As I sit down to write this hours later, I’m still on the verge of tears.  The day began meeting my kids at church who had their two boys with them, one adopted, one in the process.  As I see the progress made by our new grandson, his newfound self assurance, his love for learning and his fearlessness in building relationships it just fills my heart.  And now there is this new little guy who has struggled so much and is now beginning his journey with a loving family.

Today was his birthday and last night we celebrated at the ultimate place for a child’s birthday, with bowling, arcade games, pizza and cupcakes.  A little overwhelmed by the family and surroundings, he frequently looked for mom for reassurance.  Today as I said, we met them at church and while the older boy went on to Sunday school, the younger sat with us in “big” church.  Several times I caught him looking at mom with such love and adoration, putting his little hand in hers or leaning his head on her arm.  I was so struck by the trust he had built with her in such a short amount of time, how much he relied on her for security.  How many times are kids in my classroom looking for something similar, whether reassurance that someone cares about them or that they can be successful in school or that they can do something they’re afraid to try?

We were invited to lunch, a place the birthday boy had chosen, a Japanese restaurant where the chef would proceed to entertain us with his culinary skills, his shrimp tossing into people’s mouths skills and his ability to set fires without burning any of us in the process.  These brought smiles to the birthday boy’s face along with some not-so-sure looks, where he again would look up to mom for reassurance that he was safe and this was all ok.  At the end of the event was a glitzy recording of happy birthday with popper streamers, flashing lights, a lei and a tambourine, and finally, a candle set into an orange on a pineapple boat.  It was quite the production with the birthday boy smiling almost throughout.  A family picture was taken and several handed out to us.  In a quiet moment, as the photo was passed to the birthday boy, he looked at it and said “I will never forget this”.   Again, the tears well as I think about this.   A day full of things that everyone at the table took for granted were being absorbed by this little boy as though it might not happen again.

I think about how many things in life that I take for granted and I am ashamed.  Life and experiences with people are such a blessing and I think about how much time I spend working or looking at a screen, taking the people around me for granted as though they will always be there.  The most frustrating thing about this is that while today’s events were truly moving, chances are I’ll drop back into my usual habits and stop looking for the extraordinary within the ordinary.  I want more of those moments in my life where I just look down and say I will never forget this.

Right now I’m watching the Golden Globes and Jeff Bridges is receiving a lifetime award. He just said something that seems to fit.  We’re all alive and “we’ve all been tagged – we’re it!”   It’s time to be making a difference, to take advantage of those little unforgettable moments in life, to appreciate them.  I look at my young adult children and see them making such a difference in people’s lives and I’m so proud and at the same time challenged to do more myself.  Perhaps to help create moments for others that they will never forget.

 

I opened my eyes and thought, wow it’s light in here.  My head immediately shifted to my right where the clock read 7:42 a.m..  No, no, no!  The alarm was supposed to go off at 6:45!  I jumped out of bed, calculating how much time I had to get ready and get to a professional development session by 8:20.  It’s amazing how fast you can go when you need to and I was just grateful that the PD was at the high school literally across the road. I pulled in at 8:22.

My car was making a funny sound as I left the garage.  Yes, I was driving across the road – I can’t walk that fast.  Anyway, I’m listening to this strange sound, opening my windows to figure out what it is.  As soon as I park, I walk around the car to check the tires and sure enough, one of the back tires is going flat.  Great.  I send a text to Doug to let him know, knowing that he’ll figure out what I should do or do it for me.  Whatever works, right?

So, I’m doing okay now, I’ve arrived on time and in one piece and now I’m wishing I had had time to have breakfast, but bless their hearts, the presenters brought breakfast munchies!  Despite the bizarre morning so far, life is good.  Until I open up my laptop.

You know, it’s a great thing that district computer dudes can remotely do things with your computer or schedule updates.  I just don’t want them to do it right before I’m supposed to do a professional development on curriculum that just happens to be on my – you guessed it – computer!!

