Ice cream lifts a heavy heart

"I promise you not a moment will be lost as long as I have heart & voice to speak & we will walk again together with a thousand others & a thousand more & on & on until there is no one among us who does not know the truth: there is no future without love." Storypeople

So my heart has been a little heavy lately with all this election business. I cracked open a beer the night of the election. I cannot remember the last time I've had alcohol. I couldn't take watching it anymore so I caught up on some shows I had taped. When I finally switched back to election coverage, McCain had conceded. That's when my heart grew heavy. All that talk about hope and I couldn't find it anywhere.

The next day I was still feeling bad, and so I decided that maybe a Dairy Queen vanilla cone dipped in chocolate would aid in the mourning process. It did. I highly recommend Dairy Queen when you're feeling down. The sugar high lifted me up. I remembered that hope isn't something I should seek outside of myself--and the same goes for change. I can't control the world around me, but I can control how I react and how I go about living in the wake of disappointment. My father always told me that life is filled with disappointments and the sooner you get used to it, the better off you'll be. I've always found this to be something that is easier said than done.

Lately I've been struggling with intolerance for people who voted for Obama. I know I risk pissing people off but if I click onto one more blog that mentions HOPE with regards to Obama, I feel I might explode. I'm not really the intolerant type so I don't know what's come over me. I think if I could read some specifics as to why he is such a game changer (for the positive) I might feel less angry. I'm getting worked up all over again. I think it's time for another DQ run...

That mum up above? A couple of years ago I bought a tiny mum at Walmart and planted it in the ground and every year it comes back bigger and bigger. It's the highlight of my fall, watching that mum come back to life and bloom so beautifully. I feel so proud of it even though I don't do a thing to help it grow except watch it, anticipating it's loveliness.

My sister sent me a card last week, and when I opened it up a photo tumbled out. It was a picture of her and me when we were 6 and 8 years old. We wore matching coats. Our hair was cut very short and on top of our heads we had big bows. We looked so innocent and precious and even though I do not remember standing beside her the day that picture was taken, I know without question that we were happy.