The Cock-Eyed Optimist

Who has a full time job? This girl! Writing and "social media managing" for my alma mater and loving every minute of it. The hubs and I move out of my in-laws' house and into our own apartment at the end of this month. (3 weeks from now!)

Things are really starting to change for us, and I'm relieved and excited and nervous all at once. I'd be lying if I said that things are all good right now, though. It feels like at the moment when the things you've been hoping for begin to transpire, the other things - the things you pray with every fiber of your being will never happen - also transpire.

I am convinced more and more that we don't have time to be unhappy or unsure or unkind or uninspired. The less we try, the less we really live. It's so logical, and yet...

So here are the things I am inspired by today:

1. The weather. It was an amazingly perfect day today after a cold, rainy yesterday.

2. Work. I love hearing stories of God's miraculous ways and people who persevere. 

3. My creative friends. My sister-in-law just started her own business this week, and I pray every day that her creativity flourishes and inspires those around her, because I am certainly inspired and excited.

When everything and everyone is telling us that this time is the hardest time to start a business, and this economy isn't going to lead us to the jobs we always planned on, and this environment is about to collapse, and this product and that product are killing us, and this technology is ruining our brains, and this government is all wrong and unchanging, WE are the ones who have to make the choices that will lead us forward. Our parents did it. Their parents did it. Every generation is faced with crucial choices.

There is hope. There is reality. And when it comes to a day like this, when the rain poured down on us only yesterday and now it is a beautiful clear night and our hometeam just won (GO HAWKS!) after a 49yr losing streak and the whole neighborhood is lit up with fireworks, and you've talked to your mom on the phone and you're just thankful to hear her voice, and your little brother just graduated from high school (thank God he survived), then you realize - you have no excuses left. Nothing is predictable. But hope and reality do occasionally walk hand-in-hand into the future.