So after a while, it decides I can use it again and I’m working to do the catch up thing, but at least it’s working and the rest of the session goes great.  In the meantime, my great husband has walked across the road, around the back of the high school to pump up my tire by hand so I can get home and get to a tire store.  We get to the store and they’re  closing.  They won’t be open again until Monday.  Okaaaaay – we go down the street to our favorite car repair shop and cross our fingers.

Sure enough, he can do it, so I get my things out of the car and we walk back to our place to get Doug’s car and do some birthday shopping.  As we walked through the parking lot to our apartment building, I said to Doug, we’re so lucky we have another car to go to aren’t we?  I say that as we had driven past a homeless man standing on a corner asking for help.  Not only do I have my car but we have another in case something like this happens.  We’re fortunate that we have a car repair shop close to where we live and that we can afford to get this taken care of.

I can remember those early days of marriage when stuff like this was such a source of major stress.  Maybe we only had one car at the time or maybe the car we owned was ALWAYS in the shop.  Pretty sure it was the Topaz.  Nope, you’ve never heard of it because it was AWFUL.  Struggling to find money to pay the bills, living on boxed Mac and cheese and sloppy joes. So while we are not rich by any means, we’ve become pretty comfortable and I am grateful.  In the past, the things that happened this morning, on top of other stressors would have probably sent me over the edge or started a flood of tears.  But life experiences, knowing I have people I can trust to help me when I need it and putting things in perspective really help alleviate a lot of the stress.

However, putting things in perspective means looking past myself to see what is happening to and with people in the world around me.  This afternoon I went to my new foster grandson’s birthday party.  A child who took his time opening his gifts and taking the time to quietly thank each individual.  A child who frequently looked to his foster mom for reassurance.  Is this really for me?  Am I doing the right thing? Who do I need to thank?   The combination of disbelief, humility and happiness on his face was a reminder to me that something as simple as a child’s birthday party can take on a completely different perspective when you know where that person has come from.

There’s a lot of hate in this world and I am surrounded by loving family and friends.  There are people struggling in so many ways and I’m at a place now where I can help more often.  Experience lets me know that things will get better, even when crazy things happen, not just the everyday annoyances but also those big life changing events.  Time is a great healer, whether it’s a short or long amount of time.  So when the next annoyance or crash comes, I need to remember  whose child I am, that I have a loving Father, family and friends and the look on my grandson’s face. Perspective is everything.  Even when nothing seems to be working!

Have you ever thought about darkness?  Darkness can be depicted as a person, a place, a thing, or a state of mind.  It can mean something warm and cozy for some people and for others, it can be a scary, unsafe place.  Without darkness, there can be no light.  The stars in the sky are invisible without it, the lights of a Christmas tree through a window are not as bright.

A friend of ours posted in Facebook that all of the lights are off of his house and everything around his house, the hashtag being “HelloDarknessMyOldFriend”.   Is the darkness our friend?  What do we do when we want to hide?  We create darkness.  Horror movies tend to focus on the unknown in the dark, the only thing piercing the dark perhaps a flashlight or a candle, allowing us to see what is directly in front of us but not allowing us to see everything around us.

We talk about the dark night of the soul and the light at the end of the tunnel.  Bad guys wear dark black hats and good guys wear light, white hats.  Jesus said he is the light of the world and if we follow him we will never walk in darkness.  We love it when days get longer and there is more light and dislike it when the days are shorter and there is more darkness.  Some people suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder because of the change in seasons.

Darkness can be so dark you can “cut it with a knife”.  There are different degrees of darkness from twilight to pitch black.  There is nothing darker than a country road at night where the only thing between you and darkness are the headlights on your car, shining only on what is directly ahead of you but perhaps missing things beside or behind you.

