This has been a crazy week with the debates and then comments from media persons using the r-word.  It has “ticked” off a lot of people and rightfully so.  I went to bed last night with a stomachache after reading that someone referenced President Obama as acting like the R-Word.  Really?  This is the word we are trying to teach our children to STOP using. We have have taken it out of our vocabulary.  Why oh why do people think it is OK to use that word.  It is not tolerated by any other group in our society.  It is not ok to call others derogatory names.   I just don’t get it.

When I woke up this morning I flipped on the Today show.  In our house the mornings are usually so crazy there is no time to even grab a sip of coffee, let alone watch a segment on the Today show but for whatever reason today was different.  Maybe there was a reason for that.  Maybe I needed to hear.  Today they profiled a young girl who photographed herself in her bra and underwear and posted it on the internet.  She posted it because she was proud of her appearance.  She wanted to send the message that everyone should be proud of themselves no matter what size they happen to be.

 

They went on to profile a gay couple and their road to the birth of their twin’s.  They named this segment “The New Normal”.  I love it!  Because our world is “the new normal”.  Some of us have a larger figure.  Some of us are short.  Some of us married our high school sweetheart and some of us never married at all.  There are some of us that are able to have kids and there are some of us that have more difficulty having children.  Some of us attend ivy league schools and some of us barely scrape through jr college.  I could go on and on, but you get the gist…..we are all different.  We all have different strengths and we all have weaknesses.  It was refreshing to see a news program embracing others, and embracing different.  It made my day.

Life is hard….we all know that but when we stop sweating the small stuff and instead enjoying the journey…… life gets just a little bit easier.  We are blessed to live in this awesome world filled with so much opportunity to connect, share and learn from each other.  I sometimes become over whelmed by all the possibilities.  We all could stand alittle “step out of the box” moment a couple times a week.  You know the moments when you are startled and your fire starts to flicker in your belly again.  The ones where you have that ah-ha moment (as Oprah would say) and you remember why you love being around people that are different from yourself.  The type of people that offer you something good to think about and make your day interesting.

I attended the most beautiful wedding this weekend and during one of the speeches we were all reminded that the gold medal is not about the ending.  It is about the journey to the end.  That has been running through my mind all week.  Those words are so very powerful.  It is yet another reminder that enjoying the journey is what it is all about.  I hope my journey continues to be colorful, different and unexpected because that makes me so very happy!  OXOXO