"The days are long, but the years are short..."

I've been thinking a lot about this quote from Gretchen Rubin, "the days are long, but the years are short," it is simple, but in its simplicity is a huge truth. We do our day to day routine, wishing for the hours to go by and for the days to come and go, all the while not realizing that those days turn into weeks and months and before you realize it, the year has gone.
We were sitting with the kiddies, cuddling and watching The Hobbit and suddenly I was looking at my children and couldn't get over that my first born is eight and my baby will be seven in a matter of days and it hit me hard, where did the time go? When did I suddenly go from babies to toddlers to these individual souls? And as I am looking back, there is nothing I would change, I was lucky enough to stay home and raise our children and I work from home now, so I am able to take them to school and pick them up and be there for them, so I'm not looking back with regret. I look back in astonishment because it just doesn't seem like it has been that long since they were just wee babies, taking their first step, saying their first words and all the changes that have taken place during those years.

This year we have been going through some transitioning as a family, we are eating healthier, and the major change of all is that my husband quit smoking (20 plus years as a smoker and he quit). He never smoked around our kids, but it was always something he was fighting and now he can say he did it! I am so amazingly proud of him!

And I have let go of the negative aspects that were keeping me from moving on....and if you read my blog, you know I blogged about stresses and struggling to move on, questioning why things were the way they were, etc, etc...and something hit me after a conversation that made me see, I realized that it wasn't about change and nothing we could do would make things okay. Once I realized that, I let go and besides carrying all that baggage is tiresome and before you even know it, you are engulfed in a rage of negativity that somehow thinking any differently seems foreign and I didn't want that to happen. I see it and I don't want that....it is easier to fall into the "victim" mentality than it is is to be positive, just like you use more muscles to smile than you do frowning.....so I had a choice...I could sulk about all the why's, have nots, could nots, and what nots forever and become bitter. Or I could toss it aside and say, "you know what, I have a pretty damn good life and it's MY life. So I decided, I'm not striving to have a perfect life, with perfect relationships, but I am looking to be more than I have been before, whatever that encompasses.


And I know that this newly adopted mind shift may come across as apathetic when I say "who cares, let it go, stop going on" and it's not that I don't care, it is that I realize that there is so much more and happiness doesn't come from other people, it comes from within. People can try to change, can try to make someone else happy, but the sad reality is that if that person (that you are changing for) is not happy within, nothing you do or say will make a difference. I am responsible for my own happiness, no one else. And what makes people happy is completely personal and individually formed. And whether or not someone likes me or doesn't, ultimately doesn't matter. I'm happy - it doesn't bother me what has happened, where relationships are or wore, I'm living for today.

It is freeing when you "let go," and to be frank since I've started this mind shift, great things have been happening, not just to me, but as a family. I'm not ashamed to admit that I struggled a couple years ago, I fell apart, my spirit broke and I was angry about it, but I'm taking the opportunity now to rebuild my spirit and it's all good! I've started a project that I've always talked about and would start and stopped, and while I was in Atlanta for work, I started it back up, couldn't sleep and wrote 1800 words at 1:00 in the morning for my book and I wrote on the way home and honestly I feel good about it...I have no expectations, but at least I can say, I've started on something I was once afraid to try.

So yes, the days are indeed long and the years are short, so don't spend that time stuck in the past, wishing you did something different, because you can't change what's done. You can only change the now because if you miss what is taking place now, you will be spending tomorrow crying about yesterday. I suggest enjoying the now!

"Be so good they can't ignore you." Steve Martin

“Some people simply REFUSE to be happy. If they were stuck in a tunnel you can show them the way out and give them a light, but they will just sit there complaining about how they got there. They are more willing to fight to STAY there instead of fighting to coming out. Okay it happened. Now what? Stop focusing so hard on how you got there, focus on how you're going to get out! Keep it moving!”
― Yvonne Pierre