Memories

Twenty five years ago, my best Christmas ever. Newly pregnant with my first child, as happy as I have ever been.  Knowing that the years ahead would be filled with wonder and love, no gift could have been as precious.  I look back now, on all the Christmases I have known since then, and my heart just breaks with love for the family I have had and the memories we have shared.

Gratitude

1. For Christmases, past, present and future.
2. For this warm, charming home I live in, decorated for the family when they call come home.
3. For firemen, not just my dad and brothers, but the brave one that lost his life today in worchester, fighting a fire.  God Bless and Godspeed.
4. For vegetables.
5. For beautiful music.

Rainy Days and Wednesdays....

Mid-week.  Short and sweet.

Last year at this time, I was waiting to have another lung scan, to determine if the shadow on my lung was something to destroy me or just another bump in the bumpy road to good health.  I had to stop, breath, and take each moment as it came...otherwise, I would have curled up in a ball of anxiety and would have missed the entire, peaceful, beautiful Christmas I had with my family.   It's amazing.  I have been through these scares before, having had melanoma five years ago.  But each time I am faced with potential life threatening illness, after the initial Oh My God panic, a calm comes over me.  Almost like my body telling me, "if this is the Big One you are wasting one of your last precious good days worrying".  I need to carry that message with me on the healthy days, too.

Gratitude.

1. Good, robust health.

2. Books, glorious books.

3. My husband, one of the two greatest men I know.

4. My lavender scented neck wrap that soothes me to sleep.

5.  Positive, smiling, happy people.  The kind who make you smile at the check out counter, the dentist office, or on Facebook.  I hope to be one of those people someday.  Maybe by the end of the year?

Tuesday, Tuesday

Today was another ordinary day, blessed with simple things.  I closed a house today.  Nice to get a check, but even nicer to help a family  through the tough transition of moving their parents from a much-loved home to a nursing home.  Always hard, always sad, but this family conducted themselves with great dignity.  And they thanked me a million times for a job well done.  This is what I love about real estate and this is what I miss about real estate.  Being able to help families like the Chens..Chris Chen endured a catastrophic result from a routine surgery  that left him paralyzed at the age of 40.  His wife, Pei Jing, just having had their first child, came to me to help transition the family from a four floor town home to a one story true ranch.  She was in shock, devastated, but focused on soldiering on and getting the job done for her family.  It took us six months of hard work, but we got the both properties settled and at the end of it, I felt like I made a BIG difference in the life of  a family suffering.  And I learned a lot from Pei-Jing about soldiering through crisis, which would come in handy a few years later....
I wish I could be of service more to families who are in need of the help an honest, compassionate, hard working real estate agent.  I'd almost do it for free, for the satisfaction I get when the job is done and done well.
It's nice to make a difference.  Even in a small way.

Gratitude.
1. For Tuesdays

2. For the D'alilio family and their example of dignity in the face of a parents fiinal days.

3, For the nice long chat I had with Brad Hutchinson today.  It was good to re-connect with him.  He's a good man.

4. For my Malden job, and the flexibility.

5, For the amazing deep naps I have been having lately.

Day Five.

Today, an ordinary Monday, but that is where the beauty lies.  I am not sick, not in an in chemotherapy unit getting treated for cancer, not looking for a job I can't find, not dealing with a major problem with my family.  Just going through the day, looking for the beauty.  The fog coming off the grass in the cemetery was incredible this morning.  It looked like a a Stephen King set. But again, unseasonably warm, and that, in and of itself, was a gift.
The simple pleasure today was that I realized I still have the "magic" when it comes to babies.  I like to think of  myself as the "baby whisperer".  I just instinctively know what they need, and took great joy providing it for my three cherubs. 

There was a baby crying his eyes out in the check out line of the drugstore.  His mom was ignoring him.  He must have been sick because his nose was running and he was biting in his fingers, signaling teething pain.  As he was crying inconsolably, I looked at him and started to sympathize with him..."I know honey, it hurts doesn't it?", and he started quieting down, then I started to smile at him and he calmed completely and low and behold, started smiling at me...we just clicked.  He needed attention, and comfort and I gave it to him, while his mom continued to shop. Finally, as his mom started wheeling him away, he frantically tried to lock eyes with me, until he was around the corner.  At that point, I heard the heart rendering cry again.

