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#ThankfulThursday It Takes A Village…

The month of August was incredibly trying. On August 6th, our van broke down. The head cylinder and gaskets broke. It was an expensive problem that required me to reach out to others in a very big way. Luckily, my community is filled with very caring, loving people who’ve shown me that kindness still exists. Friends and co-workers (who are more like extended family at this point) banded around my family and helped us get back and forth from our respective obligations. I’m incredibly thankful to have such a great community here, and I’m even more thankful that they’ve all touched my life in such a significant way. Without their aid, life could have become very, very scary.

I’m also very thankful for a relative who happened to have a nest egg ready to take away the burden of some of my student loans — after fixing our van, at least one loan will be paid off in full, the other paid down quite a bit. Not only will we be on our wheels again, but we will have freed up some monthly debt to begin snowballing the rest of our debts. I’m relieved and grateful to know that these rough days should be behind us.

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#MondayMeditations Forging Forward

The draft I “saved” disappeared. It’s sort of funny in a cosmic sense — not very much has been going my way, and I’ve been charged with forging forward in spite of circumstances. During August we had a serious failure of our only vehicle, and it has been a miserable experience. Thankfully, things have worked out, and our vehicle will be fixed by the weekend. However, this situation helped me realize that I’ve got a wonderful community willing to support me through rough times, and it helped me realize that I can’t keep taking life day-by-day. In the past I used to think months and years ahead, but the past two years have taught me that life doesn’t always follow your plans. Yet somehow I need to adapt my plans for contingencies. There’s no more room for error. What I do today helps shape what happens tomorrow. If I spend the day laying around bemoaning my woes, tomorrow the woes will still be waiting for me. If I spend today brainstorming ways to lessen and negate the woes, tomorrow I’m that much closer to achieving my goals.

These challenges are merely a test of my will — and my will is still stronger than the tests. But when my strength begins to fade, I know that I have very kind-hearted people who can help rebuild that strength.

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#Cultivate2012 September

I’ve spent this summer contemplating how I might go about making the leap from my life as-is to that ideal life I’m dreaming up. Crunching numbers and brainstorming ideas served only to further frustrate me, and I realized that I’ve been letting the road blocks in between me and my destination befoul the journey. I’m trying too hard to turn hobbies and passions into ways of life and a means to earn a living. I feel too pressured to make a giant leap in order to obtain my goals — but that’s too lofty and unreasonable. I’ve been too enveloped in the concept of “Leap Year” to look at the canyon I’m hesitating to leap across. Hesitation, frustration, and stagnation are NOT good ways to cultivate a fulfilling life.

So I’m again embracing the feeling of letting go. I’m letting go of the pressure to make things “happen.” I’m letting go of the pressure to pursue this to the extent that I’m breaking my heart. I’m going to let hobbies cultivate themselves into enjoyable hobbies — I’m going to write because I enjoy writing, NOT because I’m hoping to earn money by writing. I’m going to pursue other avenues of which I can continue to cultivate myself and my life in order to some day get to the point where I’m ready to pursue my big dreams. I’m not ready to take that leap. I need to scale down the canyon a bit further and find a better jumping off point. I can’t get to the bottom of that canyon — that would be a very dark, scary place — but I can afford to descend just a bit in order to get across to the point that makes life a bit more like the life I’ve been envisioning for years.

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