Wednesday's Child

What is it with the Woe-factor? I think about it, and I believe it goes back to what we're told. I told someone I was born on a Wednesday, and according to a little poem I must somehow be full of woe. Therefore, I eventually became full of woe, or had my fair share of them. Is it real or is it conjured? I'm not sure, but it was there! The poem is a little tattered, but it goes like this: 

 “Monday's child is fair of face. Tuesday's child is full of grace. Wednesday's child is full of woe. Thursday's child has far to go. Friday's child works hard for a living, while Saturday's child does all the giving.  Sunday's child is blessed of these, this child sees the best in threes.” 

      So, according to the poem,  poor Caity Baby and I are doomed. Reuben gives everything away, and Laura gets all that she wants in triplicate!  How unfair would that be? Laughing right now.  I think the world is everyone's marble and if we choose to play, we will be both hurt and blessed. We will learn, we will dance, we will laugh, we will cry, we will participate in just about every event and we will be that much stronger because of it. If we choose not to play, we may feel or believe we are safer than most, but in reality, the man in the cave is the one that truly suffers.  

Plato's wrote a prose about people who refused to live; it’s titled “The Cave”.   The cave was straight forward - - read it sometime, but suffice it to say that people who have ventured out from their safety zone and have seen the unforgiving, harsh, and true illumination of life (the light) have a much more difficult time returning to the darkness or even the safety of a cave that holds no adventure. Full of woe? No. I'm going to choose to say full of experience. Full of life. Full of do-it. Full of being! This awakening is nothing short of miraculous if you have it in you to reflect both honestly and with a big enough light to see all the ugly cob-webbed corners of your life. Giving up anything, and any thing that is negative in order to break out of the pattern of a spinning downward spiral is not only necessary it is essential for upward movement - - growth.  

One of the things I decided, and yes, I do mean decided to do many years back is to choose to smile. Choose to be joyful. Choose to reroute my thinking. Choose to think before I ask, and choose to ask with more heart and more insight rather than just asking for the sake of asking. An example would be: a person you know who is really mad about something, puts their fist through a sheet drywall and comes to you bleeding. You don't have to ask "What did you do?".  You know they were somehow injured; a better question, a more productive question would be, "How can I help you?" followed by "You must be really upset about something to do something this drastic." The words, though hard to spit out in a moment of confusion for your friend, are the choice that you make to communicate positively rather than to criticize and add more negative input to the situation. 

 Think first. Thinking, giving thought, making an image in your mind really does set the wheels of creation into motion for your moment. You only have the moment. You are not guaranteed the next, and the last moment - - is gone. Plan, yes, by all means make plans, but do so with deliberate thought. Wednesdays can be really cool too you know; Caity was born on a Wednesday, and that was a super happy moment in my life. She came out utterly blue, with the cord wrapped around her neck, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as the frantic nurses were pushing, pumping, and prodding her to breathe after the cord was removed. I remember praying and I remember saying her name over and over in my head - - she would live, she would live, I repeated.  God was great, and my baby survived. Wednesdays don’t have stay bad even if they start out that way sometimes. BREATHE! Take the cord off your proverbial neck and push yourself until you can breathe! 

Positive isn’t always easy, but it is always a better choice than being sour-faced negative all the time.  Since I began openly ad willfully being positive, I can say I’ve made a few people both uncomfortable and pissy – not everyone wants to see a smile every time that look ove at you; but why not make it your choice, not theirs.  Be the light, be the change, be the energy you need to get yourself motivated and moving, and you’ll move and motivate others along the way. My little blue Smurf-baby grew up both independent and strong from the beginning. She’s passing those traits on to her own daughter Sailor Ellis Jayne, and let me tell you, there couldn’t be a more positive light shining in our lives than that little girl. Beam on!