stretch/extend/embellish

Another amazing day and I'm not being sarcastic oddly enough. It's one of those days when you have everything you need and nothing you don't. Good music playing in the background. Adequate time to for work and ample time for play. Nice company and friendly faces. It's just been a really good day. Those need times like that to be specially marked; to bank them so there is something to look back upon when life isn't so "amazing."

I have recently come to find that I sometimes get bogged down in minutely explaining something when all that I really need to do is just say it plain. Don't use 20 words when 5 will do, you know what I mean. Be clear. There's no need to use a lot of fancy words and showing off. There is a verse from The Bible coming to mind, "...don’t babble on and on as other people do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again..."

I think my tendency to get lost when I am writing and to wander off comes from the desire I have to be understood which isn't necessarily a bad thing but understanding isn't all one sided. All we can do is put ourselves out there intelligently, honestly, wisely and what people understand of that, isn't up to us or in our control.

I've recently embarked on a completely new phase of existence. I find myself finally and suddenly (both equal and at the same time) in a relationship. Never been in a relationship before. This is very sudden for me. I have no idea what this really means exactly or what I'm supposed to do. I mention this because it occurred to me today that relationships stretch us. There is a whole new element (a.k.a. "the boyfriend") that wasn't there before and it comes with it's own variables - parents, history, friends, experiences, debts, dreams. I have to be stretchable, inclusive to many pieces that a make a whole person and that needs to be mutual. The scale of traversing new territory goes from exhilarating ecstasy beyond measure to blind terrifying uncertainty filled with doubt. Yeah, sorry to be extreme.

I consider myself an intuitive person, one who picks up on subtleties and micro-expressions to borrow a term from the canceled show Lie to Me. But the truth actually might be that I over-intuit, I over-examine, I look too long without blinking that I see things that aren't there. You might ask, "Why would I or anyone do that?" The humble answer is, it comes from life with a history of shockers that left the world completely upside down and the erroneous belief that I should've seen that coming somehow.

I don't want to over think this but at the same time I don't want to stop thinking period. Hmm...

One of the synonyms for stretch is embellish of all things. It connects with the definition of stretch that means, "to adapt or extend the scope of (something)." I think that's not a bad goal; may the me/you/us of your world be strengthened and benefited by the necessity of stretching. xo

under the tie-dye sky

Doubt. It's funny or I should say interesting what I choose to doubt and what I have no doubt about. Being in college, nursing school, meeting so many different people in a variety of situations, settings, and circumstances, as well as having been plunged into a new job atmosphere after a decade of being stuck behind a very stifling one, I see every day how wrong I was, how little I knew, and how uncertainty is necessary, even good.

In the classic movie, The Philadelphia Story, with Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn there is a great line. Two characters are in the middle of conversation and the topic turns to the subject of snobbery. One character says, "The time to make up your mind about people, is never." As I get older, that's what I'm coming to see. People aren't all one thing and they can't be defined simply with the use of three adjectives or less. We aren't Match.com and eHarmony advertisements.

"The time to make up your mind about people, is never."

Doubt. I doubt the words of leaders, finally I'm unconvinced of their intent. I doubt history for it contains recognizable slant and blinding bias. I doubt the reviews of film critics and the predictions of the weathermen. I doubt at my core that my journey called the human experience is worth it. I doubt; some are big and some are small, some inconsequential and some significant. But with doubt comes wisdom. Doubt reminds me that I don't know everything, that I can't always be right and that I'm often wrong. Doubt in it's uncertainty, allows me the chance to look at things from another's point-of-view. Doubt can at times be a vital force that keeps me from harm and certain injury.

What don't I doubt? I don't doubt that Christ is real, for who would makeup such a character and how. I don't doubt the old saying, "Only two things are certain: death and taxes." I don't doubt that today I lived under the tie-dye sky and it's possible I will tomorrow too. I don't doubt in any sense or dimension that I adore you more than anything on this planet real or imagined, past or present.

I doubt and I don't; it's not simple and rarely easy, but in this moment as the colors of twilight mix and meld, my mind's made up: I'm thankful and glad to be alive. xo