Once upon a time In high school, on the the way back from a band contest about an hour and a half away from home, the headlights on the car my friend was driving went out on one of those country roads.  Oh sure, we could have taken the freeway but it was more fun and less busy on the country road.  Unless of course the headlights stop working.  We had parking lights, but it’s not the same.  That ride, in a car surrounded by darkness was a little scary, but there’s something about being in the dark that heightens your senses and makes you feel more alive.  My being here today is proof that we survived that scary drive but the memory is etched in my mind.

Tonight on a whim we decided to drive to our favorite little Chinese restaurant in a little town south of home, meaning we would have to drive on some little two lane country roads.  Ironically, I had decided I was going to write about darkness tonight and we were discussing all of the things I have written about so far.  The stars were so bright against the dark sky, the lights from our town shone in the distance, our headlights and the occasional headlights of other cars our only light source on those dark roads.

Suddenly my brake foot slammed the floor, which was weird because I was on the passenger side, and I shouted “Deer!  Deer!  Deer!”  Simultaneously, my husband stomped on the brake and swerved sharply to the left as I looked right into three sets of deer eyes in the headlights, They weren’t running, they were calmly walking across the road, and we were unable to see them in the dark until we were almost on top of them.  I waited to hear a thump or bump of some kind and thank goodness nobody was coming from the other direction, but somehow we missed all three of them and managed not to run off of the road.

After my husband got us back in our lane and our hearts started beating again I started to laugh.  “Now I’ve got something to write about!”.  I’m not sure that little incident was what I was looking for exactly, but it proves my point.  You never know what is in the darkness.  It could be nothing.  It could be something scary.  It could be all my imagination. Or it could be a deer or three in the headlights.

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step”.   These words by Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu seem simple and obvious but the action behind the words can prove very difficult.  Today’s creativity challenge word is begin and it’s not that there aren’t things I want to begin, it’s more of a question of what should I begin first?

This question of what should happen first has actually been a great way of not beginning anything which is frustrating.  It’s like creating a to-do list and just picking and choosing out of the list rather than starting at the beginning, the first step, and just getting stuff done.  The things that get in the way tend to be the usual; I’m busy, don’t have time, other things get in the way, I don’t know exactly where to start or I’m just plain afraid.

Everyone gets the same 24 hours and yet some people seem to get more accomplished than others or have a more balanced life.  I’m not saying that everyone should fill up all of their time with things to work on,  but I do tend to spend time doing mindless things like checking out social media or watching TV.  I actually did better with my time when I was younger.  I took time to exercise (play), I did school and extracurriculars, took time with friends and had time to practice and work.  Now I feel like all I do is go to work and come home.  How much of that is my own doing?  How much of that is an excuse for not taking a first step?

So what’s the worst that could happen?  I take the first step and go in the wrong direction.  I just go another direction.  I take the first step and step into a mess.  I clean it up. I take the first step and others question my direction.  I take another step.

It’s not that I’m not full of ideas and mental enthusiasm, it’s that darned first physical step that gets in the way.  The first step to me means commitment and possible failure in the future if I’ve chosen the wrong path to walk on.  I’ll admit, I really love succeeding and I hate to fail. Surprise, right? Sure, I understand that we learn through failure and it sounds GREAT when I say those kinds of things to my students, but when it comes to me, I don’t have as much grace.

“Whatever you do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.” ( Johann Wolfgang von Goethe).   Boldness.  As women we are not always encouraged to be bold.  A first step takes boldness.  Boldness is unexpected, out of the norm, unlike anything someone else would do.  What can you do today that would be a bold step towards that magic that Goethe talks about?  How can you make the world a better place by just taking that first step towards a dream that you’ve held in your heart? Looking at it this way, it’s almost selfish NOT to take that first step.  You never know what kind of impact you’ll have on the world until you begin it with one step.

The other day we decided to stop for a light lunch at a favorite place that has great soup.  We ordered and sat down at a table and that’s when I noticed him.  An older gentleman sitting at a table across the restaurant from me who caught my attention, but it wasn’t really him I noticed, it was his handkerchief.

