August 15, 2020

Staring out the kitchen door at my monster potted cucumber plant, I realized that I want different things now than I wanted when I was younger.  It seems so obvious, but maybe some of my struggles are related to not realizing this.  Perhaps it is ok to want different things.  All of that work and striving as I was growing up, perhaps that was meant to serve a purpose, and perhaps it is ok that I have let some of that go.

I had just come home from mailing a late birthday package to nephew #1, and on my way out of the Post Office, I’m pretty sure I passed Gia.  (It can be harder to tell with everyone wearing masks.)  Gia was our dog groomer for the late Elsa.  I was thinking, again, of how much her care and gentleness with a sick Elsa meant to us.  I was thinking of how I used to think doing something uncommon and special with one’s life was important.  It was the idea that you have to be someone, to be special, to excel!  And articulated in my thoughts at that moment was not that you need to do something special, but that doing a normal thing with excellence, with care and love, is what is most important in this world.