Birthday Season

I’m pretty sure that whatever I’ve learned the past five decades about how to live I could not have learned faster or more efficiently given all the givens, the dependent and independent variables, the general hand I was dealt and the skills I was given and acquired along the way with which to play that hand.  

And it’s okay.  I know what I know now and it’s much more than I knew ten or twenty or thirty years ago.  Plus I had to un-learn a whole bunch of stuff which took some time. 

And it’s no more than what so many people have said in so many ways - to me, around me - but I did not have the capacity, the faith really, to believe it.  I didn’t even have the ears to hear it.  

Here’s what I know:  I am closer to death today than I was yesterday, but further from it than I will be tomorrow.  Every moment is a gift — given as it is, and received as I receive it.  Can I receive the love in the form that it’s given?  Can I give love in a way that it’s more likely to be received as love and not some other thing?

Can I get out of my own way and my own story enough to see the truth of how I am living, the choices I am making that contribute to what’s unfolding for myself and those around me?  What’s important to me?  What matters? Who? 

And then … Do my actions reflect my deepest wish to love and to be loved, to be part of the whole, participating, the leading character in my own life with a supporting role in other people’s lives? Their dance space, my dance space, even when we dance together.  Even when, especially when, we love each other.  

If it ended tomorrow how would I feel about how I spent today?  Or the past decade?  Where do I want to grow if get to choose?

So yeah, I’m getting a big birthday and it’s feeling like a good time for assessing. I’ve learned that taking care of other people feels pretty good.  And I’ve learned to let people take care of me, and that feels wonderful.  

I’m grateful the physical parts are all in working order and I’m healthy and that my loved ones are healthy. With some luck and if I play my cards right I’ll get to learn more with each day I have left.  I’ll take all the time to grow up I can get.  I’m gonna keep going.  

www.livingeveryminuteofit.com

www.combatcovidstress.com