It was obviously a well used handkerchief, a large, everyday, old school white handkerchief, and after blowing his nose loudly into it, he vigorously dug in and wiped his nose before aggressively stuffing it into his pants pocket.

Several thoughts went through my mind after the initial “ewwww”.  My own dad used handkerchiefs and I remember having to iron and fold them after mom would run them through a wash with bleach.  I don’t remember thinking about what was on the handkerchief before it was washed, but as I watched this man using his, it was all I could think about.

We’re so careful now with sneezing and blowing our noses.  We sneeze or cough into our elbow to avoid our hands (although I tend to fall back into old habits on occasion), blow our noses on disposable tissues that can be composted and use gallons of hand sanitizer afterwards.  My kids are so indoctrinated that if I sneeze in class, one of them will bring me tissues and sanitizer.

We do it to keep colds from spreading, but this gentleman was obviously not concerned about this as he proceeded to finish his lunch, hands all over the table, his dish and utensils.  After all, a cold never killed anybody, right?  Isn’t that what teachers hope for is to be exposed to enough germs to build up a tolerance?  Maybe our kids would actually benefit from this philosophy as well.  I’m sure any young teachers reading this right now just echoed my earlier “ewwww”.

A little while later as we were enjoying our soup, this same gentleman stood up again (not sure how that helped) and proceeded to go through the same ritual as earlier.  Now the word that popped into my head was “snot rag”.  Okay, maybe that’s two words, but that’s exactly what it was.  Probably not much better than the used Kleenex that my mom stuffed into her purse after using and reusing them.  She would throw them away when she cleaned out her purse, but in the meantime, everything in her purse was exposed to the germs.  And we all survived.

I think about all of this as we get ready to head back to school next week and the inevitability of 500+ little human snot rags who will be walking into my room.  Those same sneezers who will be wiping their little noses on my Kleenex after touching the counter and the box, and the outside of the sanitizer bottle.  I’m considering either my own Kleenex and sanitizer or maybe even my own handkerchief.

 

Happy New Year.  What the heck does that even mean?  Am I just wishing you a happy 2019?  That’s not much is it?  In fact, that’s the very least I could wish for someone.  What I want is a Happy BRAND New Year.

Brand new is what we all actually strive for in the new year and what we usually end up with is just a new year.  The new year happens whether we want it to or not.  It’s going to be 2019 tomorrow and there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  On the other hand, a BRAND new year means something that has never happened before is happening.  So, in my usual way, I had to look up the difference between new and brand new.  Brand new usually refers to a product, something that is factory fresh, never been opened.  However, there are some, especially in urban dictionaries that refer to complete changes in behavior as brand new.

The reason I think people make and don’t keep resolutions is because it just seems to be a logical time to make them – it’s a new year so time for new behaviors.  But for an actual change to happen, to create a brand new behavior, it has to be a happy brand new year.  And maybe we need to wish each other a happy brand new year AFTER the behavior changes, not before.  Just thinking out loud here.

If however, you were to wish me a happy brand new year, my desire is to work towards becoming healthier, physically, spiritually and mentally.  Physically because I’m tired of not being able to do things I want to do, because moving around is uncomfortable sometimes, because I hate huffing and puffing doing things that should be easier.  Spiritually because I want to get deeper into my relationship with God. Mentally because I want to become tougher, more determined, less afraid.   Prayers of encouragement are appreciated.

At the same time, I want to wish you a brand new year as well.  What brand new thing do you want to do or want to be?  What would it take for you to achieve that?  Getting or doing something brand new means doing it in a way that’s brand new.  What is it they say about the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and hoping for something different? You and I cannot continue to live exactly the way we’re living and hope for a brand new way of life.

Doing something brand new may mean asking for help and getting over feeling stupid for doing so.  It may mean risking looking awkward for awhile.  It may mean risking feeling feelings or expressing feelings that are uncomfortable.  It is a time of being honest with ourselves and with others.  It means change, which is NEVER comfortable but may be completely necessary in the process to become brand new.

