Every so often, I’ll be keenly aware just exactly where I’m at. It happens a lot when I’m driving home through little Georgia roads, twisting and turning around farms and giant Magnolia trees. The thoughts come at me all at once: I live in Georgia! I have a completely different life! I own a home! I have a cat! I have a good job! I own my car! And it’s then that I turn up the radio and try to soak it all in. Wow, I’ve come along way to get here.
It’s a place that I thought would take so much longer to get to, but here I am. Even when things are difficult and hectic and crazy busy, I’m humbled by gratitude and filled with thanks. Coming home is a ritual that I will never tire of.
Take off shoes, hang up keys, scratch Echo (who’s always stretched on the living room floor waiting for me), rummage through the fridge for dinner possibilities, turn on music and cook. I pick fresh rosemary and tomatoes from the garden, I manage to not trip over the mewing cat intertwined around my ankles, I relax after a long day. Somehow this process has created itself, and if it’s repetition makes me boring – then let it be so.
It’s fun when hungry friends come to call, looking for the evening specialty. I enjoy the company, the jokes and the random sharing of life’s tidbits. But I’m perfectly ok to do all this alone, in my spongebob pajamas with my hair in a ponytail. I don’t mind one bit. There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely. And I am not lonely.
With a sleeping kitty by my side, a lovely song filling the air and skewered shrimp marinating and begging to be grilled … I say thanks to the generous and loving forces that helped me get here (you know who you are). Life is delicious these days, and oh, so satisfying.
