I have a friend on Facebook called Denise. She was a friend, more like an acquaintance actually, in high school, whom I always liked, but never knew very well. Before my twentieth high school reunion, I got back in touch with so many friends, classmates, even practical strangers from high school in anticipation of that reunion and the reconnecting was intoxicating. Whether currently or previously friends, nearly strangers or teammates, buddies, church friends, all of those people went through those developing years directly or peripherally attached to me. It was such a head trip. Where once one would walk off in to the sunset never to see or hear from some of these people again, there we all were...on Facebook. For better or worse, a little better than, certainly older than we once were walking through the hallways of FTHS.
I never thought I would care. I wanted out so desperately that I raced out of town, never looked back, and my parents' move from town when I was 19 years old, made it easy to forget from where I'd come. But nostalgia did get the better of me and I was curious. Though I'd signed on to Facebook at the request/invitation of a former lover, I got attached to it catching up with folks from high school. And it is here that Denise became my inspiration.
From what I have gathered, she endured a pretty crap marriage and hideous divorce but has emerged like a gorgeous butterfly with two incredibly articulate, artistic, caring, charming young boys, a gaggle of friends and family who love and support her, and a joie de vivre that makes me forget my stuck-in-tar shoes and try to take off into the world. Every morning. As she does. She is a teacher and artist, an incredible photographer, whose posts reveal that she is often to bed late and up before the sun, creating, thinking, dreaming, living. She works non-stop, writes words to motivate and inspire, sends love in abundance to her friends. Even when she is sick, she sees the blessings that life has given her and does not wallow.
The photos of her friends and family make me want in on her life. They beg me to have her in my life somehow, more. I dream of her taking photos of my life and my family so that we can remember and I can recall that we did live a charmed life and we were beautiful and life was good. Each morning when I just cannot imagine how I will exercise and write and maybe draw and clean and get the kids to their lessons and endure my suffering on a tropic island (said tongue in cheek), I consider her drive in to work (where there is always traffic and often snow or rain), her really doing it alone, her finding the silver lining, her patience, her love, her commitment , her spirit and think, you need to count your blessings, fool. Seize it, live it, love it. Crazy kids, wacky French husband and all. This is life.
In the unlikeliest places, one can find inspiration. One can see the signs. Now that is not to say that I don't have any complaints in me or that overnight I have become Mary Sunshine. That things don't somehow wear me down. That a bad night of sleep cannot leave me groggy and bitchy and tired. But I can learn and I am learning. We have teachers all around us if we choose to see them. And on this monstrously addictive social foolishness called Facebook, I have been inspired. Thanks, Denise. I look forward to your next post.
(c) Copyright 2011. City Mom in the Jungle.
No comments:
Post a Comment