And during the process of working to become something brand new, I hope to become a kinder person as well, someone less selfish, less judgmental, not afraid to stop what I’m doing to help others.

So what happens if I screw up a week into my attempt to be someone brand new?  Well, the next day is a brand new day, isn’t it?  I don’t have to wait until the next new year to continue the work, do I?  Someone remind me of that, okay?

So here’s to that brand new job or brand new project.  Perhaps a brand new relationship, a brand new adventure, a brand new location or brand new education.  Maybe it’s dreaming a brand new dream and brand new strategies to make it a reality.  Wishing us all a Happy BRAND New Year!

When my kids were little, I set boundaries for them.  You can go outside and play but stay in the yard.  As they got older it was more like, you can go to your friend’s house, but be home by a certain time.  Later it was, give us a call and let us know where you are or how long you’ll be.  Boundaries were are way of keeping them safe but also a way of reassuring us that they were ok and those boundaries were adjusted as they grew older.  Did the boundary setting always work?  No, not always because we were dealing with people and people sometimes tend to do whatever they want to do, despite set boundaries.  But we tried.

For my kids at school I set boundaries behaviorally to keep them safe and to conform to school expectations.  I set boundaries as to how they are to handle and take care of instruments and equipment and how they are to treat me and each other.  I do this to help teach them how to be respectful and responsible.

In my own life, I set boundaries mostly out of fear. My boundaries keep me from doing  certain things because I am afraid of getting hurt or making a fool out of myself.  I didn’t delve into dating relationships because my boundaries would stop me before stepping into them too deeply.   I have set boundaries for family members and other people  because I don’t feel safe around them or don’t trust them.  But where I’m beginning to feel some frustration is that I’m discovering it’s really easy to set boundaries but those same boundaries KEEP you from things as well.

The last several weeks I have found myself feeling really frustrated and slightly depressed.  I have these big dreams and ideas which simultaneously keep me awake with excitement and scare me to death.  And those boundaries which I’ve put up to keep me safe are the same boundaries keeping me from my dreams.  I wish I had the words to describe how physically strong this longing is for me and yet right now, the boundaries I have set are stronger.  How do I tear down these strong, self-made boundaries to achieve my dreams?

So, here are my fears as I recognize them.  After many years of stumbling financially, as a couple we’re finally able to do some things in terms of lifestyle the we’ve always wanted to do.  Retiring, going back to school, working on a book, all of those dreams would change that lifestyle.  If it were just me, I don’t think it would be as big a thing, but I can’t just consider myself.  And I don’t want to go back to times when I was just scraping by again, even though we eventually made it through.

What if I get through a degree or write the book and I can’t get another job or nobody wants to publish what I’ve written?  Time wasted?  Nothing in life is guaranteed but can I afford to fail at this time in my life?  Are there life lessons I’m supposed to learn from this?  What is the difference between being practical and being afraid to take a leap of faith?  If these urgings to do other things are from God, and I don’t go through with them out of fear, then I am not living by faith.  “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen”.   Of course, having faith is one thing – acting upon that faith is another thing entirely.

I tend to use busy-ness as an excuse and then it’s so much easier to keep the status quo.  Just one more year and then I’ll retire.  I’ll just write in my spare time while I’m working instead of going into writing full time.  I can hold off another year to go back to school – what’s one more year, right?  However, a year can make all the difference in the world can’t it?  So many things can happen in the course of a year, things that can change your life.  Talking to a friend yesterday who is struggling with health issues, I was made more aware than ever how valuable time is and it just make my yearnings for adventure even more physical.

So, is it time to face the fear and destroy the boundaries originally designed to keep me safe?  Easier said than done but the fear of facing myself in 20 years not having attempted my dreams I think will be even harder.  Maybe it’s time to look for a sledgehammer?

