Pink Giraffe Musing

I wrote this one last summer.......never finished it.....til today. Sometimes I start writing posts, and come back to them months later.  Today, I clicked on this one....titled Brave only to discover I hadn't written anything.  Funny.  I wonder what my motivation was on that day.  I know what it is today. People often tell me I am strong.  Mostly, I think they are wrong.  I can see how I might I look that way to some of you.  Make no mistake, I am not.  I am not any stronger than you.  I don't think those of us who have faced loss are any stronger than the average person living the life of Riely. When hardship, loss, illness, or tragedy enter your life, you have two choices....to quit, or to keep going forward and write a new chapter that takes your story in a new direction.  Quitting is not an option.  At least not to me with two kids to raise.  And so you think I am strong. I look strong because I keep going forward.  I just keep putting one foot in front of th

Our world is full of motivational quotes, memes, and inspirational words that have conflicting messages.  Choose Joy, Bloom Where You are Planted, Beautiful things happen when you distance yourself from negativity, Be the Change ........... is it truly possible to bloom where you are planted, while being the change, and staying away from negativity?  Maybe.   I have always been a firm believer in Bloom Where You are Planted.  My lst job was in a middle school just a few blocks from inner city Cleveland.  I was 24, and had always been a suburbanite.  This job was a big step outside of my bubble.  I hung a Mary Englebreit poster in my classroom and held firm to the saying......"Bloom Where You Are Planted".  This quote makes me think of a weed growing and thriving in a crack in the sidewalk, and that may have been a little how I felt.  I took over the job mid semester.  I was replacing a really "cool" teacher (who smoked weed and skateboarded with the kids...