{this 4 letter word called life}

On a whim I visited a church on Saturday evening. As luck would have it, there was a bbq afterwards. I found a group of people who seemed as non-threatening as possible and settled there for the evening. As I threw my trash away and came back to my group I looked around realizing I was in a group of all men. Somehow, I found myself encircled by all but 1 single men at church on a Saturday evening. I don't know if this happens to you on the regular but for me, it does not. Not Ever. EVER. So, having better judgement than I normally do I gracefully bowed out knowing that if I stayed any longer, having realized my situation, I would begin rambling eventually making a fool of myself. I walked away confidently giddy that I had just found myself surrounded by men! ;)

Throughout the entire weekend I found myself being complimented, on my creativity, my weight loss, my style sense. Do you ever just need these times? Times of people taking notice. Not that I would consider myself vain, but I need assurances from others time to time in various areas, encouragements, compliments. It's not as though throughout my days I hear a constant barrage of negative comments from others in these areas. In fact, on the regular I hear nothing at all. But maybe that's because I'm fixated on the barrage of negative comments coming from my own self. I cannot tell you how many times in a day I belittle my own self, my own ideas, my own opinions. It's a battlefield over here with me, myself, and I. Most times I'm totally unaware of it until I find myself in a funk for no apparent reason. When taking time to process I can understand the funk because I've been listening to my unkind self talk for days and have begun to believe it. For a moment in that group of men that voice was blocked out and I was free to be me, without reserve for fear that I may not seem "marriage material",  without looking at each of them through my own "marriage material" lens. Just me. Just them.

So this evening I'm quiet and reflective. Thinking about life, the shortness of it, all the tragedy that comes through it, yet all the joy that is meant to be lived in it. There are moments in our lives that are sobering, tonight I think of September 11, 2001 of course, my own near death car accident in 2006, and I think of friends whose lives have recently been radically rocked forever with the news of cancer in their young bodies. Sobering. Life. Life is messy and incalculable. It is full of the unexpected when we continue to plan for what we presume to be the expected. So tonight I'm thinking there's just not enough time. Not enough time to fill my mind with all the can'ts, won'ts, nevers. There's not enough time in this 4 letter word called life to listen to my own rage and bitterness, mockery and self-defeat. There is still life to live. Life to be had. Life to dream up and pursue without the nagging voice of negativity.  

So this September 11th, I remember and am reminded that life is still mine to live.

*I remember being in my dorm room asleep 10 years ago today. A freshman in college with no early morning classes that day. A girl on the hall came in to wake me to tell me the 1st tower had just been struck in New York. I was so confused, feeling as though I had just woken up in someone elses' life. I live in America. Things like this don't happen here. She left and still completely confused I laid back down trying to process what I had just been told. There was so much commotion in the hall I realized this had to be for real. I opened my door to find girls racing up the stairs to get to the t.v. and on their cell phones. I meandered up as well still fuzzy about the whole thing. As I sat down in the silently hysterical room we watched as the rest of the events occurred. The second plane hitting the 2nd tower. The Pentagon. We watched on, helpless and horrified, fearful and perplexed. A stream of emotions felt so deeply that day, that even today as I write, even now, I remember and shudder. I remember walking ground zero the following year, ash and memorials crowding  the sidewalks. A sight I wouldn't have ever in my wildest imagination created as stood in the very same spot the summer of 2001. I remember. In a moment, everything about the world as I knew it was different and I remember.