I'm Back!

Hi friends!

I don't know who still follows this blog--do people still blog anymore? I don't even know. But seven years after I started this thing--not even touching it for more than half that time--I found yet another reason to start writing down my life.

It changed.

Life does that. It changes, shifts, morphs into lots of different things over the course of seven years. It teaches us things--some good, some bad--and it drags us through the trenches, leaving bruises and scars behind. But, sometimes life surprises us, too. Sometimes, it willingly bends down and offers us the world, laying it at our feet as it's there, ours for the taking.

Life is confusing, too. The minute we have it all figured out--the minute we bend down to take what is so freely being offered to us--is the minute life laughs at us and says, "Nope, not this time. You've got some learning to do."

So throughout all these ebbs and flows--these high peaks and these low valleys--these moments of taking and moments of giving--we figure out small pieces of our being along the way and collect them. We put them in a jar for safekeeping, vowing that we "never have to learn that lesson again!" We seal the lid and hold the jar closely during our journeys, maybe even tuck it in our backpacks, wrapping the jar in shirts and towels so in case we do stumble and fall, the jar will remain intact.

But for as much care as we take in keeping these learned lessons safeguarded, we often forget to use them. We want to protect what we've learned so much so that we don't ever take those lessons out of the jar and apply them to life.

Which is exactly why I have to laugh at the phrase, "I never have to learn that lesson again." Yes, I will. Yes, you will. We will come to various points in our journeys that will offer us a challenge meant to teach us something. Sometimes that challenges an exact repeat of what we've already faced, and sometimes that challenge is different but warrants the same outcome. (Kind of like how they put the same question on a test but ask it in multiple ways to see if they can trip us up?) We will almost always trip up. But that's okay.

When you're faced with a challenge, even one you've faced and (maybe) overcome--remember that the first thought you have is what you're conditioned to think. The second thought is what defines you. And, just because you've been conditioned to think something does NOT mean it's right, or healthy, or the correct way for YOU. Pause, and think again, because it's that second thought that can make all the difference.

XOXO