Living Happily Ever After

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Blog Articles

Even If It’s In Flames

“That corpse you planted last year in your garden, Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?” (T.S. Eliot)

No. Not in my garden. Here’s why.

Three years ago, when I lost my life (and pretty much everything else) in the aftermath of a Ponzi scheme, I moved to Utah. Along with my four children, I brought three peony plants from my Colorado yard I had uprooted and hauled several hundred miles in orange Home Depot buckets to transplant in our new yard. I’ve written about them before: one didn’t survive the journey, one made the journey and survived the first winter only to be uprooted by my youngest in his “chop down the new fruit trees and many other thriving plants with a plastic sword” phase, and the third, and final peony, bit the dust last week.

Not totally of its own volition, I confess. I just realized we’re entering the fourth growing season in our new life and while that peony has turned green every year, it has never bloomed. So last week I finally let my husband dig it up and remove it. We’re going to try something else in its place. Why?

Because life is too short to waste time NOT blooming.

I believe life isn’t meant to simply be “endured.”  I believe, instead, that life is a garden and we’ve all been given a patch of ground to do with it, to make of our life, what we will. Admittedly, all ground is NOT created equal. Some of us have a pretty easy, carefree row to till. Some have sandy soil; some are blessed with a rainforest (which has its own challenges); some have been planted in very difficult, rocky soil. And a few of us may not even be in any soil at all–but instead, like I found myself a few years ago, thrust into a pile of the absolute worst manure I’d never imagined! But regardless of the garden, or life, you’ve been transplanted to, you’ve got to bloom. Blossom. Achieve your dreams. Burst forth into something great. Let the soil of your experiences help you grow into something better than you’d have otherwise been. No matter what happens to you.

“I advise you to say your dream is possible and then overcome all inconveniences, ignore all the hassles and take a running leap through the hoop, even if it is in flames.” (Les Brown)

Game Report

“Failure is simply the non-presence of success. But a fiasco is a disaster of mythic proportions.” (Orlando Bloom)

The second soccer game was…a bit of a fiasco.

I dashed from work directly to the playing field, got caught in horrendous traffic, and made it there just in time for the start of the game. Not a moment to spare—or to change out of my work clothes. So once again, I coached in a skirt. But this time, in high heels as well!

I’m not sure why, maybe I didn’t look serious enough about soccer or sporty enough in my skirt and heels, but I experienced some coaching difficulties. I had dads on the sidelines sending boys into the game on their own; I had little boys arguing with me when I tried to rotate them out to give every boy a chance to play; and then one of my players got ejected from the game for getting a little too rough, hitting and wrestling the other players!

At the end of the quarter when the ejected boy was allowed to play in the game again, my son ran and welcomed him back with a quick wrestle—so the boy told the referee on MY SON! (Thankfully, the referee continued the game and I gave my son a quick reminder about not wrestling during soccer games, explaining AGAIN that we don’t wrestle during soccer games or we don’t get to play, as the playing continued on around us.)

The other coach/referee interacted with me so much during the game one woman on the sidelines approached and asked, “It that man your husband?”

As I walked to the sideline after that one, all I could do was shake my head and ask myself with a laugh, “HOW did THIS become MY life?”

I remembered, again, how far I’ve come in an unexpected life: divorced, traumatized financial disaster to remarried, at peace, first-time soccer coach in just two years! I recall shaking my head but not laughing, asking myself that very question in 2009 and having a very different answer. Proof again, and I can’t say it enough, that it IS possible to rise from the ashes of whatever misery you’re handed, to create a new life of happiness, to laugh and to eventually “win” again.

Yes it’s possible.

My son even scored four goals.

“We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.” (Dale Carnegie)

It’s Why We Play

My first soccer practice as assistant coach to a team of boys under age 6 was a lot like attempting to herd puppies!

But the boys, if smiles, laughs, giggles, wrestling and rough housing are any indication, had a fabulous time! (I’m still not sure how much they learned, but they sure seemed to have a good time.)

I attempted to teach kicking, passing, dribbling, and the game of soccer. They wrestled, rolled in the grass, took a lot of water breaks and rested.

As I walked to my car after an hour of attempting to coach/herd 9 little soccer-playing “puppies,” I had a thought I hadn’t had in over two decades: I don’t think I’m a poor sport, but maybe I’m too competitive to coach children?

“It’s why we play the game. Anything is possible, anything can happen, and we proved that again tonight.” (Casey Korkus)