Surprises Are Not All About Fun

A while back I mourned the passing of surprises, saying that there were few anymore.  Perhaps still true but I am also learning to look in different places for surprises.  For example, all the tough times at work, though they shouldn't have been, are proving to be surprises.  I am surprised and disappointed at how much the notion of change (as in staff and grade configuration changes) is throwing me.  I've grown accustomed to working with these people, whether specific aged students or other staff people.  To think about a daily work life that does not include some of my adult friends and that adds a whole new dimension to the students for whom I am responsible, causes me to pause.  What's that about?  You, O'Neill, are the one who claims to embrace change.  So do it.  Yet it feels overwhelming and uncertain and , yes, sad.
Surprises are not necessarily fun.

Living is Messy

blood oozing and tracked across the world

tears blended with dust,  sadness, and frustration

dog drool dripped on dusty floors

with broken hearts only breaking masks 

and fragments of imagination in piles behind the door

the broken egg white mingling with bacon grease

fragrant with the empty nights  of the lonely

and death knocking at the back door

it is a messy life

not worthy of order

Breathe

It sounds so simple.  Breathe.  Just breathe.  Why is so hard to do?  Why is it so possible to forget to do that?  Yesterday, I went up to Bell Springs Road with Alex for the day.  There is something magical about that place - all you want to do is breathe.  Breathe in the expansiveness.  Breathe in the peacefulness, the colors, the feeling of being alive.  The families who live up there have created a warm community that thrives with their hard work and dedication.  It takes some doing to get there - the five miles of dirt road before arriving at the barn can be both beautiful and bothersome. But then you arrive to vistas that beg you to breathe in the silence and the tranquility.  Amen.

Love is an engraved invitation to grief.

"Love is an engraved invitation to grief." 
Interesting comment.  
When you take down the walls and let someone in, eventually there will be grief.  
Yikes!  Why would you ever invite someone in if you knew how much it was going to hurt later?