Here's to uncharted waters

Someone paid me a heartwarming compliment recently, revealing to me that I enriched life during time spent together.

I’ve learned to say thanks for sincere moments of offering like that. 

There was a time when I would have reduced the accolade with “Oh, don’t be silly,” or “I don’t know if I’ve done that,” or “are you sure you mean that?”

Today I love and believe in myself enough to accept it as true when someone says such a nice thing about me. And good feelings are best when shared.

That is not to say that I don’t doubt myself sometimes. Books sliding off the shelf of my life can, on occasion, raise doubts of all kinds. Sometimes a turn of events harangues me enough that I call into question my integrity, gullibility, reasoning, and intentions.

I think even the strongest of us have moments like that. What’s important is that we, each in our own way, find gratitude, lessons, and keep walking our path.

One of my favorite songs right now is “Silver Lining,” by First Aid Kit. I can’t remember how that song dropped in my lap but it certainly came along at an appropriate time.

“There’s no starting over, no new beginnings, time races on,

Gotta keep on going, looking straight out on the road,

Can't worry 'bout what's behind you or what's coming for you further up the road, I try not to hold on to what is gone, I try to do right what is wrong.”

A wise man I know also would tell me in times of hardship I have three choices—“suck it up, change it, or quit.”

Crosby, Stills, and Nash would sing, “Rejoice, we have no choice, we’ve got to carry on.”

I think I’ll do all of those things, because there is no starting over, no new beginnings, time does race on. I must keep going, look straight out on the road I’m on. I will change it. I have no choice. I must carry on.

In celebration of all of these roads less travelled I bought my own 22ft sailboat last week.

I’ve never sailed alone in my life, but I’m going to learn and learn quickly.

I am as determined as the worker ant that carries 100 times its own body weight up hill in a hurricane. Trust me. I know myself very well. I may have a soft shell sometimes, but my core is as solid as they come.

Gratitude abounds. I have been given a silver lining I would otherwise have never known.

I’ve always believed in a Power greater than myself and I pray often to this Power for strength, clarity, wisdom, and often for the courage to accept the things I cannot change.

I also believe one of the greatest gifts of the Universe is free will. Nothing happens until I decide. 

I am mine. I am my own.

“She stood in the storm and when the wind did not blow her way, she adjusted her sails.”

And now, I’m a sailboat captain.