Stop and Smell the Roses

Sometimes when people are perky & happy, & life never seems to get them down, it's hard to be around them. It's easy to wonder how it is that they always manage to have a smile on their face.

For me, being an early riser is something I fight tooth & nail to avoid being. If I'm up early in the morning, it's either because I have to be, or because I can't sleep. I have a friend who's up early each day & she's always moving fast, dressed & ready to start her day by 7AM, complete with hair beautifully styled & make-up & jewelry on. I hate her. Kidding. I don't hate her. I envy her. I wish I had that kind of energy first thing in the morning. By the time my friend has done fifty things in the morning, I'm still trying to peel my eyelids off my pillow!

Most people these days seem to have a Facebook or other social networking account. When I'm online, I see a mixture of posts from my friends. People will either be complaining about how awful their life is, & often times it's the same people every day, or they will be praising God for the fact that they have another day to appreciate being alive....or they will be posting happy & mischievous stuff, like a fellow military mom friend of mine does. The posts from people vary, but when you look at people's posts, you get a sense for their overall attitude about life.

I have a lot of stress in my life. Who doesn't these days? People have sometimes told me that they are amazed at the things I've dealt with through the years, & have remained sane for having been able to handle it with grace & apparent ease. Boy do I sure have them fooled!

Let me tell you, when your world has been turned upside down from divorce, death, family drama, health issues, financial strain, relationship issues, depression & a host of other things, then you learn to "fake it till you make it", as they say. But it's more than that....

It's all about choice & about attitude.

Makes you want to smile, doesn't she?

I have developed the habit through the years of trying to find even the littlest of things to make me smile. I could be having a horrible day, such as the day I had recently, & I'll take my dog for a walk, lift her hefty little body (who needs the gym when you have Maggie dog?), carry her down the stairs, & then she'll raise her little head to my face, pant her little pant as she's smiling lovingly at me, & then once I recover from the effects of her buffalo breath, I will be able to smile, because my little dog has put life into perspective for me. She has taught me by her simple appreciation for the simple things (such as being carried down the stairs because her heavy body is hard on her bones), that life really doesn't have to be as complicated as we make it out to be.

We can learn a lot from our pets. Heck, we can learn a lot from all animals, when you think about it. They don't fret & stress. My family is currently dealing with voracious termites in our home. Yeah, it's been a real picnic (pardon the pun). The hot weather we get this time of year in southern California, has brought the termites out in full force. While I'm busy stomping termites & spraying termite goop in little nooks & crannies (till the pest control people get here), birds are flitting back & forth outside, chirping & singing away, & searching for food & for water to drink. I don't hear them squawking, nor do I see them panicking, although I sure was freaking out because the living room was a balmy 86 degrees while the bedroom was an arctic 32! Yeah, our air conditioner seems to direct all the cool air into what I like to affectionately call our walk-in freezer.

My point is, the birds didn't have the benefit of air conditioning, nor of an ice cold drink of water (or in my case, a chilled Coca Cola). It was so hot & muggy outside just a week or so ago, that you almost had to wring out your clothes the moment you stepped outside! Yet the birds just kept on singing, kept on flying happily, enjoying the air current as it lifted them higher & higher. 

And then there's our dog Maggie. That little dog asks for nothing from us. Her life is pretty boring by any human standards. Same goes with our cat Ella. They don't have a long life compared to humans, & they do the same thing, day in & day out. Do they complain? Do they fret? Nope. They are just happy for the human love & interaction that they get, & Maggie is ready with a buffalo-breath-knock-you-over-in-a-faint panting smile & a tail wag, & Ella comes up when she wants to be petted, arches her tail in that question mark shape she makes, & grants you the privilege of scratching Her Royal Highness's tale.

Ella, finding the window sill fascinating

So I guess what I'm saying is that life is hard sometimes. It can be hard all the time. But animals just go about their day, doing what they have to do to get through the day, & appreciating whatever good thing comes along. 

When I go outside & take our dog for her walk, I get the opportunity to smell the fresh air, feel the warm breeze on my face, look up at the sky with its beautiful puffy clouds, & stare out at the rolling hillsides near my home. Above me soars the resident hawk that I have been enjoying watching since it was a hatchling about 2 years ago. I see the sparrows & finches flitting about in the trees above. I stare out at the palm trees & am reminded that I am blessed to be living in beautiful southern California. At night when I take our dog out for the last time before bed, I am treated to the sight of the little bunnies on the grass that sit still as statues, thinking that if they don't move, I won't notice them. Silly bunnies. 

These are things that take me away from the stresses of life, even if only for a moment. If there were rose bushes where I live, I'd be stopping to smell the roses. My mother loved roses. She especially loved yellow roses. My parents had rose bushes in their backyard, which one could see from their dining room windows. Roses have thorns. Thorns hurt. Roses also have very soft & pretty petals & an aromatic fragrance. We're going to be pricked by the thorns in our life. Life has many thorns. Sometimes they even make us bleed. But if we are afraid to get near a rose because of its thorns, then we miss the beauty & delight that a rose beholds. Life is hard. But if we step aside from our worries & stress, if only for just a moment, & we stop & smell the roses, & find the simple joys of life, life can also be good......& beautiful.

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