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Guest Post By: Anonymous Yesterday you said tomorrow. A few weeks ago I was diagnosed with Cancer. The bad kind. The “10% of patients live to see another year kind”. The “I wish Google wasn’t around” kind. Suddenly my tomorrows became yesterday. The years of planning, hoping and dreaming all came to a screeching halt. I was suddenly faced with the possibility that 25 years of aspiration and preparation would culminate with a few months of frantic activity - a summer of scratching off bucket list items and crossing off life’s to-do list. Over 9,000 times I had banked on the dependability of tomorrow. Now, I only had today. Nothing can prepare you for the moment you find out you have a 1/10 chance of making it to Christmas. There’s finality to it. There’s weight. The need to spend as much time with your loved ones as possible fights a constant battle with the want to distance yourself and minimize the pain of good-bye. Days are spent alternating between silent sadness and frantic preparation. Nights are spent accepting fate and bargaining for more time. Clinging to the slim sliver of hope, I went about my daily business cherishing everything I could. Taking one today at a time. Reflection became a huge part of my existence. I replayed my successes and failures, the proud choices and shameful mistakes, the sins I had committed and the mitzvahs I had performed. I tallied the accomplishments and missed opportunities. I wanted to leave in peace with myself - with who I was as a person. I couldn’t help but keep score. Would I be remembered? What was my legacy? Did I make an impact? The unmistakable truth was that, while I was able to accept my overall contribution to the world, I kept thinking of the lost time. If I would have known I only had 25 years, how much more could I have accomplished? How many times would I have parked myself in front of the TV? How many fewer times would I have hit the snooze button? How many times had I used tomorrow to justify a lackluster today? Carpe Diem went from cliché to mantra. It had never made more sense. I would give anything for the opportunity to seize the shit out of more days. But, the truth remained; I was about to pick a number from 1 to 10. Pick the wrong number and there is no second chance. No tomorrows. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I received my second chance. I’ll make it to tomorrow and hopefully the next day. Maybe I still have something to offer the world, maybe I have a few stories to share. The one thing I know is that I’ll take my second chance. I’ll spend each today trying to justify a tomorrow, not the other way around. What will you do tomorrow? Photo Credit: Christina Holland :) My dear, sweet, thoughtful, insightful, beautiful Grateful Lifers-- I will be out of the office for the next 10 days (and majorly missing you) in search of sun, sand and a drink in my hand. In my absence I've set up some lovely ladies with guest-posting capabilities and am really excited for you to enjoy their content! You have always been incredibly kind and open to me--I gently ask that you extend the same courtesies to my dear friends. I have no doubt you will be your typically wonderful selves while welcoming them with arms wide open :) Thank you! See you again soon... love and light, Trish Have I ever showed you the video of me snuggling a baby black spotted leopard from 2 years ago?
There genuinely is no other reason for me to share this with you than cheeseandrice it gets me every.single.time.... "Actually, Tricia , if you understood the extraordinary gifts every single challenge in your life makes possible, even inevitable, you'd celebrate your challenges, new and old alike, as the omens that they are of new beginnings, spectacular change, and enhanced superpowers.... Perfect for where you are, huh?" -TUT Tomorrow I leave for an exotic vacation/retreat in beautiful Costa Rica...
...by myself. Whoa. For some, perhaps a trip for 1 to a yoga, surfing, self-loving beach retreat is a bit on the self indulgent side. Trust me--I have had my moments thinking the same thing. But I have also been sending gratitude out every moment of every day since I booked this retreat for my ability to afford it, my ability to take the time off for it (thank you, Weebly!), the challenges that have sparked the desire for such a trip in the first place and for the freedom to embrace this new beginning. I am humbled, thankful and beyond-butterflies-in-my-tummy excited. Look, here's what I like to tell my friends--People will come and go from your life. You'll change jobs, you'll change relationships, you'll change partnerships, you'll move, you'll grow and quite frankly every living thing on this planet dies eventually. No living soul has permanence here. But the one person you are stuck with...day in and day out, sun up to sun down...until your very last breath, whether you like it or not, is yourself. You might as well be your own friend, you know? You might as well learn to love yourself unconditionally. So if you've ever stopped yourself from filling up your insides with ooey gooey, mushy gushy love from the succulence that is you because your ego voice (and possibly the voices of others who have yet to accept this key truth to life), let me remind you of something: It starts here (imagine me with my hands over my heart)... ...But, by no stretch of the imagination, does it stop here. When you allow yourself the time and space to get right in your soul--when you give yourself permission to call yourself friend, to send yourself love on a daily basis, to practice forgiveness and patience with the one person you.are.literally.stuck.with your whole life--you shift (for the better!) every connection around you as well. You will brighten another persons day. You will strive for greatness, in whatever way that is meaningful to you. You will be kinder. You will be a better friend, lover, sister, employee. And perhaps most importantly, you will inevitably encourage others to be their own friend, too--to value their worth, shed their labels and doubts and simply help them live more authentically. You will encourage them to shine and share their light. You will encourage them to stop just existing and really start living. So tell me, please, what's so self indulgent about that? For one. For all. In Gratitude, Trish At the end of every practice, Weebly's yoga instructor Lindsay has us place our hands together in front of our hearts and say "Namaste" to one another as a soulful recognition of all beings. I find this Sanskrit-derived tradition to be a beautiful way of saying The spirit, or light, in me respects the spirit and light in you. How lovely it is to acknowledge our oneness; to send a shred of love out into the infinite abyss of space and time for no other reason than it just feeling right.
What a waste of time it is to judge others in general, but specifically by their perceived abilities (or perceived lack there of). I've never understood this behavior of putting others down while measuring our own worth against the worth we assume in others. It all seems so silly, doesn't it? Shouldn't we work to boost each other up? Help to lift others to their highest potential? Just because I may be good at x,y,z does not mean that you also have to excel in that specific space, and vice versa. If God/The Universe wanted us all to be the same, he wouldn't have made us so very different. Where the heck would the fun be in that? We share the same planet, breathe the same air and each have hearts capable of great love and great pain. That is enough common ground to warrant a little kindness from one another. The rest, frankly, are just details to help make the journey a bit more interesting. You are not, by any stretch of the imagination, "stupid". You have talents and abilities that no other person on this planet has in your unique way. Won't you be so kind (and brave!) as to share them with us? And won't you be so kind (and patient!) as to encourage others to share theirs, as well? Namaste, Trish Huge thanks to Kim for dropping off (and loaning in general) her backpacking bag for my Costa Rica trip! The great pack of 2012 starts tonight and I have butterflies already :)
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