help make the world around me a better place and, by extension, me a better person in the process? Make my 'someday' today. Make today the day I finally 'get around to it.' Take advantage of each of life's moments by living in each moment." 

I lost my grandfather in 2003 to a sudden heart attack - one minute he was in his driveway about to do yard work, the next he was gone. When my father called me with the news, all I could think of was how I had treated my grandfather the last time I had seen him the year before. 

My grandparents got divorced after forty-two years of marriage when I was in high school, and, being the petty teenager I was, I couldn't forgive them for it. I refused to see past the fact that they were human - they were my grandparents, and I thought the world of them. I refused to call them by the nicknames I'd had for them ever since I was a baby; I refused to give an answering, "I love you" when they said it to me. I could see it in their eyes how much it hurt them. But I was too wrapped up in my own hurt to care. 

When I graduated high school in 2002, my grandfather and his new wife had me to their home in Nashville, Tennessee, to celebrate. They treated me like a queen that week. Dinners out, tours of Nashville, a trip to the taping of a New Year's Eve special at the Grand Ole Opry - no matter how horrible I was to them, they just kept showing me kindness. They even gave me their bed and bathroom, insisting they sleep on the hideaway couch in the living room. 

Funny, no specific conversation I had with either of them stands out in my memory except one afternoon when my grandfather was cleaning out some papers and showed me a big circle cut out of computer printer paper. On the front of it, he had written, "Roundtoit" in black Sharpie. When I asked what it was, he said, "I decided I had started putting too much off and never came back to projects and relationships. So, every time I say I'll do something 'when I get around to it,' I pull out this circle and remind myself I already have one, and I should seize the moment now." 

That was the last time I ever saw him. 

I can't remember if I told him, "I love you," when I left. 

I sure hope I did. 

Joyce, my grandfather, three great talents - all gone too soon, in the blink of an eye. They had things undone, things they still wanted to get around to doing. 

So do I. 

So do you. 

So do it. 

Right now. Pick up the phone. Write the letter. Say, "I love you." You might not get another chance, and the lifetime of regret you will feel is not worth the momentary discomfort or stubbornness or aggravation or busy-ness you think is keeping you from it now. 

Today's challenge comes straight from Joyce's blog - it sums everything up perfectly:

 "Everyone has a choice and you choose how you want to handle a situation and choose how you cope with a situation. No matter how you play the game of life, it’s a risk. I look at the things people complain about, money, relationships, work, friends, and family and just think why are they complaining? Because 95% of the time there is a simple solution. But the “simple” solution is what people fear the most and tell themselves, “It’s just not that easy” or “it’s complicated.”  People misconstrue the phrase, it’s just not that easy” or “it’s complicated” when in reality the solution is really just not the most convenient for them and people let the inconvenience dictate their happiness instead of trying hard enough to really change their situation. In life, when you really want something or you really want to change something most of the time it will not be convenient and that is when you find out what you’re really made of. Are you willing to take the risk?"

What did you do today?

When Did We Stop Being Poets?

My best friend & I have committed to a reading challenge for 2016: 12 books that have to fit certain criteria to fit in with other books we read in the coming year. We both thought it would be good to start the New Year out with "A Book You Previously Abandoned" (plus, #1 on the list was "A Book Published This Year," and there aren't too many in that category yet). She chose The Jungle by Upton Sinclair because she's a brilliant person like that, and I chose The Holy Wild by Mark Buchanan. I had read & loved his book Your God Is Too Safe last year and each chapter was like a fantastic devotional written just for me - it took me months to finish because each chapter left me so much to chew on and re-think about how I viewed God that I couldn't read but one chapter at a time.

The Holy Wild started similarly and then lost me somewhere around page 100. I couldn't get further no matter how hard I tried. For awhile, I was saddened, thinking the magic of the first book didn't transcend any of his other books. According to my Goodreads account, I began The Holy Wild on March 18, 2015. It has sat on my record player speakers for eight of those almost ten months, gathering dust and making me feel guilty every time I passed by.

