Rose holding the sheep at the road

 September 6, 2008 – I understand that there is considerable anxiety around the idea of changing life, or even of living it in the way we might want. It is generally considered impossible, and there is no shortage of friends, experts, even relatives lining up to tell us why we can’t or shouldn’t. Sometimes, we don’t need anybody to tell us, as we are busy telling ourselves.
  I was reminded by something I read today to not only live my life, but to remember to love it as well. I love the farm. Walking the dogs, and doing things with them. Writing. Taking pictures. My friends, who fill me up with their richness. My family. This blog. The donkeys and cows, cats and dogs, even the goats, sometimes.
 I love hospice work, the people I’ve met there, the nurses who care for the sick and dying, the many people who encourage me, the woods and hills, dead leaves, and all kinds of light. I love misty mornings, and cold nights, kissing donkeys and giving a 3,000 pound steer some good time.
  I love troubles and challenges, chores and disappointments, because they require me to fight for what I want, and that it is never simple, or finished.
  I’ve come to understand that fear is dishonest, in that it rarely tells me the truth about what I can or can’t do, or should or shouldn’t do. And anxiety, unexamined, untreated, can be a poison.
   Things I never expected come into my life all the time, and things I never imagined losing come and go.
  I discover, relatively late in life, that I am full of love, and love all sorts of things I didn’t know I loved or could love. Including my life.