A new year rapidly approaches, each new year coming faster than the last. (As we get older, each minute/hour/day/year takes up a smaller percentage of our overall experience, so – wow! can they zoom right by.)
How will we see the coming year? Ever hopeful that it will bring wonderful possibilities? A precious commodity to be nurtured, treasured, treated kindly? Much as we might like otherwise, we cannot control others and have limited control over circumstances. But we have ourselves to bring into the future, complete with the ability to dream, hope, create!!
Several of my favorite quotes come to my mind (paraphrasing here and not always sure of whom to credit…but trying to convey the timely essence)….
**”We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses”. [Abraham Lincoln] (The lens through which we view opportunities makes all the difference.)
**”Until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change, there will be no change.” [attributed to a number of sources] (So simple, but so true.)
**”According to recognized aero technical tests, the bumblebee cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to the total wing area. The bumblebee doesn’t know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway.” [Igor Sikorsky] (This one exceeds even the concept of resilience. Love it!!}
Quite a few years ago, storms came through our area, uprooted two humongous oak trees and dropped them on our house (while I sat, terrified in the basement, under the ironing board, under an i-beam, with a squirrel monkey – Edith Anne – on my shoulder). When my husband was able to get in the door and find us in the basement, I was laughing. “There’s an atrium in our bedroom,” he announced, then asked, “Why are you laughing?” I responded, “It could have been a really nice house.” (We lived in a very old house which was in need of repairs, updates, renovation, etc. It was the only house we had…but we were still alive to have a house! Important, in my book!) As it turned out, we were out of the house for about 6 months — during which time I managed to snap a tendon in my ankle. Luckily we were in a one-story rental at the time because navigating steps to the second-floor bathroom would have been a chore!
Our great grandson, due to an infection his mother developed, was born at 26 weeks’ gestation (during the window allowed by law for aborting a baby, incidentally). His will to surmount the odds and live has made him my superhero. He managed to let the nurses know when he was having breathing problems (the worst of which was when his breathing tube clogged with snot and cut off his air supply). His first 18 months were spent in the hospital with a series of surgeries and therapies. He is now five years and has a sight vocabulary bigger than that of most children in his class. He still has some work to do with motor skills and communication, but he loves books, music, and videos. And he forges on….because it never has occurred to him that he might not.
|So….as we approach the new year, what will we bring to it? Will we appreciate the roof over our head even if it needs patched? Will we appreciate the air that we breathe even if it is not always fragrant? Will we use what we have rather than rue what we lack?
Hindsight is 20/20, they say. But foresight has endless possibilities….