I had a completely different blog post planned. It was all set up here, graphics inserted, thoughts aligned, but as I kept trying to get it written the phone kept ringing. So many people called today. A lot of good news, tender news, poignant things, celebratory things, things that made me cry, things that made me think, things that made me wonder how to move forward. I’m still thinking, and the blog post I had started I put aside until another day.

I could say all kinds of things. But like today when I spoke to two different neighbors and we talked about this time we each kind of smiled and shook our heads and said, in essence, right now, here, in Wilmington (Post Hurricane Florence) we all have our stories. As I talked to one neighbor, looking back over my shoulder toward my house looking at a huge hardwood tree that overhangs the back of my house with gigantic dead branches dangling and so many other trees and branches that need to be taken down, and knowing that I won’t even be able to think about even those things for awhile now because one week ago my tiny Delilah ended up with an emergent situation that we are still dealing with and will be for some time, it struck me — that is life — at least that is my life right now, and will be for some time. I kept hoping and wanting and trying to make everything “normal” but the “normal” I knew is gone. Where do I go from here?

What I said, what we all said, in essence, was that “this is my story and we all have our stories, and we are all doing the best that we can.” And you know what? Even I, with this 2nd year of daily blogging, making it such a BIG DEAL to do this daily blogging, but struggling, in the face of lack of sleep and too many hard things piling up, wonder if this blogging is all so important after all? Well, obviously it is important to me, I’m still here, but I have been buffeted about by more than I could have ever dreamed and in this moment I just don’t know what to do with any of it.

I can tell you that I care, I care deeply. I can tell you that I have been doing work that matters to me, and I have, that is absolutely true, but I can also tell you that I have sometimes held fast and pushed myself to try to carry on in the face of well, let’s see how to put this, the Universe perhaps saying, “That was a good idea but I have other plans for you.” When so many things happen, when so much piles up, you wonder.

I will say this, I am not making any decisions about anything. And you have no idea how healthy that is for me to say that, because the bipolary part of me has historically wanted to leap into a decision just to HAVE a decision because uncertainty felt scary. But I have been dealt a brutal reality. What with a hurricane and a sick little dog and financial considerations and life changes around me that I have no control over, I have fought hard to try to hold on and keep on keeping on, but the harder I try to push forward, to try to maintain some kind of status quo to try to (and I am well aware that this may be in my own mind only) make other people happy the more it all seems to be unraveling. There is a lesson here. I can’t quite see clearly what it is, but it is like the thing I have so often talked to my students about over the last decades. It is a Magic 8 Ball kind of time.

You remember the Magic 8 Ball? Of course younger people know them too, they still make them, but not like the ones we had when I was young. I almost bought one, sometime in the last year, just to have one, from a sense of nostalgia, but was shocked to find out that while they looked the same they are very different. It is a simple black ball that has an “8” on it, the premise being that you ask it a question and turn it over for the answer. There is a little window on the bottom and when you turn it over an answer comes up from the murky depths. When I was young the answers were, ‘Yes, No, Maybe?” The ones I saw had a multitude of answers. It ruined everything. In life we don’t have lots of answers. Life is more ambiguous than that. Yes, No, or Maybe is sufficient. It doesn’t really answer anything, but it doesn’t need to, because there really are no answers, only living life, day by day, as best we can.

I have stopped frantically searching for answers. I don’t have any and no one can hand them to me. I can tell you this, it is an autumn night, I am tired, so tired, my little pugs are snoring beside me. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but I have this night, and on this night I am wishing you well, and I am doing my best, and I am making no promises, nor will I live with any regrets. I will do what I can, I will let go of the rest, and I will accept, with gratitude, the gifts each day brings, and there are many.

The days ahead will hold much, there are only 2 months left in the year. I have no expectations, I just want to live each day as best I can. That, in and of itself, is an amazing gift. I will make no promises, I will allow all of life to flow in, I will do the best that I can. There can be nothing more than this. It is enough.