Better Late Than Never

Here she is, just as I promised. 

Isn't she lovely? Look at that smile, those friendly eyes, and that gorgeous natural silver hair. (My dad refers to his as platinum blond.)

When I first spotted her, she was walking in the opposite direction way across the concourse in the Chicago airport. I did a double-take. Hey! That's the same kind of naturally gorgeous silver locks I'm trying to cultivate! 

Then the battle:  

Should I track her down and tell her I like her hair? 

Don't be silly. Walking up to a stranger in the middle of the Chicago airport on a Thursday just to tell her you love her silver strands is ludicrous. We do not do ludicrous. 

Oh, okay. 

So I steered myself back to my gate, stuffed my ears with earbuds, and listened to Switchfoot's Gone. Tried to concentrate on blending in to my chair. But on my second time through the song, when they got to the part that says, "She believes in living bigger, bigger than she's living now," I hoisted myself off the plastic and went in search of that particular silver-haired woman. In the midst of a swarm of hundreds.

Against many odds, I finally found her in the food court. She looked so pleasant that introducing myself and telling her I loved her hair wasn't so hard after all. Although I was nervous and didn't learn as much as if I'd been a braver version of myself, I did learn these things:

• Ruth and her husband Dave raised their three kids in Chicago. Since Dave is self-employed, they decided to cut loose seven years ago and make a move based on pure fun.
• So they up and moved to a little town called Norway, Maine, and bought a house with three acres on a lake.
• Their kids thought they were crazy.
• Ruth and Dave are having the time of their lives.

I want to be more like Ruth--silver hair, crazy moves, and having the time of my life. 

What if I hadn't renounced my airport chair and gone in search of the silver-haired lady? I would have been fine, but I also would have missed out on exercising my brave muscles. Even worse, I would have missed inspiration in the flesh. I'm so glad I did it. Even if it took me a year to tell you about it.

How about you? Do you have an "airport chair" you need to break up with? Think what you could be missing! 

Chains That Bind You

Photo by mconners.

In 2011, I posted about grief--to help me move through mine and hopefully help someone else move through theirs. Then I trumpeted 2012 with a January prescription to Take Joy. And fell silent for 11 months.

What happened? March came, and I meant to post about a lovely silver-headed woman I met in the Chicago airport. Her hair was so stunning that I spent 15 minutes of my layover trying to find her so I could tell her how beautiful her natural silver was. When I found her, she answered all my questions and graciously gave her permission for me to write about her on my blog.

Which I never did. Never even posted her picture.

Big deal, right? It's not like anyone died because of my procrastination or fear or busy-ness or whatever it was. Right? Right.

But this did happen: In the crack of that broken promise, something sneaky and life-sucking (shame and disappointment in myself) wormed its way in and rendered me motionless. 

So I've decided to fight back. I'm taking up the banner of Better Late Than Never and am going to tell you in my next post about Ruth. She'll probably never see I kept my promise to her, and for that I'm sorry. But I'm keeping my promise to me, and that's a big matter.

Are you blocked in your life somewhere? My experimental recipe might help you: Think back to right before you encountered that block. Did you promise something to yourself or someone else and fail to follow through? Go back and do it. No matter how stupid you feel or how much time has passed or how little you think it matters. And if you can't do it and it involves another person, swallow your pride and apologize to that person if you can. 

Unless you enjoy having a blockage you can't get around.

I'm cheering for you from over here. Let me know how it goes.