2017-"Live your BEST life!"

I sat in the crisp morning air and watched an unremarkable moth flap his only remaining wing in vain, as he lay struggling on the weathered boards of my deck. For awhile, he batted the good wing as hard as he could in an effort to right himself and fly away, but before long he gave up, too tired to continue. His end wasn't going to be a happily ever after and I couldn't stay and watch it come. I could, however, very much relate to his dilemma. I, too, have tried to fly with a broken wing. I can't even recall how frequently I have allowed my "broken" to exhaust me, cause me to give up on this or that over the years. In my case, though, there was actually something I could do to create a much happier ending...I could fix the broken.

You see, my biggest hurdle has always been myself (and let's face it, at my age will probably always be). I either focus too much on the past, over-analyzing it like some devilish fiend trying to make sense of things OR I spend too much energy looking too many steps ahead into the future I want to create...which, of course, means that living in the now is a challenge. Oh, I think about it all the time, but as per the Amy-norm, there are always far too many tabs open in my brain at once to give that ideal more than a cursory thought. I can say that I try very hard to live "right now", but my brother-in-law would remind me Yoda-style, "There is no try. Do, or do not." This makes me laugh, as I can't even remember the last time I saw him, and yet I carry around his corny, and sometimes supremely wise words in my over-taxed noggin'. I don't know if he'd be mortified by that, or pleased. The point is living in the  now is HaRD (especially when you know there's going to be a power bill due at the end of the month, so spending that money on some frivolous thing may be fun, but you'll have to enjoy it in the dark at the first of next month if you don't pay to keep the lights on...a concept my mother never caught on to in her lifetime).

Today is the first day of 2017. There are 365 blank pages in which to write whatever story it is any of us wishes to create...a daunting challenge, but one I am wholeheartedly up for. My stubborn ol' mountain man of a father has bullied his way into seeing a new year begin, with a little help from his equally stubborn daughter, who pushes at him nearly every day. My girls are getting the first wisps of air underneath their own beautiful wings, and happily they do not carry a past filled with "broken" that is weighing them down. My tiny human, i.e. my grandson, is coming into a personality that charms me down to my bones and he's nurturing a new kind of love inside my heart that I never knew existed before he poked his adorable nose into the likes of this crazy world. My husband and I are learning how to date one another, and surprisingly we're much better at it now than when we were as dumbass kids. And ahead, the "life" we might have is stretched out, waiting to meet us at points where we will go, explore, learn, create, laugh, cry and live. If there is a "trick" to navigating that successfully, I think it would be this...take each moment as it comes, find the beauty in everything, rest when you're tired, but don't give up, and come to everyone and everything you find in this world honestly, lovingly, and respectfully. We're all just attempting to live the best life we can. It is in the spirit of that endeavor that I have named for my household, my Trible, 2017 as the year to "Live your BEST life." My husband began that tradition, naming the new year, more than a dozen years ago. In the last couple of years, I have picked up that torch. Naming the year, however, is the easy part. Now let's see if I can live up to it!

Happy 2017, ya'll.

Love,
A.