2012 -Life is Short, Grab it by the horns

I'm sick of the "someday's" and the "maybe one day's".   I don't want to hear them anymore, nor do I want to utter them again.   I still want to dream and hope, believe me I'm a big dreamer, but I'm tired of waiting for the future.  If there is one thing I've learned in 2011 is that "Life is Short", no more waiting around for fun. 

Whenever I told my mom about my hopes and dreams she would always without fail say, "Go for it.  Do it now!"  I would always balk and say, "Uh Mom, I don't have the money or someone to watch the kids or the time."   She would say, "Well there is that, but find a way."   At the same time she always wanted to travel around the world, but my Dad liked to reside stateside.   She always joked that after my dad passed away (he was 10 years her elder, so it was expected he would pass first) that she was going to buy a Mercedes and book a trip around the world the day after the funeral.  "Don't judge me kids.. I'll be grieving... but my grieving will take place in Egypt." 

When my mom was diagnosed in November of 2010 my brother and I said, "Alright mom, let's go to Paris, Egypt, Hong Kong, wherever."  Her body was too broken and too tired to travel at that point and she was at peace.  Traveling isn't everything and and in the end those trips didn't really matter.  Being around those you love is what matters most and enjoying your life now at the present is what matters. 

Unfortunately a fabulous trip to Europe isn't on the agenda for 2012, and that's okay. I've made my peace with it, and it doesn't look like Publisher's Clearing House will be dropping off a giant check at my door this year. And that's okay. 

This year I resolve to say YES more often than No.  I'm going to live a little louder, risk a little more, and take advantage of things that come my way.  

Five years ago if I was called up to do something embarrassingly like riding a stick horse around a crowded restaurant, I would have smiled and done it with my shoulders hunched down and my face red.  In 2009, I had a breakthrough and learned to step out of my tidy little box and have more fun.   But last year in 2011, in the dark rooms of grief I felt like I had been life had beaten me to the ground.  I can see myself lying on the floor of a boxing ring, just beaten down.  My friends, my family, have picked me up, brushed me off, rehydrated me, and said, "Get back in there.. you can do this."  I  feel like when 2011 was coming to a close,  I stood up, brushed myself off and grabbed my life by the horns and said, "This is MY life and I'm the Boss of Good Times around here." 

So now when I'm handing a stick horse and a cowboy hat and told to prance around the restaurant, I grabbed that cowboy hat and galloped and Yee-Haw'd my little heart out. Look out world, I'm all in and ready to make this year memorable.