My grandma is going to get a surprise today. I hope she’s home.
Mostly because I wanted to tell her thank you for taking me birthday shopping, partly because her birthday was last week, and partly just because, she’s getting flowers delivered to her house.
I wish I could be there when the UPS guy comes. “Oh, mercy me!“, she’ll probably exclaim.
I was looking online for a book called What Happy People Know and in the Amazon list, there was a book called The 100 Simple Secrets of Happy People. I thought, wait a minute, that book sounds familiar. It’s true – it was a high school graduation gift from my Mom, complete with an inscription that I had completely forgotten about.
Starting today, I think I’ll read one at a time.
You are not here just to fill space or to be a background character in someone else’s movie. Consider this: nothing would be the same if you did not exist. Every place you have ever been and everyone you have ever spoken to would be different without you.
I am someone’s wife. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s granddaughter. Someone’s sister. Someone’s friend. Someone’s ex-girlfriend. Someone’s lust object (hey, a girl can dream, right?).
Keeping that in the back of my head at all times keeps me hopeful. I may be nothing more to the driver of the car next to me than “the person in the lane I need to be in,” but to someone else, I’m everything.
Who would Oscar marry instead? Would my brother be an only child? Would my grandparents have a granddaughter? Would a different friend fill my role if I was needed?
I keep battling within myself about wanting to connect purpose to a higher authority, but it doesn’t have to relate. You can have purpose and meaning without a deity, although I know it’s easier for some people to automatically make that connection. For me, though, I think I’m content feeling purpose in just being.
To quote my favorite, Tim Kasher: “Maybe you’ve been given to this world to make a difference. Such delusions we all struggle with, but the beautiful truth of it is: this is all we are, we simply exist.”
Wow, never really looked at it that way. I think I need to read that book.
Esther – I have a better idea. You can plan a trip and you can look through it while you’re here. 🙂