But thanks to this challenge, I knew just which book to pick up. To be honest, my first thought was, "I'll hurry through it so I can check it off my 'To Do' list and then go on to bigger and better things. Stop looking for hidden nuggets of awesomeness. Just buckle down and finish it!" And that's what I did this morning: read from page 100 to page 189. And then Chapter 9 came along, "Where the Stones Sing - God's Creativity."

Buchanan starts talking about how everyone is born creative, but, somewhere along the way, we lose it. "When did most of us stop being poets?" he asks. I am definitely not a poet. But I do love being creative. Unfortunately, I often leave creative projects at the very bottom of my "To Do" list and opt for the more "practical" items instead: laundry, dishes, cleaning, grocery shopping, bill paying...all the things that are necessary and sometimes gratifying but almost always feel like the chores they are. "...the human desire - even need - to create simply mirrors the God in whose image we are made, by whose breath we are filled" (The Holy Wild).

I have the desire, but oh, to find the time! And then I read this, "One thing that stifles the artistic impulse in us is we try too hard. We also try too little. We neither submit to the discipline required, nor give in to the impulse to let go." Yep. That's me. Buchanan's done it again. Up until 2016, if I've ever had the free time to attempt a creative project, I've always sat down to it with the mindset of, "OK, I'm going to create!" And it has yet to truly work. Projects look half-baked. My desperate effort is seen, but true creativity is lacking. I'm trying so hard to fit into this mold of what I think "creativity" is that I'm neglecting (to quote Frozen) to just "let it go."

"Seldom do we play, and rare is our wonder, and I wonder how much of God is missing" (The Holy Wild). If I could recommend one chapter of a book for you to read, it is this one. Take time to play! Take time to wonder in the world about you. Take time to figure out mysteries and ask questions and rekindle that childlike wonder you had all those years ago. Today's challenge: explore a creative side of yourself forgotten or maybe never explored. Sing. Dance. Play. Bake. Cook. Draw. Paint. Garden. Collage. Read. Write. And the list goes on and on. Don't try to fit the world's mold of creativity. Make your own - that's kind of the whole point!

I'd love to hear what you do! What did you do today?

Seize the Day

Today's challenge: do something small to show your love for someone else. A spouse, sibling, or close friend - take time out of your day to show AND tell (people need both!) them how much they mean to you. Don't leave it to tomorrow. That's not promised to anyone. Do it now. Seize the day. Make your lives extraordinary.

What did you do today?

Life Should Not Only Be Lived; It Should Be Celebrated

Today's challenge: celebrate with someone you love. It's so easy to get caught up in the negativity of life. But everyday, all around you, people are celebrating victories - a new job, a hurdle crossed, a temptation overcome. Take time to celebrate milestones in life - and make the world a better place. 

What did you do today?

A New Recipe to Tickle the Tastebuds

Found a new vegetarian dinner recipe on Pinterest that appealed to my ethnic, tasty, & vegetarian side! I've shared the recipe on my food blog: "Chronicles of a Wannabe Foodie." Check it out here: http://chroniclesofawannabefoodie.blogspot.com/

Today's challenge: spice up your menu, be it literally (this dish had a little kick to it!) or just giving a new recipe a try (or maybe an old recipe you gave up on or failed at before - redemption!) Nothing says "A Better 2016" than totally conquering a recipe that vanquished you in the past! So go on: give that intimidating recipe a try - you might be pleasantly surprised by the outcome!

Let me know what you think of it! What did you do today? 

Take Time For All Things - Great Haste Makes Great Waste ~Benjamin Franklin

Today's challenge: work on a project you've been at for awhile. Rome wasn't built in a day. Just because you didn't finish doesn't mean you weren't successful. I've been at this verse in my husband's gym for months & finally finished the ground work - still have to go back & add shadowing to the background. It's a work in progress - just like me. Not completing something doesn't make you a failure...never trying does.

What did you do today?