Two Cards

Pinch your fingers together -- that illustrates how much free time you have. Your thoughtfulness this morning, just a couple cards, represent rare minutes carved out of your day -- and the fact that you remembered. Busting ass, making a living for your family and while at it, making the world a little better -- how deeply good that you have not had to compromise your dreams of doing right with the notion of making ends meet.

Years have flown by and turned to decades. Intertwined as pliant willows, strong alone but oh, so much preferred together we stand, linked willingly. Commitment is not an easy road, but nothing great, nothing life defining, was ever intended to be anything but hard, nuanced, full of funny turns and tricky bridges. Sticking to all this is not about deprivation but about digging deep and finding the best treasures. Deciphering maps yet believing in the guidance of stars.

Shared experiences, even occasional wrong turns, lend wisdom, yet keep open the dreamer's realms of ever-after potential. Jaded perspectives that rely on the inevitability of gray clouds and undesired solitude are kept at bay one kind word at a time, one thoughtful deed at a time, one laugh at a time. We were like kids when we started -- it really has been a while. Ages and eons. Selectively, intentionally, we keep that part of us fresh as we play the grown up, the professional, the sage adult. A little irreverence goes a long way, keeps the perspective real.

It is said, better to read the whole book than a whole load of first chapters. Chapter 18 completed, Chapter 19 and a thousand single spaced pages await. May our denouement be a distant and happy resolution, but only after whatever is to come has done so, and taken its merry time.