I’m enjoying a little down time this evening by myself in wine country! I am enjoying listening to some music tucked in a beautifully adorned hotel room waiting for my fresh fruit bowl to arrive. I traveled through the back roads to Petaluma, California this afternoon for a meeting on Friday. The grapes reminded me of that beautiful life cycle. While grapes turn into something amazing and get better as they age, my hope is that I will too!
My hope, also, is that the picture that I paint with words will resonate with one person. Maybe provide a light bulb moment or a resource. My other hope is that my writing continues to be therapeutic for me as I recover from hip surgeries and look forward to new challenges. My hip joints have no pain, by the way!
I’m also in a super reflective mood tonight as my baby, my youngest daughter and youngest child is graduating from college in a week. It was in the blink of an eye and yesterday that my husband and I brought her home from the hospital after a 24-hour labor. It was a blink of an eye and yesterday that I would hear the song, Butterfly Kisses, and bawl like a baby thinking about her growing up. It was the blink of the eye and yesterday that tears rolled down my cheeks when I sent her off to Kindergarten. It was the blink of the eye and yesterday when she was admitted to the local Children’s Hospital for severe dehydration due to a stomach bug. It was the blink of an eye and yesterday when I realized she had her first kiss. And when she got her license and promptly had her first fender bender which, of course, was my fault! It was just yesterday that she completed her first semester in college and it was REALLY just yesterday that she had her first real “ah ha” moment of what it will be like to be an adult!
But my message is two things, well, maybe four!
1. Enjoy now! Don’t expend energy worrying about tomorrow. Quiet the chatter and focus on the now because all of those “now” moments will be yesterday’s blink of an eye and it will be gone! Those moments will be in your rear-view mirror.
2. Continue striving to age with grace as the fine wines do! That is my goal always. I’m going to be that 80-year-old woman, when I grow up, who is not going to listen to her kids and will dictate what I do, when I do it and how I do it. I am a rule follower now, but all bets are off when I am 80!
3. Continue to advocate for hope. I learned the importance of advocacy skills with my daughter’s hospitalization because her pediatrician would not listen to me. He saw me as a young mother who was overly concerned. He saw me as a worry wart. It was not until my daughter’s teacher looked at me through my tears of fear and worry and said, “You need to go with your gut. A mama’s intuition is always right.” I did! I abandoned my fear of being labeled as that overreacting mom and I had the inner Mama Bear come out and, boy, did I roar! I demanded for her to be seen again and she was rushed to the hospital and admitted.
4. Just keep plugging away! Be the Little Engine That Could. I think I can, I think I can, I know I can!
Up next: Aging and The Efficacy of Hip Arthroscopy
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