Month: March 2015

This is probably a hard time for you. Some days I bet you are really angry and some days you probably just want to avoid people. Maybe it’s easier for you to reject that which rejected you or blame someone else for your situation. “We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.” (Ovid) Maybe you feel so much pain, that for a brief distraction, you decide to inflict pain on others. You probably wonder why this is happening to you. Maybe you even think you did something wrong.

You didn’t. One of the hardest lessons to deal with is not “making the cut”, being left out or feeling like an outsider. For some reason, we begin to think that we are inferior while believing that other people’s lives are perfect. Neither one is accurate. Almost everyone eventually feels left out or different or not good enough. It’s what makes us human. Ironically, while we are drawing lines between ourselves and others with competition and comparisons, we ALL feel the same stuff behind closed doors. Next time you feel left out, reach out to someone else who has felt the same (that’s everyone) and do something kind for them.

I became pregnant for the second time after 14 years of infertility. Even though I always wanted to be a family of five, my husband and I moved on from that dream many years prior. We had made peace with our family of four when we were hit with the biggest surprise of our life. I was pregnant! I can’t even begin to describe my disbelief.  With my husband’s medical infertility, this was truly a miracle.

An old friend of ours has a tradition of shouting out, Dad’s last cast!, when he’s fishing, just to play with fate and attempt to manipulate his fishing luck. I jokingly called our miraculous pregnancy, “Dad’s Last Cast”. It held on as long as it could.

I let it go in the Pacific in Costa Rica. In 8 weeks, I came to know it as a she, and she grew to fill the cup of my hand. I placed my hands in the water, eyes fixed, and with one current she was swept away. My eyes frantically searched for a flash of red, but the ocean graciously took her out of sight. It was a piece of me; a divine gift that I let go. Protective thoughts raced through my mind and my heart ached to nurture something that didn’t need nurturing. I was ready to charge at any bird that came near. I realized how much love had grown in the last couple months and what I was willing to do to protect it. It also made me see what I was not responsible for.