Well, we made it another year! I am so grateful. I woke this morning with a sense of hope...not sure I can adequately explain it but I just feel free! It’s like I have carried around a backpack full of bricks for a very long time and today they were gone...the heaviness is all gone...I had vowed a few weeks ago that I would leave the past the behind in 2018 and begin again, I can't go back and change anything....People I loved passed on from this life, the president is president regardless if you like him or you don't, our world is in the shape its in and the only way to change it is to be change...Each person has to want to make a change and when each of us personally change, change will happen collectively...I vowed to be better...a better person, a better friend, a better gardener, a better mom, a better wife...etc...I just want to be better...period...
We have a lot of hurt in past 5 years of our lives here at Rocky Oak...it negatively affected us a whole...we spent a lot of years being and doing what we thought were the right things for the right reasons...but one day, in an instant, with some very ugly and harsh words from someone we loved and admired, trusted and looked up to...we realized we were not being true to who we were....we were living a life based on what others had told us our whole life was the right way...we grew from infants being taught and told "this is right and this is the only way"...for some maybe it is...for us leaving the organized church has been such a wonderful thing and has allowed us opprotunity to find what we believe and meet some wonderful people in the process...It has been freeing...We love our new found freedom! No longer in bondage of a legalistic way of life...Ahhhhh! its nice!
This year I just know is going to be awesome...I am excited to see what life has in store for us...We have so many plans we would like to see come to fruition, not only for
our little "homestead" but in our personal lives as well... but we will not fret if they don't....Joy and learning is in the journey, not in the destination!....I am going to embrace the journey this year and quit getting in my own way...I am going to take life as it comes and quit resisting....Something I have learned in my studies over the past couple of years is this...Change isn't what brings us saddness...its resisiting the change that brings us saddness....I believe it was Thich Naht Hanh that said that...Oh my did it speak volumes to me...I have always been one to resist change...and by doing so I got in my own way of happiness....This year I want to just enjoy the journey wherever it takes me...I want to learn in the process and be in the moment to savor all of life...My friend that passed was a busy woman...going here, going there, doing this or that....but never really stopping to touch life...just to breathe and take in all the goodness life offers...I want to feel, breathe, touch life and have no regrets...I am an outdoors person...I love nature...I love exploring it...photgraphing it...feeling the breeze on my face...I love lying in my hammock and looking up at the wonder of the heavens...I close my eyes and breathe deeply and thank the creator for life....OH! I can't wait for spring...Even this winter I have enjoyed more than previous winters...While I detest the cold, I know its a necessary part the cycle of life...I keep my bird feeders full and I daily I stand at the window and watch the birds come up to the feeder and get their tummies full...I love seeing the cardinals....I smile each time I see one and remember my dad and my friend...this morning when I saw 4 cardinals perached on the grape vines, I smiled...I didn't feel saddness that their journey on life was over, I felt joy that I had the time with them I had...they both taught me some of lifes greatest lessons...I am truly grateful.
I am so looking forward to what 2018 brings to us...I look forward to sharing it here, with you all...See ya soon!
Love, light and peace,
~Kris
