Stretch...

 

 

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been faced with heavy challenges.  I think we all have, thanks to the pandemic.  Everyone I know has endured tough times and we all just get through it the best we can. 

For myself, family and friends have made things easier to bear.  Through it all, people have continued to tell me that they’re impressed with my strength.  With that, I have to disagree.  I’m not especially strong,  Perhaps I’m just resilient.

Thinking about it all reminds me that in the mid-seventies, my brother Matt had a toy called Stretch Armstrong.  Stretch was a muscle-bound strongman.  When you pulled his arms and legs, he could stretch from one corner of the room to the other.  When you let go and stopped tugging, he would revert back to his original size and shape.

His power was not his muscles.  His power was his resilience.  His strongman body was just a latex exterior.  His true strength came from within.  Maybe that’s who I am!

I’m not some super-strong being that is taking on the world.  Over the years, original Stretch Armstrong was discontinued and then returned and adapted to other characters and models.  Is it so impossible to believe that, while under anesthesia during kidney  donation, I could have been injected with Armstrong material to get me through what was to come?

Okay.  I probably was not remade as Stretch.  But I do believe I’ve remade myself with resilience.  With infusions of love and support from those who have held me up, I am Resilient Armstrong.  And I am grateful.

Freestyle...

 

I’ve never been one for resolutions.  I tend to take on each day as it comes.  Good or bad, I do my best to get through it.  Plans never really work out for me so I just freestyle life.

The last few years for me have required a lot of freestyling.  I’ve met each challenge with a level of patience I didn’t even know I had.  As it turns out, I have quite an arsenal of patience ready to conquer each roadblock.  The time spent patiently waiting was not wasted.  It was used to think.  To reflect.  To remember.

I realize now that while I thought I was patiently waiting, I was actually taking stock of who I am.  I was uncovering the Me buried under the stuff of life.  Slowly, I have been dusting myself off and paying attention to what matters and what’s good for me.

While I’ve been putting myself out there and wondering why I get so close to what I think is the right and perfect job only to see it drift away, it’s been hard not to become frustrated.  Instead, I keep myself busy with things that feed my soul while I patiently wait.  I now realize that my resume doesn’t properly tell my story.

Sure, it tells about paychecks I’ve earned and who paid me but that’s not who I am.  Anyone who may want me to join their team needs to know that those times listed were just markers on my path.  It’s what I’ve done – and continue to do – outside of an office that make me who I am.  It’s everything else I do that adds value to my package.

So here it is – January 1^st.  I’m not interested in changing my diet or exercise plan.  I will continue to walk down my path and take the forks as they come.  I will continue to smile and talk to strangers.  I’ll continue to body surf any rogue wave that comes at me.  I will trust that wave to deliver me to the shore where I’m meant to land.

Surf’s up. Happy New Year.  Hang ten.