The Musings of A Wandriously Flawed Introvert

Imagine getting off work on Friday night (after 4 weeks of work crazy) wanting nothing more than to go home and practice some self-care (for me that looks like cooking a nice meal and being introverted). You go to the grocery store and get the makings for a new recipe (and spend less than $30!!). When you get home, a roommate has been there and cooked something leaving all the dirty dishes in the sink, pans on the stove and messes on the counters. Yes, this happened to me recently. It was one of those weeks at work. I was definitely craving normalcy after 3 short work weeks due to the holidays and then an ice storm that trapped people indoors for 3 days. Friday night led to no plans except to just cook a nice meal and relax. After going to the grocery store, I walked in the kitchen and it is almost destroyed. A roommate had cooked something that used a lot of pans and dishes. Instead of cleaning up the mess, she left it there and left for her Friday night plans. Imagine my extreme

2016 was hard on so many levels...not just for me, but for a lot of people I know and in our nation in general. In the midst of the darkness, a lot of good happened and I learned a lot about people. The thing I noticed most is that people are resilient. Very, very resilient. Especially those people who know Who makes our plans and is in ultimate control. What I've discovered is how encouraging it is to see how people handle tough situations. Makes me appreciate them even more in the good times. So even though this year was hard, it was still beautiful because people are beautiful and authenticity comes out in the most unexpected ways. Let's make a point to search for the beauty in our most painful situations...even if it is in hindsight. May we all listen a little better, love a little harder, laugh a little louder and dance a little longer!

“Change is the only constant.” How true a statement that is, especially in today’s world. Thanks to social media and technology, we are all chasing happiness and the next big thing (whatever that looks like for you). We struggle to find our joy and contentment. With this past year came a lot of disruption in what I like...consistency. A lot of change. External change. Internal change. Good friends moved. Others got married. Still others received job promotions or new jobs. People bought houses. Relationships began and others ended. Favorite co-workers moved on. Then there’s the internal change. The change you can feel all the way down to your bones. The kind that can be incredibly painful, yet worth it and the kind that only those people closest to you can see. You start changing your toxic behaviors after you say enough to the bottomless pit of darkness. A lot of times, we can’t see the internal change within ourselves. Many times this year, I felt left behind, stuck, going nowhere. A

So much beauty can be found in the mundane, in the day to day. Observe your routine day. Notice the people and things around you. The big moments are amazing and unforgettable and I think we put too much  .  emphasis on the BIG. It’s in the mundane that the most precious memories are made. Life is in sitting on your friend’s couch laughing at each other’s ridiculous word plays, it’s in driving 2.5 hours one way to spend 3.5 hours with your very best friend, it’s in doing life tog ether, it’s in the spontaneous phone calls from long distance friends, it’s in dinner parties and Friday night movie nights, it’s in grabbing the fancy camera and documenting some life, it’s in paying for airfares to go visit with the people who mean the most to you, it’s in being so broken that you finally let someone in, it’s in encouraging people, it’s in learning how to repair relationships rather than just tossing them aside, it’s in listening to people say “I’m here for you” and finding out who actually