The night was cold, but not cold enough. The moon glistened high above the mountains mocking the darkness below with all its might. She stared outside, imagining a cold wintry night, where the trees snuggled in the warmth of white furry snow. Sipping gently on her cup of green tea, listening to two little lambs squabbling away; The Shy Little Girl , had just finished writing the 46th chapter of her book. She asked herself “Am I wiser?” ” Am I wiser?”, she asked again and the question continued to echo back. She was hoping for an answer but did not find one. She flips the page, and begins to write Chapter 47.
The idyllic cheery squabbles interrupted her writing. She twitched, ready to look up and give them a monitoring and just then as if sensing her discomfort the little lamb bleated, “It’s mom’s birthday tomorrow and I am doing something in the garage for her.” She had the answer to her question.
She was not wiser, but definitely more thankful than the year before.
Chapter 47
Where wishes end, being thankful begins.
The 47th chapter is when I can’t close my eyes and wish for something tangible, nothing comes to mind. It is a year though when I continue to be thankful. Don’t get me wrong, wishes are a childlike privilege that we often deny ourselves. We need to indulge and I do too. However, the need to wish for a gift on my birthday doesn’t seem to be the need anymore. It is a wonderful day to appreciate and celebrate the bounty of life, especially when your birthday is exactly a week before Thanksgiving. I just realized this.
In honor of my birthday and in celebration of the eleventh month of the year, here are eleven realizations from a life of 46 years.
I finally know who I am.
I now know myself like the girl in the mirror.
My creativity.
Yes, blowing my trumpet here, but I do pride in whipping up a meal from nothing and being able to take nothing and make something from it. It may not be perfect, but it gets the job done and the need of the hour is fulfilled. The art keeps me alive.
Pronoia is real.
Pronoia is as mythical as Santa and as real as the rainbow. If you believe hard enough, there is always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Courage takes time.
It took 46 years of learning and finally, I am where I want to me. It’s not way up high, it is way down with little kids , the world calls special. I interact with them daily and am blessed to continuously hear, Thank you Mrs. V! I saw a dandelion, they wished!
Family is all that matters.
My husband keeps it positive for me. Yes, I can sulk and sulk easily. He has the courage to say, “stop sulking and get your act together” and for that I get annoyed and yet am very grateful. My son is now my teacher in many ways, through him, I have learnt; “attitude matters.” My daughter, she personifies kindness and generosity. She reminds me to be gentle on the hardest days.
The Healthy outfit looks different on everybody.
I can crawl on my fours and that’s good enough.
Elders, blessed to have many in the family.
Their blessings continue to guide us.
Mistakes are okay.
Whoever dreamed of perfection in the first try, only dreamt. It takes years of practice and decades of mistakes for perfection to happen.
Be Unfuckwithable.
It’s the best.
Learning the art of forgiving, almost
It’s hard to forgive from a hurting heart. It’s hard to heal a hurting heart, but once we learn to zone out, it becomes easier. I am still learning this one, but getting better one day at a time.
Friends, it’s an invisible pillar that allows you to lean upon it across geographic boundaries.
I hit the jackpot with this one.
I now look forward to continue writing this chapter and making it more meaningful. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I do know I am capable of welcoming it all.
Life maybe a roller coaster and I may hold on tight at times, but the 3F’s in my life, my Faith, my Family and my Friends will roll with me.
In this 47th chapter, I will continue to build upon the realizations of my imperfectly perfect life.
Happy Birthday to Me!
women? The gamut of answers on my FB should have made it easy for me to write this. All I had to do was summarize and be done. I did that, it didn’t make any sense. The discussions revealed the practice prevails in cultures across the globe for very similar reasons and the two main ones being; man has been considered superior or the woman just accepts it and continues the traditions. As I wrote and read to myself, it didn’t make any sense. There had to be more to this. If this was a practice that annoyed women, then how can women across the globe just let it be? If this was disrespectful, how did woman beyond geographical boundaries and traditions continue this practice for generations? These questions and more made me write and re-write.
know there will always be food that you can make. So the women who feed first are not necessarily losers or timid followers of tradition, it’s quite possible these ladies know what they are doing. They know their strengths and they know their partners weakness and just like the natives recognized the order of nature an found their balance, the women who serve food first and eat later have also found their balance.
