Stop And Smell The Roses

In April of last year when I wrote all these blogs I am reposting every week my husband and I decided we wanted a different life. Working for things had gotten old and our values were becoming more about experiences, and passion. I got on a kick that I was going back to get my MA in English Literature. I had my pre-requisite classes all set up at the community college, had applied for financial aid and my appointment with ASU's English graduate department to assess my transcripts was scheduled. School started at the end of August. There was a part of my mind nagging me that I could not just fling myself into 12 units of coursework, for I may be feeling better but certainly still had Fibromyalgia. I was hoping financial aid could replace the meager income I earned as a freelance makeup artist so I could concentrate solely on my education and kinda stuffed those thoughts of reality away for another day.

Flash forward to today, a year and some change later. I finally got myself up and out of the house to blog among the land of the living. Yorkie & Porkie are great company, but I needed a bit of variety infused into my days. I wracked my brain about where I could go that is comfortable, does not involve eating or drinking and is indoors, for it is still 100 degrees out here in the good ol' Sonoran Desert. I decided to go check out that community college I keep trying to take classes at, hoping one day I will have it together enough to make it past the "W" period.

So I am roaming around campus, looking for a cool spot to land, observing the kids walking to and from class. Of course memory lane formed right under my foot and I reflected back on my youth, my community college days, my whole life still ahead of me. And I thought of what I had planned for myself last year and how different my life would be if I had not had those two strokes last July. And I was stopped dead cold in my tracks. That was not the way life was supposed to go. This was. You all, the blog, the Fibromyalgia awareness campaign and support site. That is the way life is supposed to go. I felt a little flutter of hope in my spirit that I badly needed, reminding me of the wisdom in taking life as it comes. Wow its so soon we look back on today with nostalgia, recollecting it, embedded in the past and only accessible from our memories. I took a big fat drink of remembering to stop and smell those obnoxious and proverbial roses along the way.  It tasted good.

Thanks for joining,

Leah