 

 

All I wanted was my lactose free milk this morning for my cereal.  It was behind the regular 2% milk next to the almond milk.  I moved the regular milk which sent the pumpkin pie balanced on top sliding towards me.  I caught it just in time (it was in a pie keeper, so no dumping) and set it on the counter. Now, I had to find the bacon jammed in the meat drawer with the lunch meat and variety of cheeses.

For lunch I decided to have some left-overs, but first I had to find them.  You don’t realize how many plastic and glass storage bowls you have until you start looking for a particular item.  If I just had the usual stuff in the fridge, it wouldn’t be such a big deal, however, it’s holiday leftovers taking over and refrigerator Jenga has begun.

It really is a game you know, when you have to find that perfect little niche in the fridge to put the the regular groceries and things you don’t use very often get pushed way back to the back where leftovers go to die.  Sometimes literally.  This is also when you unintentionally double up on staples because you can’t see them behind those same leftovers.  We’re constantly getting chastised by our son for having multiple boxes of butter or bottles of salad dressing and bags of salad or whipped cream because we can’t find them and just assume we’re out.

I keep thinking that if I had a bigger fridge that this problem would go away, but the truth is I would just fill that up as well.  There’s something very reassuring about having a full pantry, cupboard and fridge.  It’s not like we’re going to starve or anything, but this makes me feel like we’ll always have something to eat.  And then we go out to eat instead.  I can’t explain it, I can only confess it.

In the meantime I have diet cokes scattered throughout the fridge meaning at some point, just when I think I’m out I will find that one left and feel like I’ve discovered hidden treasure.  Or that last chocolate pudding cup for lunch.  It’s the little things that make my day.

I’m pretty sure my husband looks at it as a great challenge.  Just when you think there’s no way something else can fit in the fridge, the self proclaimed “bionic bag boy” finds a way.  It’s the same way he fits groceries or luggage in the trunk of my VW Bug.  This is okay with me because I tend to look at it and get overwhelmed.  And this is why the pumpkin pie came flying out of the fridge this morning when all I was trying to do was get my milk.  He was creating multiple layers by stacking because we had run out of shelves.

So at some point I’ll recruit my son to clean out and organize my fridge and cupboards because frankly he’s really good at it and I’m not.  Sounds lazy perhaps but I’m the only one who will clean toilets in this house so I think we’re beyond even.  In the meantime, I’ll make sure I look more carefully next time I just go to pull something out of the fridge so I won’t lose the Jenga game.

 

Today was my biannual trip to Victoria’s Secret to buy my 7 for $28.95 underwear.  TMI? I’ve been buying them there for as long as I can remember and quite frankly they’re about the only thing they have in my size anymore.  I am surely not part of the  demographic this particular chain has in mind as I’ve recently heard in news stories  and perhaps I need to go elsewhere to buy my undergarments.  But I am a creature of habit and so yes, today I was back.

Standing in the ridiculously long line to check out, I had a lot of time to just observe people and things. There’s nothing like seeing larger than life posters of beautiful, young, unhealthy skinny women all around you dressed in – well, virtually nothing, posing in provocative ways, to make you feel not so good about yourself.  But it wasn’t me I was thinking about.

There were two cute middle school aged girls in front of me in line with gift cards (who gives an adolescent girl Victoria’s Secret gift cards?)  and I wondered how these posters were making impressions on them.  At their age I was wearing white cotton everything and it served me well, and while I was a typical teenager, concerned about how I looked and how I dressed, my underwear was not one of my biggest concerns.  Maybe they just want to be pretty.  Maybe they feel pressured to be what they perceive to be pretty.

There were young moms walking through the store with their young children, both boys and girls, all of them looking at the merchandise and the pictures, and I wondered what kind of image of women it sets up in their minds.  As women we say we don’t want to be objectified by men, but aren’t we being a little hypocritical if we say that and then support a place that promotes just that type of thing?  And doesn’t this kind of thing set up a false fantasy for men as well?