But to know that I still have a place in the heart of babies was enough to make my days.
Gratitude
1. I made a nice Xmas wreath today.

2. The Fennel Chicken soup I made for lunch hit the spot after work.

3. My safe car.

4. My parents good health.

5. Josh Groban, singing "O Holy Night."

Day Three

December 4

Today was almost a perfect day.  Sunday, got some shopping done, and cooked a pefect Sunday evening dinner to enjoy with my husband and three sons, YES, all three home.
The meal was perfect, Pork roast, french potatoes, green beans, cheddar biscuits, caesar salad and brownie and vanilla ice cream for dessert.  I got it all done without breaking a sweat AND managed to get a manicure in between!

 The best part was that I got to spend the evening in conversation with my oldest, Kevin, who has one of the most amazing minds I have ever had the pleasure to know.  He is brilliant beyond words, but so compassionate, contemplative and aware!  He is also THE most well read person I have ever met.  We talked for hours, and that was the best present I could have received from him.  His precious time.

GRATITUDE
1. My family.
2, The Clover machine at Starbucks that makes incredible rare coffee.
3. I feel better today than the last two days.
4. It is unseasonably warm for December.
5.  The new Tori Amos CD Kevin turned me on to.
Amen!

Day Two

Woke up feeling much better. The fact that I spent birthday 53 in bed was my spirit's way of telling me I needed to stop and take care. Not fun to be sick on your birthday, especially when it means you also have to miss your annual office Xmas party, but it was what it was.

Today was perfectly wonderful. The Master Plan for the day was to focus on giving and not receiving. To that extent, I decided to shop for "brother gifts" for two of the three brothers who can't afford to buy presents this Xmas for each other. I found the perfect gift for brother number three to give to brother number two. As it turns out, brother number two happened to need that gift right away, due to unusual circumstances. The back story is that these two have not gotten along in many years, to the point of almost fisticuffs. When number three decided to come to the rescue and give number two the early, much needed Xmas gift, it resulted in a HUG! A FREAKIN HUG! I almost started to cry. My husband asked if I got it on film. My reply was "there are some moments that need to just be..."
I have already received EVERYTHING I need for Xmas, and it's only 12/3...

Project 54- My year of Open Hearted Living

Happy Birthday to Me! Fifty three, wizened, jaded, achy and fine, with much left to be done. Which brings me to THE PROJECT.

Having lived 53 years, I've seen a lot of things. Good, bad, heartbreaking, breathtaking. I've developed opinions, judgements, attitude (lots), ways of thinking and an overall style of living that needs to be tweaked (lots!)

I have decided to engage in the concept of living with my Heart Wide Open. To take each day of my 54TH year, and leap into it with the sole purpose of finding the good in it. Even the bad stuff has it's life altering tonic that takes you, ultimately, to a better place. The adage "what doesn't kill you makes your stronger," is not without truth. So the good, the ordinary, the outstanding and the amazing must be embraced.

This isn't going to be easy for me. My default thoughts tend to be negative. It's an old Irish family trait. I come from a family of Warriors and Worries, always on guard, and waiting for the sky to fall. I have absorbed this, and passed it on, I'm afraid, to my boys. But because I believe it is never to late to teach the dog the trick, I am going to make a serious attempt to re-wire my mid-life brain, and become, dare I say it, a Better Person. I want to be that person who's Facebook profile shows a middle aged women who radiates girl...happy, confidante and always running smack towards the next great thing. Not wasting time on the negative, but always finding the GOOD. And there is so much good!

SO....

I will start every morning by bending my pre-arthritic knees to the floor to thank my God for letting me have the day ahead.

Then I will open my heart, take a deep breath, and set out to see the world through new eyes. The old problems will still be there, like jealous boyfriends hiding in the bushes to see if you come home with the girls you left with. The sun won't be any brighter than it is now, but maybe I will think it so. The kids won't be any less problematic, but I just might start to see them as adults, and slipping away into the years of their own lives, and love them little more. The money problems will still be there, but maybe at the years end, money won't be the Warden of My Life it appears to be now.

Who knows? All I do know, (at the risk of sounding like Oprah, what I know for sure,) is that I know nothing about the 54TH year of my life, but I am willing to live it in a new way.

And it may just be amazing....