This isn't how it's supposed to be!

I had a hockey game last Saturday night and my mom was kind enough to watch Peter. It was too late of a game for them to attend, so she graciously stayed back with him to put him to bed. After going out to dinner and swinging back to pick up my hockey gear before the game, I walked in on my mom and Peter clearly having fun! Peter was wearing just a onesie and a sweater but no pants. There was figure skating on the TV and apparently Peter had been "practicing" his moves. My mom said he watched for awhile and then looked at her, started tugging at his pants and said, "Pants...off!" The figure skating girls on TV didn't have any pants on, so Peter decided he shouldn't either! Too funny! He showed me his fabulous ice skating moves on the carpet, which was hilarious! But it was summed up beautifully by my friend, who said, "There is something wrong with this picture...your son is pretending to figure skate while his mom is going to play hockey." I guess Peter doesn't discriminate...any and all sports are good in his book!

The next chapter...

Welcome to the "new" blog, although I never did admit that the CaringBridge was really a blog! Journal, blog...the terms are interchangeable. But nonetheless, it is what it is and I'm so glad to have you visiting our site!

I am going to make this a brief entry (then again, am I EVER brief?) and I promise that there will be pictures posted SOON (Peter is adorable beyond words, so I really should share him with the world!). As a friend said, Peter kind of steals my thunder, so I'm sure most of the pics will be of him! :-)

I came across an article written by a young mom who is battling state 4 cancer that is progressively getting worse. She talked about many of the same feelings that I have experienced...resentment, anger, despair...but she offered an excerpt out of "Kitchen Table Wisdom" by Rachel Naomi Remen that resonated with me. I talked previously on the CaringBridge of how I have finally felt joy again. A year ago, I could not have imagined ever feeling joy...the pain was so intense. But now, a year later, there has been joy and laughter. I hope I say it often enough, but I am so incredibly blessed with amazing girlfriends (some of them even happen to be my relatives!). It really doesn't seem fair that one person would have so many incredible friends that continue to show up and step up to walk the path with me, whether that path is smooth and easy or uphill and rocky. I am grateful beyond words...

So with that, the author talks about people who, despite what life throws at them, "show up for whatever life may offer" and describes them as "intensely alive, intensely present." What Remen says about joy is this "From such people I have learned a new definition of the word 'joy'. I had thought joy to be rather synonymous with happiness, but it seems now to be far less vulnerable than happiness. Joy seems to be a part of an unconditional will to live, not holding back because life may not meet our preferences and expectations. Joy seems to be a function of the willingness to accept the whole, and to show up to meet with whatever is there. It has a kind of invincibility that attachment to any particular outcome would deny us. Rather than the warrior who fights toward a specific outcome and therefore is haunted by the specter of failure and disappointment, it is the lover drunk with the opportunity to love despite the possibility of love, the player for whom playing has become more important than winning or losing. The willingness to win or lose moves us out of an adversarial relationship to life and into a powerful kind of openness. From such a position, we can make a greater commitment to life. Not only pleasant life, or comfortable life, or our idea of life, but all life. Joy seems more closely related to aliveness than to happiness." There is a certain freedom in putting the outcome in God's hands, letting go of the end result, and just embracing what life throws in our path.

Here's to embracing life fully in the year ahead...