(A gift from Pat & Tom — photo credit: Grace Church)

Week #157 – Another Wave! (Reflections at the Three Year Mark)

Greetings Tribe — and Happy Friday!

Last week was a mash-up of anniversaries: Rob, the blog, 9/11.  The dates came at me faster than I could process.  Add to that the current activities in my day-to-day life — not to mention the events in Texas and Florida — and there was very little time to reflect.

I couldn’t catch my breath.

So I did what surfers are taught to do: go under.  I put my head down and let the white water roll over me.

It reminds me of a game that Rob and I used to play when we went to the shore as kids.  We called it “Over and Under.”  We would stand at the break line and call out a challenge as each wave rolled our way, “Over!” or “Under!”

“Over” meant we had to try to go over the wave.  If it was small or it hadn’t broken yet, this was easy.

But when the wave was big or it had already broken and the white water was on the move…the easiest and safest place to go was “under” the wave.

There is a permanence to Year Three.  Rob is gone.  Really gone.  And I will not see him again in this lifetime.

And yet, I will paddle out to catch another wave of Happyness this year.  And if I listen closely, I can hear him yelling to me once again: “Over!”

Your Happyness Challenge for the Week Ahead: OVER or UNDER?  Are waves coming at you faster than you can handle?  Or are they crashing so violently that you’re getting tumbled?  Don’t be afraid to go under it all.  It’s great pre-game talk to glorify running head-on into challenges and getting banged up in the process…but sometimes the safest (and most peaceful) place to be is UNDER the wave!

Spread Happyness — and find peace UNDER the waves this week!