Happy First Fantabulous Day of Spring

It's Friday and forecast to be 70 and the first full fledged day of spring!

Sweet Mary, Joseph and St. Jude...I'm bouncing, I'm pinging, I'm dancing, I'm filling my kitchen, my table, my bathroom, my space with these...and so much joy in my soul.

I've always believed that your heart sings the loudest in the season that you were born and well, I'm 46 days away from my 40th birthday and from experiencing the fullness and the sweetness that comes from entering a new decade and a new station of my beautiful life.

As such, I've been immersing myself in a couple of programs that are making me smile, helping me to dive into the deepest desires of my heart and surrounding me with incredible, inspiring, glorious girlfriends.  More on that in another post.

The other night, while on a call with all of them, this quote emerged.  I had forgotten it and now that I've found it, I'm adopting IT as my mantra for the year that I'm calling my year of wild abandon skinny dipping in the waters of freedom...check it out...

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” marianne williamson

Goose bumps as I type the words.  Excitement for what comes next.  I really, truly can hardly stand it.  Much like the buds that are emerging from the earth, the green that is poking through, heading up toward the sunshine and the blue skies...I can feel it.  I can feel me returning, ascending, but anew.

Here's to lots of walks in the park.  Here's to running, particularly to the big race before my 40th.  Here's to yummy wine and sushi.  Here's to hot baths and tea.  Here's to good friends and soul sisters.  Here's to filling me with love, acceptance, hope and the belief that liberated from my own fear, the sky is the limit.

Happy Spring!

Bittersweet

Spring has sprung.

It's 75 degrees and I'm watching the gloriousness from my window...all of it.  The sunshine, the blue sky, the bikers, the runners, the kids walking home with their backpacks, the birds chirping and the tiny green plants forcing their way up to greet the world.

That's with one eye.

With the other, I'm watching my 4-year old daughter snuggled up with her blanket, eyes closed, fever managed, finally sleeping.  She's been sick for the last five days.  Prior to that, her older brother and sister missed three days of school last week (unheard of in our home) because of similarly high fevers, yucky coughs, and general fatigue.

I've made lots of trips to Target.  Cart filled with ibuprofen, acetaminophen, bananas, popsicles, bleach, Lysol and Clorox wipes.

I haven't made many trips out the door with my running shoes on or to greet the sunshine.  And so, it's been a rough start to spring for our clan.  Praise God for friends who bring iced coffees, sweet sunshine balloons, Dove chocolates and kind texts that remind me that I'm not alone.

But through this Lenten season, I stumbled upon a book that I've fallen in love with called "Savor," written by a mother who knows how hard it is to savor the moments when you're trying to simply survive them. In this daily devotional, she writes about the power of the bittersweet.  Here are her words...

"Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is something beautiful and something broken, that there is a sliver of lightness on even the darkest of nights and a slice of hope with every heartbreak.  Bittersweet is the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul.  Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us to earn the lines on our faces and the callouses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity.  Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy and earthy."


Boom.  Tears in my eyes.  This has purpose.  All of it.

For a type A, crazy-ass control freak mama like myself who really at the end of the day has absolutely nothing to bitch about, this resonated.  We have no idea what will come in this beautiful, messy, unpredictable life we've been given...so why not savor it, all of it?  Why not take everything it has to offer, especially the hard and the unfair...it makes the sweetness, that much juicier.  It feeds the soul in ways that we could have never felt with the same abundance before we knew the hurt.

So, as she's sleeping and I'm realizing that it's 3pm and I'm still in my pajamas, I say thank you for the bittersweet.  It's making me the mother and the woman that I am today.