The Greatest Summer

Remember all the things I was going to do this summer? It was a short list but had two things in it I'd never done and wanted to do, try to do photography professionally and publish one short story.  Perhaps you'd like to know how it's gone? I was so gung ho and shared it with you guys to hold me to it. 

I didn't. I didn't even start down that road. Instead I have two jobs, one redoing a website for the NCSU Biology department and another playing super girl who can do everything and replace anyone in the front office of a Dermatologist's office. Far cry from what I wanted isn't it?  Life happened as it often happens to us, fast. What I needed to do for the summer changed three weeks into it based on decisions that I did not control. It's a long story...

I have a friend, he likes to say that planning is like peeing into the ocean. He's right. Life is less about always achieving my goals and more about making them and then practicing holding them lightly, not grasping them so tightly that I go down with them when they're lost at sea. And as I watched those plans be swept away this summer I eventually smiled as they disappeared because there is always tomorrow. Tomorrow will be full of new plans, new goals and new challenges. The sea that I am continually challenging will flow around me and through me making me the a woman of greater insight, compassion and perspective.

 

Truthfully, I love the Biology job. My boss is a brilliant woman, a neuroscientist, and I enjoy chatting with her talking about big plans for the department and for the website. I'm directing the automation of the site to keep it's updating painless and later I will tweak its layout and give the pages better focus. It's something I'm very good at and it's nice to be the expert sometimes.

The dermatologist job is teaching me how a Dr's office is run. The daily grind of keeping one alive and well. This is an amazing opportunity if I should ever decide to run my own someday. 

Currently...

...I'm trying to write secondaries. Secondaries are the second application that all medical schools require you to fill out. Most have 3-5 essays they want you two write, no two the same. I have come down with a viral case of writer's block and each paragraph is a physical fight. I fish words from my brain like I fish broken bits of eggshells from my eggs in the morning. It each word is an elusive hunt often not meshing with the one before. It will get done... once I'm done writing this. 

...my father-in-law lays dying, his tubes disconnected, life flowing from his body. Life is short and it's not worth getting too spun up about.

After running around Lake Lynn this morning I stopped by the grocery store and heard this song. It reminded me of my plans this summer of all the plans I've made over the years and failed at completing, plans that I may never get to complete... It's all about perspective...

The Greatest 

by Kenny Rogers

...He makes no excuses, He shows no fears
He just closes his eyes and listens to the cheers

Little boy, he adjusts his hat
Picks up his ball, stares at his bat
Says I am the greatest the game is on the line
And he gives his all one last time

And the ball goes up like the moon so bright
Swings his bat with all his might
And the world's so still as still can be
And the baseball falls, and that's strike three

Now it's supper time and his mama calls
Little boy starts home with his bat and ball
Says I am the greatest that is a fact
But even I didn't know I could pitch like that.