One Little Word Revisited

It's always sort of amazing to me when puzzle pieces that make up life all just kind of fall together to make the perfect picture at just the right time. As I mentioned in my last post, I've really been thinking a lot about my happiness lately, and that has caused me to do a lot of reading, reflecting and, although they have been teeny tiny baby steps... changing, too.

At about the same time as I was writing my Happiness post, my close friend shared this quote (which she typed as she watched and rewatched the scene) from Eat, Pray, Love:

"We haven't had much communication lately and its given me time I needed to think. A friend took me to the most amazing place the other day its called the Augustium. Octavian Augustus built it to house his remains. When the Barbarians came they trashed it along with everything else. The Great Augustus, Rome's first true great emperor- how could he have imagined that Rome, the whole world as far as he was concerned, one day would be in ruins. It is one of the quietest and loneliest places in Rome. The city has grown up and around it over centuries. It feels like a precious wound, like a heartbreak you won't let go of because it hurts too good. We all want things to stay the same, we settle for living in misery because we are afraid of change. We are afraid of things crumbling into ruins. Then I looked around in this place at the chaos its endured. The way it's been adapted, burned, pillaged, and found a way to build itself back up again and I was reassured. Maybe my life hasn't been so chaotic, it's just the world that is. The only real trap is getting attached to any of it. Ruin is a gift, ruin is the road to transformation even in this Eternal City. This has taught me that we must always be prepared for endless waves of transformation."

The part of this quote that really hit me was the line that talks about living in misery because we are afraid of change. It's very easy to spend so much time pining for the "way things used to be" that we forget it's possible that what we have now and what will be are and could be even better. If we're willing to open our eyes and see what's happening. That's what I was doing - so busy looking back I forgot to notice truly how good things are now, despite the challenges.

Another piece fell into place during an appointment yesterday. I haven't talked about it here on the blog, but on February 1 I fell while we were on our field trip. Hard. I did some significant damage to my leg. Sadly, and this has been confirmed by several different professionals, if I had broken my leg I would be healed and back to normal by this point. Unfortunately that isn't the case, but I was able to start a new round of physical therapy at a new location yesterday. This puzzle piece was important to be because I have truly been at a loss since this injury. I haven't been healing and haven't been moving forward. Meeting with my new (although I've worked with her before) physical therapist helped me feel that, while my future prognosis for my knee is not a positive one, I can move forward from the injury and get back to doing things that I had enjoyed.

As I was sitting here continuing to read my books, to make some plans, and to think about everything that's happened the last few days, it dawned on my that I couldn't remember what my One Little Word was for this year. I had been so mindful of my word the last two years, and here I couldn't even remember what I had picked for 2013! Imagine my surprise when I looked back to my blog post and saw that I had picked SELF! My post from that day late in December doesn't sound a whole lot different than what I've been saying here, I'm just much farther removed from myself than I was just 6 months ago. Seeing that was like a little kick in the pants. "You knew what was going on! Why have you waited this long to do something about it?"

I guess my only answer to why I've waited is that I'm finally ready to do something about it. We'll see how this little happiness project goes towards getting me back to finding my self.