My Birthday Wish

"Do not worry about the past or the future. This moment needs your attention, for this is where your life exists." --from www.iampoopsie.com

Being a worrier is a curse. My mind frequently hops around topics, situations, etc. that I have zero control over (...like our circus clown of a President and the potential damage he has the power to inflict or starving children around the world who die every single day from unbelievable poverty), as I worry about the outcome, the ramifications, and ponder what I can do to help or create something more positive in regards to those situations. I've always been of a mind that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem (whatever that problem may be), so to see things that seem wrong to me (out "there" and inside myself) and not have the urge to do something about them goes completely against my nature. What I don't understand is when I got it in my head that my problems and ALL the problems are one in the same! Sane me knows that notion is ridiculous, and yet...my baby girl has hooked me on watching these DC Comics shows (i.e. The Flash, Arrow, DC's Legends of Tomorrow, and Supergirl) and I often find I can relate to the "heroes" who are troubled, tortured even, when they can't or don't fix everything. I mean, let's face it...at no time in my life have I been bitten by a radioactive spider and I certainly don't have the body or workout abilities as, say, Oliver Queen (a.k.a. the Arrow). I'm pretty sure that if I even attempted to do a halfass superhero workout, I'd literally collapse and DIE! But my Netflix superhero addiction not withstanding, I do understand the writer's version of those character dilemmas on a visceral level. *sigh*

With my forty-eighth birthday fast approaching, I've been thinking about something Astronaut Scott Kelly said. When I went to see him and his brother Mark at the Greensboro Coliseum (an absolutely amazing experience), he said that going into space was dangerous, being a Navy pilot was equally dangerous, but he couldn't worry about the parts of those endeavors that he personally could not control. He said about one of his shuttle missions, "I knew the role I had to play, the job I had to do and I could do my part, that part, to the very best of my ability and hope that all the others involved who were ultimately responsible for all of our lives also did their part just as diligently." That is one giant leap of Faith when the cost of being wrong is his life and the lives of others. I admire that resolve greatly! It inspires me.

I'm not a superhero (duh, shocker, right?!). I am not an astronaut. I have this one little life, this one little role to play in a great big world and an even more vast Universe and the thing is, I don't want to waste even a single drop. I want to wake up every morning that I'm allowed to do so, and use the 24 hours I'm given in that day to their fullest potential. Being grateful for being alive (which I absolutely am) is not the same as being significant to the world around me. That being said, my birthday wish is to find a more appropriate balance for my life-goals and stop worrying about all of the things that aren't in my power to "fix". As for the rest, the things beyond my simple human abilities, I have to have Faith that the other humans who occupy our Earth will do their own part towards making a better world. Some days that notion seems as fantastical as me suddenly wearing a cape, having superhuman strength, and flying around the globe righting wrongs all around me. Other days, when I come across a story of someone doing something fabulous, it doesn't feel like such a stretch (*see the story below for the ultimate in "fabulous" and inspiring)!