Life and loss

Thoughts on Life-Headed Into 2018: Each New Year Gives Us a New Opportunity to Eat the Cake and Be Present

Leave a comment

When I was 20 and 30 I never imagined I would grow old(er). I was too busy with my life to have such concerns. I was young, sexy and fly; I was a career woman and a mother of 4 children; I was a wife, a student, a reader, party girl, and a troubled soul. I was on my journey. I was busy doing me. Who has time for such worries at that age?

When we are in college, starting careers, dealing with our relationships, and later our marriages, at the club, caught up in our drama, busy raising kids, and doing our thing, we never think we will grow old. Nor do we think anything will happen to us. We aren’t thinking retirement, illness or the impact of divorce. We just lived and had fun!

One of the things that 2017 gave me, was the chance to turn 54. I don’t feel like I’m 54, but it’s real. I’m a grown ass woman! I’m wondering where the years went, and what the future holds. Today, all of it’s on my mind(see above). Not in a bad way, but it’s on my mind.

That said, I’m grateful to be here and to be “holding up”, but make no mistake, time keeps ticking “into the future”, as the song says. Eventually, father time and mother nature win. In the meantime, I plan to seize my moments.

Know this: you will never be as young as you are right now. Enjoy each age that you are blessed to be. Each year, that you are blessed to see. Tomorrow is not promised.

Leave nothing on the table. Be present. Love hard. Dance like no-one is watching. Use the good China, and spray on the good perfume. Eat the cake! Wear the fancy dress and the expensive suit. Buy the “red bottoms” and wear them! Say what you need to say. Take the trip. Kiss the guy or girl (with consent of course). Play the music. Make the call! Wear the red matte lipstick! Love on your parents and family. Smile! And take the selfies! Capture the moments!

Remember Amanda Davis(the ATL news anchor) was at the airport the other day, headed to see her family and attend a funeral in another state, when she had a massive stroke at the airport, she later passed away at the hospital. Instantly! Just like that! Here one minute, gone the next. I’m struggling with that. She was 62!

Anyway…

Cherish your life, and love on the people who matter. Go into 2018 on fire and present! YOLO!

By Rhonda E. Frost

12/30/2017

I Won’t Complain… Not About My Life, the Traffic, the Weather, My Setbacks-or Nothing Else

Leave a comment

I won’t complain. Not today. Not about anything. And certainly not before considering all the suffering around me. There are wives who have lost their brave Veteran husbands in an ambush in Niger.  These women woke up today forced to deal with the fact that they will be raising their babies without their spouse. There are people in Sierra Leone who’ve lost their family members in mudslides that buried their homes in the blink of an eye, and left the living in disbelief and despair.

There are families who recently lost loved ones at the hands of a domestic terrorist in Las Vegas, lives snatched from them by a man who decided to murder people as they simply enjoyed music, during a night out. There are hundreds of thousands of people without food, water, or medicine in Puerto Rico, and all over our world. These stories and images tear at my heart and render me unable to complain about my life.

Consider also, that there are people struggling and suffering everywhere, people with severe disabilities, cancer, sick parents and children and issues we can’t even wrap our brains around, and they keep getting up and keep finding a way to live on. This video sums it up and forces us to put things in perspective.

So no, today, I won’t complain. And I encourage you to follow suit. Before you open your mouth to talk about how bad your life is, or complain about the traffic, your boss, the neighbor, financial situations etc, just give a moment of silence to others who are hurting and in need of comfort and basic necessities.

Today, instead of my own pity party, I will list the things I am grateful for and meditate on those things, while sending out heartfelt prayers, love and peace to others.

No, I won’t complain, because comparatively speaking, all of my good days, outweigh my bad days, and nothing that is happening in my life even compares.