Where is that line between doing or wearing something that makes you feel good about yourself and the impression it gives someone else?  We tend to say it’s the other person’s issue for thinking the way they do, but we’re humans after all, just going on first impressions and cultural norms.  And if we expose (no pun intended) our kids and young people to limiting images of women as sexy underwear models, then what else can we expect from our society?

The reason things won’t change in any hurry is because as women we can’t decide what the limits are.  Let’s take humor for instance.  I recently heard of an SNL skit about a certain part of the male anatomy in a box.  I tend to find this really tacky and I would think most women would, especially in light of our current Me Too culture, however some women think this type of humor is funny.  And they have that right of course, but this is why people are confused about the line we talked about earlier.  Can we have this sense of humor and still maintain a respectful relationship with each other?

I don’t have the answers, I’m just making some observations.  There’s no way we can change people’s views of women if we as women don’t know what we want that view to be.  In the meantime, I’m pretty sure that the next time I go underwear shopping, I’m going to find somewhere that doesn’t have unrealistic images of women plastered all over the windows and walls and make some decisions as to what my view of THIS woman can be.

 

Breakfast this morning at IHop with family.  Doesn’t get much better than that.  The family part, not necessarily the IHop part.  But I digress.  Spending what little time we had left with my husband’s family before our flight was important and mom needed to get to her Sunday school class, so 8:30 a.m. it was where I indulged in french toast, bacon and the repeat of the bird story for my son and daughter-in-law who did not hear the story last night (see yesterday’s blog).  More great laughter, although I’m pretty certain the story has run its course for my father-in-law.

The last couple of days have been all about the 60th Wedding Anniversary for my in-laws and it was wonderful, but there is always this undercurrent about age.  My goodness, 60 years?  That makes them 80 and almost 80.  How much time do we have left to spend with these wonderful people?  I suppose most people think of this as the sunset of their lives, although both of them are as sharp as tacks, still way on top of things, more than they think they are.  We look at average life spans, do the math and become slightly obsessed with it, usually in depressing or negative ways.

But this weekend I met a woman named Wanda.  I saw a car pull up to the door of the church where we had the party, heard my mother-in-law say something like, “oh my goodness, Wanda is here!” and my niece say, “Oh, isn’t she just the cutest thing?”, so I had to see for myself.  This beautiful little lady, dressed to the nines in her red coat and coifed hair walked in using a cane and quick, tiny little steps into the church, hugging everyone she saw.  Meet Wanda, age 103.  By the way, my mother-in-law is her Sunday school teacher.

This bright eyed, energetic “young” woman took over the room.  She either knew everyone or knew ABOUT them and had no difficulty entering into conversation with any of us.  At one point in the conversation I heard her say something like, “oh yes, I was reading about them on my Facebook page.  You should message me sometime!”  While most people assume that our interest in technology wanes after a certain age, Wanda seemed a master of social media, at least talking about it.  Both of my nieces, ages 18 and 21 just went on and one about how cute she was and I decided right then and there I want to be her when I grow up.

It got me thinking.  There’s longevity in this family.  My in-laws are only 80.  They could have another 20 years left.  When we decide in our minds that people who are a certain age are entering the end of their lives and have no interest in current events and technologies, we’re certainly selling them short.  I know how it makes me feel when my kids decide to talk about my age or my health like I’m falling apart.  All it takes is a bunch of people to tell me how old I’m getting for me to begin feeling like it.

On the way home on the plane, Doug got my attention to look out the window.  Just like the beginning of our trip, the clouds were a solid carpet of gray beneath us and the sunset merely reversed the colors of the sunrise a couple of days before, the dark blue of the sky and gray of the clouds separated by a rainbow of reds, pinks and oranges.  A perfect bookend for the weekend, the sunset not an ending, but the beginning of something new.  A necessity in order for the new day to come.  We need to learn to savor  the sunset.