Spring

I don't know about you, but every so often I just want to stop, breathe, and resume my life in a completely different manner.  Not that there is anything specifically wrong with my life...there isn't.  It is just that I want to see it with fresh eyes and respond accordingly.  Maybe it is the warmer weather that wafted through here this week, and the sweet little yellow daffodils are just starting to peek up out of the ground signaling that spring is indeed on her way. Hard to say.

Of course, I personally think that Spring is a little too high maintenance for my taste.  Some days it has an attitude problem of major proportions...and is like that bat crazy someone in your life that is just going to come around every so often, blow hot (summer, yay!) and cold (snow? April?), and drop a huge mess to be cleaned up.  It's that indecisive, mess-with-your-head, drama queen thing that drives me nuts.  The "drama" for most of us is otherwise known as "pollen"...that yellow headache inducing substance that causes shares of Kimberly-Clark to rise every Spring as everyone uses eight thousand Kleenex a day trying desperately to survive it.  Not surviving it means that you have to resort to filling out paperwork for an antihistimine at the local CVS...so that Big Brother can make sure you're not mething it up.

Or perhaps I want my life to be a little different because it has been one of those "is it a full moon?" weeks for me.  Today I was at two grocery stores (both Publix...for the one cent sandwich cookies...sue me) because I was out of kibble for the dogs and creamer for me.  These are two purchases that cannot be substituted without a whole lot of growling or whining.  After getting through the two hundred senior citizens  there for 5% off day that prefer walking directly down the center of the aisle instead of one one side of the other...the boxboys who are stocking...and a really crabby lady in produce in an electric cart...I realized that everybody was acting like it was a real imposition to move to the side or they'd just stand there oblivious to my presence before turning to glower at me.  Mean people in Publix.  Must have been a convention.  Maybe they were ticked at the one cent deal.  I know not.

So, later I go in the other store.  Again nobody smiles.  People blocked me in the aisles like they are trying to keep me from getting past them like they are standing at the gates of heaven or something and I'm trying to beat them in.  I finally complimented a lady pushing one of those car-buggies loaded to the max while her little (probably) one year old was fastened to her hip for being the first person in the store that day who didn't look like they wanted to hurt me.  She kept smiling and her little boy smiled at me as well.  He was blond and blue-eyed and extremely cute.  I told her that my "baby" was almost 19 and she said, "Oh, but you'll be getting some of these in a few years!  And they'll probably be blond and blue-eyed like he is because you are!"  Yeah, well I do appear to be blonde...there's that.  Thanks to Greg, my hairdresser.  Little does she know that the promise of getting grandchildren someday is what keeps me going through paying tuition, replacing things that break, the eyerolling, and finding dust in my billfold instead of cash. 

But for now, I'm still trying not to freak out as I figure out how the two that I birthed in 1990 and 1992 off my payroll.  As I see it, I am two car payment books, five (collective) more years of college, a wedding, and a rehearsal dinner away from having them paid off.

(Note: Please let me live in my bubble.  Do not enter "but honey, it NEVER ends with kids..." here.  I've already heard and have stuck my fingers in my ears, shut my eyes and repeated "lalalalalala" over and over.  I've essentially elected to be in denial.)

For the past month, I've come home to an empty house.  The play at school has monopolized my guys and the girl is slaving away up at the University of Alabama which is another way of saying "having the time of her life" so that I feel better about it.  I've been trying to get my house clean so that I can get a friend to give me an honest assessment of some things that can be done that will make it look better than it does.  My knowledge of home decorating is could be written on a cricket's underbelly.  It is essentially..."I don't like buying furniture so I make do with what I have.  I like photos, so they are everywhere.  I love Pottery Barn.  I can't have rugs because my dogs consider them portapotties."  See? 

I suppose that if I had what they call a "budget"...it might not be so hit or miss.  Hard to put together something fabulous when you don't know what the whims of the clearance aisle might be.

I'm hopeful just the same.

Or perhaps the desire for a new view of life is because I've been inspired by a friend of mine.  She had an unplanned job situation that has given her time she needs to use the talents she was blessed with to begin walking toward her dream.  She isn't entirely sure what her dream will eventually encompass...but it is inspiring to go by her home every few days and see what has changed since my last visit.  Maybe I want to see my life different because she is living it in hers.  I hardly know.

What I do know is that I don't expect perfection.  But I do expect some joy.  Other than that...I'm not particularly picky. 

Recently, I've had some people come into my life that I just know are here to teach me something.  I firmly believe that this will prove to be immensely important.  I've just come out of a season of clearing the decks so to speak...cleaning out...cleaning up...and while I'm not done...I've made definite progress. 

So, as the days creep toward spring I suppose I want a bit of a makeover myself.  I want beauty to come out of ashes and peace to come out of turmoil.  I want to laugh and truly enjoy just being in the moment.  I want to worry less and praise more.  I want to stop doing things that I don't want to do and focus more intensely on following my dreams.  To grow closer to God and to quit getting in my own way.

Every day, I've been trying to accomplish at least one thing that brings me closer to this.  It may be eating well, donating something, catching up with someone, paying off something, or just finishing a chore that I haven't been in the mood to do.  Instead of being a pain...I've actually found it quite liberating.

Off to a new day and the continuation of Spring weather.  My first bearded iris bloomed today and it won't be long until I plant my vincas by the pool and see the gardenias bloom in May.  I'll get through the initial onslaught of pollen that turns my black car to yellow and my sinuses into raging infernos with built-in sprinkler systems. 

Yet, each day that something gets better is just one more stone in the mosaic.  Occasionally, I have to rip out a section and rework it...but if I am deliberate about it...it shouldn't be too awful.  After all, in the mosiac of my life...I'm certainly on the creative design team, but am not the head designer.

And I'm really okay with that.