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.

I Don't Wanna...

 

I don’t wanna.  That’s not an answer I easily accept from my kids.  When they whine that they “don’t wanna” do whatever I just asked of them, I usually say “You don’t have to like it but you still have to do it.”  Lately, I’m finding that I am the person who needs to hear that.  Because I don’t wanna.  I don’t wanna do any of it.

My husband went “on tour” over a year and a half ago.  I wake each day knowing the things I should do.  I do some of them.  In tiny little bits, I’ve tackled the giant honey-do list he left behind.  I’ve tackled the things that have come up by surprise.  But the rest?  I don’t wanna.

I go into his office to pay bills and look for papers.  Anything else?  I don’t wanna.  I don’t wanna go through the file cabinets and throw things away or to organize things in a way that makes more sense to me.  It would make things easier.  But I don’t wanna.  I should go into “his” garage and clear it enough that I could actually park there.  But I don’t wanna.

I've given away a lot of stuff to people who are happy to have it.  There’s so much more to release and I just don’t wanna.  Every tiny thing I touch is pretty meaningless to me (Why do I need a soldering iron!?!) but I know that it meant something to him.  So I put it back down and walk away.  Because I don’t wanna.

I know he’s watching.  I know he’s likely rolling his eyes at me.  To that, I remind myself why that honey-do list got so long in the first place.  Either he didn’t wanna or it wasn’t the right time.  I was okay with that then, so I’m learning to be okay with it now.

Everything important has been tackled.  When the time is right, everything else will get done.  Maybe one day, things will be filed and I’ll park my car in the garage.  But not today.  Today, I don’t wanna.

In The Room...

 

As I once mentioned here, I’ve been in the proximity of a lot of interesting people over the years.  Lately, I’ve found myself talking about these encounters more and more,

Mostly, these stories come up as an explanation about why I know some specific information that maybe not everyone has available.  It’s not that I’ve studied or researched these things.  I was just in the room.  While there, I paid attention.

When I share information, I’m often told that I should write a book.  But these encounters – no matter how interesting – were brief and fleeting.  Tiny little morsels that may be tasty but don’t amount to ingredients for a book.  Still, I don’t mind passing out free samples.

Yes, I found my way on to the great Bill Monroe’s bus, shook hands with Muhammed Ali, napped in the rehearsal space of funk masters, and spent lovely moments with poets, politicians, and corporate leaders.  I’ve gained something from every single encounter.

Isn’t that the point of it all?  Every day, people cross our paths – or we cross theirs.  Maybe those people are famous.  Maybe they’re known only to their family and friends.  They ALL have something to offer if only we keep our eyes and ears open.

When I first came to Atlanta, I worked at a hotel where “famous” people lived.  I became friends with them and saved tidbits of their words but you know who taught me the most?  Mama, the breakfast cook in the kitchen.  Yes, she tried to teach me how to make fluffy biscuits and delicious collard greens but she also taught me patience and resilience.

Her faith strengthened her through hard times.  Meanwhile, the gentle and kind owners taught me that no matter how difficult the path ,love and kindness will get you where you’re going with unexpected rewards along the way.

Looking back, I can clearly see so many examples of help I received along my way here.  Maybe it was just a brief moment of levity that came when I most needed it.  Maybe it was a literal hand up when I stumbled. Maybe it wasn’t about me at all!  Maybe that short time spent with a stranger was for THEM.

One thing I’ve learned to be true is that I am always where I’m supposed to be.  So doesn’t that mean everyone else in the room is supposed to be there, too?  If that’s true, then we’re all in this room together.  Maybe we’re meant to learn from one another,  Maybe we’re just here to hold each other up.  Maybe they’ll go home and talk about meeting this strange lady in the room.  Maybe we were there together for another person.  Imagine being in the room and not paying attention!

Whether the room is a grocery line or an actual  room, I will continue to be open.  Open eyes, open ears, open heart.  You can learn a lot by just being in the room.