Life is messy

Sitting in Openlands' conference room this morning, I expressed my dissatisfaction to our chief operating officer about our strategic planning process. I fancy myself as a Type-A kind of gal. And this process is an interesting process - things reveal themselves at unexpected times.

"You have to trust the process," he told me. "It's like life. Life is messy, and sometimes you have to wade into the mess. You can't follow the usual path to get a game-changing result."

I've been working on this post for weeks in my head. I would like to give you a tidy summary of where life is at these days, on the anniversary of me being admitted to the hospital for a week of monitoring before Jossie's early birth.

And the conclusion so far, is that it's a mixed bag: It was and will be a big deal in my personal history but, honestly, it's not that big of a deal today, right here and now. Today, I have lots of gratitude and happiness for my family, friends and everyone's good health. Jossie is on the growth charts for her actual age; we've never had to visit a specialist for her; and she's crawling and can say a few words. She's even still nursing, which I'm very proud of as a working mom.

I'm thankful that the ideals of hope, optimism and promise exist; I'm a firm believer in them all. Quite frankly, I practically miss (not really) those days of monitoring, being by myself, my only jobs to rest and drink water. And my tolerance for detours is higher than it was before. Otherwise life is what it is - going to work, planning birthday celebrations and wiping runny noses.

I've been changed in good ways...a bit more patience, definitely more empathetic for those with health troubles and lots of in-your-face gratitude for what Jeremy and I have.

Jossie has us all wrapped around her pudgy little finger, Jeremy especially. Her growth has helped us grow. I'm not perfectly zen (please see opening example) but I'm better. I'm really trying to focus on the good and not the bad. My family is going to have so much cake this year - birthday cake, baby and bridal shower cakes, wedding cake and more. And that's the good.

On January 1 of 2011, I blogged: "I've been thinking a lot about this new year. I often feel overwhelmed about what I have to accomplish, let alone the unknown of what might come up."

Old self, get over it. The unknown can be good and one heck of a teacher.