Jumping in Puddles

We recently changed our whole life, my family and I. Careers that stalled out, the slow and painful loss of money that was never really there to begin with, and a move from a warm and sunny spot on the coast to the rainy Northwest. It's been a big transition for all of us. Starting over in your 40s is truly unnerving. But we're here now and making our way; rebuilding our life and hoping for the best. We now have two amazingly wonderful and exhausting little ones (promise your weary mother that one day you'll both sleep through the night, pleeeeeease?!) and we've landed in a place that we think will work for them in the short-term but is wholly foreign to us. The 1970s house we're renting, the strip mall suburb we're living in, the rain, the cloudy days, and oh, did I mention the rain?

This is new ground and I admit that I'm pretty uneven in my dealing with this new ground; this unknowable future. My tendency of say, 40 years or so, is to go negative. I'm a life-long pessimist with worries that spiral in my head so that I can't sleep at night, even in the hours when my kids are actually sweetly snoring. I want to change this, I really do. I try. I heard a line in a song the other day - it was Lou Reed's version of "What a Wonderful World' and the line was "buscando la luz". Which I really want to do. I want to find the light in every day. I want to recognize and record those moments of pure joy, beauty, art, and love that occur like a flash of brilliance but then sometimes slip through the cracks in an otherwise exhaustive day. My hope is to eventually have more moments of joy than fear, worry, or negativity. This is no small task for me but I'm commited to trying.

The other day it rained. It rained for what feels like the millionth time in the five or so months we've been here (have I mentioned I'm prone to exaggeration?). Somewhere deep down my groan became audible and primal. My three year old daughter rightly ignored it, stated it was a "beautifwul' day (I'll mourn the day she starts to pronounce her f's without a w' following close behind) and declared her love for the rain. I asked why and she answered, so simply, "because we can jump in puddles!". And it's true. And we did. And like my daughter, I too will try to look at the rain not as my personal nemesis, but as an opportunity to jump in puddles. And we will look for the light, jump in puddles, and try to navigate our way through this crazy world. Luckily, I have my husband and kids to help guide me. Maybe it will even inspire another pessimist out there to recognize the beauty in their life and put on a big ol' pair of rubber boots and splash with all their might until they feel light and young and dizzy on the inside.

So let us begin...