Best is a Moving Target...

From January 1...

Happy New Year! We saw 5--yes 5---bluebirds today while we were out walking! I was just talking about bluebirds the other night. If they are the bluebirds of happiness---it is going to be a great year!
2011 was once again a time of lots of change, but one big thing I am grateful for is Mom did not spend one day or night in the hospital or a rehab facility....

Wishing everyone the best year.....and when it is not the best, may you have the best people around to help, the best knowledge, the best resources and faith in yourself that you are truly doing the best you can on that day---I have learned "best" can be a moving target ---Love, Joanne

Re: The Year

This is my year of Re.

Reconnect, Rebuild, Resolve, Remember, Restart, Reset, Reborn just to name a few. The challenge will be to select the correct Response depending on the situation, the goal, the time, place, people---one solution does not fit all. There will be times when I want to Rebuild or Reconnect when the Real answer is to Resolve and Release in my heart and my head.

The Real goal is to Reconnect with myself, a journey that will take me to a new and better version of what I had reached two years ago when life changed unexpectedly. I share this to hold myself accountable and maybe that somewhere, someone will be helped by my honesty, amused by the silliness, motivated to do something or take time to think about things.

I am not looking to change the world, only me. But you are welcome to come on the journey.

The Best is Yet to Be...

This year I am choosing not to wish people a Happy New Year. I am not wishing them the happiest year ever. I want them to have much more than that. I want them to have their Happiest Year...so far.

What is the fine line? Ever to me implies it will be the best year of their whole life...ever. I don't want that--what am I going to say next year? "Well I know you had your happiest year ever and it is all down hill from here--but I am sure it was worth it!"

Uh, no.

But I feel if we approach the year as our best year "yet", it not only gives us hope for this year, but also reminds us that until we die, the potential is always there.You will build even a better year in 2010, based on your incredible 2009. Think of it as compound interest on your life.

For me I honestly know, on the surface at least, that this will not be my best year to date. It will however be my best year in almost 10 years, because certain things will be drawing to a close. Finishing them will not be happy to go through, but the other side is incredibly bright. And I have often found that some of the best parts of my life have started at some of the worst moments of my life.

Before you think I am not human, it is not like I have always realized this when I was in the middle of them. In the moment I am in grief, sadness, anger, despair, frustration, stress ( I told you I am human)...but looking back great gifts came in strange packages.


Richard Bach in "Illusions" says (paraphrased):

"You are never given a problem without a gift for you in its hands".

So for you this year I hope you find all the gifts, strange and otherwise, and that you have your happiest year...so far.

The Best is Yet to Be....

Joanne