Appreciating Life

I firmly believe life is a lot richer when you appreciate both the simplicity and the complexity of it.

It is a chilly day in Southern California today. But man, is that blue sky clear and is the air crisp! Simple things that make me appreciate the day more. It keeps my good mood going all day long.

People ask me "How can you survive being away from your family and the person you love for so long?" Simple: because it's worth it. Aren't the greatest things in life worth fighting for? My fight now will allow me to enjoy the love of a great man for years to come, a better life with more financial stability because of the struggles we're enduring while he's serving his country.

I read somewhere that life is a series of circles- small and large. Sooner or later we will end up back at the beginning of all the circles we started. Some circles are joined, some are aligned, and we all must walk the circles we start. While that terrifies me for some of the mistakes I've made in my past to reach their beginning again. It also gives me great hope. Hope is the most precious of all things- it keeps us going when things are at its darkest. My hope is that my circle with my family hasn't completed, that I'll be back to where I started with them in a few short years.

How many times have I come to a situation and thought, "Well isn't this a coincidence?" To me that's a point that we've reached a circle's beginning again. I made friends online that lived in CA, and now suddenly I live only a few hours away from them. My friend is a traveling nurse and is making part of her travels in CA now. My circles continue.

It's the complexity of things that happen by coincidence, or fate or destiny if you like to believe, that make me smile and think, "What a funny thing life is." When I think I've said goodbye to someone and they come back into my life- another circle continues. One of my favorite Heath Ledger movies, "The Four Feathers" makes a wonderful point: "God put you in my path!" People are put in my path to help me or for me to help them. Maybe it's just a moment in life, maybe it's for my lifetime.

It's all part of my circles, and sometimes it just amazes me.