It is now April and I finally saw my 1st Robin..........

I had to get sick to appreciate this.  On April 3rd, I came down with a vicious stomach flu.  The "2 exits, no waiting" type.  The "I think I just went 12 rounds with Sugar Ray and lost" type.  I spent most of the day (when not in the bathroom) curled into the fetal position and hoping to die, and please God, soon!  But even with all this sickness, I still had to drive #1 son to work and go get him when work was over.  I had to drive #2 son to night school, and go get him when school was over.  I hoped the massive stroke would hit me while stopped at a light.  Anything for the pain to stop.

I don't care what the calendar says, for me, Spring officially begins when I see my 1st robin.  Everyone else in the state has seen them, but not I.  But on my sick day, as I hung precariously between returning to bed or just staying in the bathroom, lo and behold, out the window was a robin.  Close enough to hear his (her?) singing, see the red breast, and even though I was convinced in my soul of souls that I would see my own demise soon, I finally know that Spring is here. Had I not been sick, I would not have seen this robin.

Spring.  Rebirth.  All things made new.  The purging of the land to make way for new growth.  Isn't that what I've been doing lately? No, I don't mean just on April 3rd, where I purged ALOT, but since January.  Purging our abode from all things extra and overwhelming.  Growth.  Realizing that giving up and giving away are not one in the same.  That value is something we all have, when we have nothing else.  It is not always a question of who you are, but of what "who you are" means to you.  I feel comfortable with the "who you are" question.  Maybe that is due to age.  In my 20's, I was all about having fun, live hard, live fast and die young, leaving a good looking corpse.  In my 30's, it was all about "settling down".  Starting a family.  Finding out who God was and whether or not he was important to me.  In my 40's, it was about combining the work I enjoyed with the life I wanted to live.  Now in my 50's, it's about defining what life I want to live and how to accomplish and or combine that with the work I am doing.  Yeah, I know, the last two are kinda jumbled up.  One would have thought the logical idea would have been to define the life I want THEN how to change the life I have with the life I want, but sometimes I tend to put the cart before the horse. My old ADHD kicking in.  Anyway, it's through the reexamining of my life that I am able to see who I am and what I value and where I want to be.  Sometimes, you have to look back to see ahead. Or look out a window, where God will show you your sign of spring.....