A few months ago, my beloved grandmother passed away. It was not entirely unexpected, but the passing of such a cherished and monumental person in my life threw me into a tailspin. My world suddenly looked different and took on a different meaning. In some moments I didn’t recognize myself and in other moments I feel like I reverted emotionally to the person I was as a child. They say that the death of someone close to you changes your perspective on life, and I can certainly vouch for that.

Trigger warning: sensitive content

Do you think it’s your job to fix everyone? Or just one or two people? Do you think that other people’s happiness is dependent upon you and what you do or say or how you act?

Let’s go over a few definitions together:

Justice is righteousness. Righteousness is freedom. Freedom is liberation.

Darkness is absence of light. Light allows vision. Darkness is blindness.

Hatred is hostility and avoidance. Love is attachment and devotion. Hatred and love cannot coexist. Avoidance and attachment are opposites.

Devotion is dedication to a cause. A cause necessitates action.

Are there any train lovers out there? Specifically, are there any tunnel lovers out there? I absolutely love tunnels. I love everything about them – their darkness, cave-like qualities, echoes, and the fact that almost always, there is literally a light at the end. I have driven through tunnels dug into mountains, giant underground tunnels carrying foot and automobile traffic underneath large cities, and I have walked through tunnels underneath streets and carved into the trunks of giant redwoods in California. The whole concept of tunnels and their different types fascinates me. Plus, echoes, amiright?

Here we are, New Year’s Day, January 1, 2019. I’m glad that 2018 is gone. It was a tough year with love, loss, hardship, frustration, and opportunity. I’m thankful for the personal growth I achieved, and for the self-awareness that has started to blossom out of being deliberate with my thoughts and time, but now it’s time to move to the next level. 2018 left me feeling unfulfilled, like there’s more out there.

May I be honest? I hate making resolutions. It’s not that I don’t want to make progress or make positive changes in my life. It’s that when I make resolutions, unless I have a really good idea of how I’m going to actually act out my resolutions, I end up at the end of the year not accomplishing much and feeling like a failure and feeling defeated. Which makes it highly unlikely that I’ll make any more resolutions for the next year. I hate making resolutions because they don’t work.

So let’s talk about health and fitness.

Yes, two days before Christmas. I’m not going to lie, I have hesitated to write about my story because it’s very raw, personal, and I have to get pretty vulnerable. So what the heck, why not share it with the world, right?

I went on a trip by myself this past weekend for the first time since having kids. It was the first time I had flown in over ten years, so I was a little nervous, but excited. I like flying – the airport people watching, the convenience, the ability to sit and rest or read or listen to music while launching hundreds of miles per hour toward your destination, shimmery city lights glistening in the inkwell below, orange and pink cotton candy clouds with nothing but blue sky above. There’s nothing quite like witnessing dark, jagged mountains silhouetted against a radiant sunset or seeing chains of lakes which resemble the water droplets leftover on the sink after brushing your teeth.

I wrote this letter a couple months prior to having my second child.

My precious children,

Life is full of choices. Things do not happen for an unknown reason. Things happen because of our decisions—not because of luck, and not because you or anyone else is entitled to anything. You can only control your own choices, not those of others. Good things are earned and should be celebrated; they happen as a result of hard work, determination, and perseverance. Perfection is impossible; excellence is not. Bad things happen, but even then, life is still good and lessons can be learned.

Let me tell you a story. When we lived in Tucson several years ago, we had a two-year-old, it was about 10 pm and we were totally out of diapers. There were none on the changing table, none in the closet, and none in the diaper bag. I know there are fellow parents reading this who have been there, done that. A certain, unnamed discount merchandiser to the rescue, right? Our daughter was in bed, asleep, so while my husband stayed home with her and finished up a couple of work assignments, I relished the alone time and drove down the darkened outer road next to the freeway the almost three miles to the store, parked in the well-lit parking lot, walked inside, found my diapers, checked out, and then walked back out into the parking lot to head for my car. I probably should have been, but I honestly wasn’t thinking at all about my safety at that moment in time.