A couple years back, I was given a gift of a medium, cream marble box. The lid was engraved beautifully with the ABC’s of Life; 26 different sayings for each letter of the alphabet. Each one optimistic, wise, thoughtful and beautiful in its simplicity. There was not one that I did not agree with. At the time I received the gift, I was determined to live my life by these short idioms. As time passed, they became more of an afterthought than a way of life. I thought about them on random occasions, but was never really present to their meaning and impact on my life.
About a week ago, I was pulling out a pair of my once favorite earrings from the box, that I had not worn for quite some time. Trinkets that while I still loved, I had forgotten about. As I was putting on my earrings, my eyes wandered over the engraved words. I found myself nodding as I read each one and even smiling as I envisioned how I had or had not been following them. Examining them forced me to examine my own life in that moment and not to my surprise, I realized how melancholy and apathetic I was about my life and how unpassionate I felt about anything and everything.
I was -less, the suffix meaning lacking. I was joyless. I was hopeless. I was aimless. I was angerless. I was goalless. Okay, you get the point. How did that happen? When did that happen and when did I become so accepting of feeling this way, because I was so clearly not surprised but more unaware of it on a conscious level until that moment. I was happy at one point, I was full of joy and emotion at one point.
Momentarily lost and feeling trapped, by some stroke of divine intervention, I had an idea that I should write about each one of the ABC’s of life and bring it into my life and live that one phrase for a week. I realized it is time to LIVE, to no longer be on the sidelines, but on the playing field of my life.
As it turns out some of these short phrases are perplexing and may cause greater contemplation than I originally anticipated they would need and have decided not to set a time frame for my examination, but rather let it flow until I feel that I have gained some insight and feel that I have opened to a new way of seeing the world and with luck be a little wiser, and feel that I am a little more of everything rather than less.
Here’s to the journey of life…….
Live. Love. Laugh. 