Finding Joy Again

Looking back, I find, can be discouraging so I try to keep living in the moment with flexible plans for the  future.   I specify “flexible” because we all know life changes unexpectedly and can put a kink in the best laid plans.  My hubby and I were looking for home many years ago.  We found one that we liked–I especially liked it.  I quickly, in my mind, had us all moved in, and was planning how I wanted all the rooms to look.  I had even started to plan how I wanted to plant our garden.  In the meantime, hubby found another house that he liked better and wouldn’t require as much work to make it up to date yet keep its character.  It made sense, but my heart was broken.  I had fallen in love with the dream I had created around that other house.  I knew how hard it would be with 3 kids to accomplish all we would need to do in the first home to get it up to speed but I loved that house anyway.   Now, I know better.  I collect ideas about the future but I treat them as hopeful dreams.  I won’t let them take root until I can actually begin working on them to create the reality and I keep a loose grip.  Things can be replaced easily enough.  People can’t.  I choose now to keep making new memories with family, friends and new aquaintances–creating joy.  These things which we can’t grasp but become part of us, they are the most precious to me.  Its the stuff which fills and satisfies my deepest longings.  So, I must reach out more–that’s hard for a rather shy person like me.  But I must do it to live fully.  I must be a friend to have friends (an old saying but a wise one) so I’m working at it a step at a time.  I wish you sunny days.