Spring-like weather is descending upon our city and with it, the melting of snow during the day and sheets of ice forming during the night as temperatures dip just below freezing with the sun’s setting.

Earlier this week, a patch of snow on the roof caused a sheet of ice to form at the corner of our walkway as you approach the front door. The first time I tried to traverse it, I almost slipped. We promptly threw some de-icer and it disappeared. It took a few more de-icings before the mound of snow on the corner of the roof melted and de-icing was no longer necessary.

Like life. There are patches of tricky spots, unhealed spaces, unknown hurts that lurk waiting to slip us up as we navigate life’s roads. De-icing is necessary.

This past week I have immersed myself in navigating new waters as the organization I work for prepared to name its new Executive Director. It is bittersweet for me. I love the work I do. Love working with the families we serve and the team. I love the feeling that comes with making a difference.

As in all things, however, doors open and close, opportunity knocks and new horizons beckon.

I have always been clear with our Board of Directors that I am not prepared to commit to more than a couple of years in this role. They needed more and thus, yesterday, a new ED was announced.

At the beginning of the week when I was informed of the decision, my ego, in concert with the nasty critter who likes to remind me of my human frailties, tripped me up. “See. I told you so. Nobody wants you,” it whispered fiercely. “You don’t belong.”

Now, those are old core messages that emanate from my lizard brain in moments when I feel unsafe, fearful or at risk. I know them. I see them and hear them, but, if I don’t step into the light, lift myself up to my executive brain functioning, they can cause me to slip back into the icy waters of self-deprecation.

If you’ve followed my writing this week, you will have witnessed my journey from uncertainty to clarity.

Life is filled with opportunities to explore hidden areas of our pysches where icy patches exist that need the warming grace of light and Love. It is those patches that growth and surrender co-exist to bring us back to our magnificent selves waiting to shine. It is in those places that possibilities arise and hope lives unending.

My tenure at the family homeless shelter where I work is coming to an end. There is no firm date yet as I work with the new ED on a transition plan. What I know though is that the transition will be grace-filled because doing it with grace is how I prefer to exit every stage of my life. And I do love a good swan song!

I am excited. I have dreams and schemes and ideas to create an exciting new path for myself. A path full of potent possibility, passion and purpose, A path where anything is possible because when I de-ice the tricky spaces in my lizard brain, I am free to shine and soar and step with grace into every possibility that opens up on my path.

Namaste.

I am off to spend 5 days with my grandson, daughter and son-in-love celebrating his first birthday!

Enough said.

See you next week!

It was cold on January 30th, 1988 when she was born. Her father and I were just finishing off touches to her bedroom when my water broke, two weeks before my due date. There was a nurses’ strike happening, the temperature was sub-Arctic and I hadn’t quite finished doing all the things I wanted to get done before her arrival as Alexis’ little sister. I wanted to wait. At least until after the nurses’ strike. My doctor informed me waiting was not an option. My daughter agreed. She arrived just after 3pm in the afternoon of the 30th. Two weeks early. 6lbs 1 oz. A perfect miracle of life.

And that is how she has rolled ever since.

She doesn’t wait for things to happen. She makes them happen. She doesn’t wait for the world to catch up. She leads the parade.

Inspiring. Thoughtful. Thought-provoking. Lele (as we call her) likes to challenge ideas, shake-up the status quo, see things through different perspectives.

And she likes to invite everyone into her creative way of seeing the world.

Once, when she was about eight, she really, really wanted a dog. When she asked me if we could get one, I told her I didn’t think so. I was a single-working parent of two young daughters. I didn’t want to have to care for an animal. A few days later, she asked me if we could get an elephant. Of course not, I laughed. An elephant’s too big. What about a giraffe? Same thing, I told her — plus the fact our roof wasn’t high enough to accommodate an animal that tall. She pretended to think about it some more and then asked if we could get a tiger. Tiger’s don’t do well in the city, I replied. Oh, she said. Do dogs? Of course, I casually responded. And they’re not too big or too tall for our house are they? No. They’re not. Good, she said. Then a dog is perfect.

It wasn’t until two weeks later when we were on our way to the SPCA to check out dogs that I realized I’d been outsmarted by my 8 year old daughter.

And when we came home with Bella, an 80lb shaggy black bear of a dog, I realized I’d been out-smarted again. I’d insisted that if we got a dog, it would be a small one.

Lele was right though. We needed that big shaggy girl in our lives. And so did their dad, she would later convince me.  Travelling back and forth between houses with the girls, Bella had become his best friend. She’ll only be a block away, mom, she told me when she asked if Bella could go live with their father. You’ve got us. He needs someone in the house with him. And so Bella, the dog she’d lobbied for so convincingly took up residence in their father’s house a block away.

Because it was the right thing to do and doing the right thing is at the heart of who Lele is. She cares about people, animals, everything. And beyond caring, she turns up. She takes action.

During the floods in 2013, she volunteered around the city helping to sweep out flooded basements, carry out sodden belongings of strangers. It didn’t matter what the job. She was needed. She was there.

It’s who she is. It’s how she is in this world. Loving. Laughing. Living life her way.

And I am so blessed. She has gifted my life with grace and love not to mention a lot of quirky humour. And when I really needed it, she gave me the forgiveness I so desperately needed and kept on loving me just the way I am.

Today is my youngest daughter’s birthday. My life and the world are a better place because she’s in it.

My life is not perfect.

I like it that way.

Once upon a time, I didn’t like it that way. Once upon a time, I believed a perfect life was an antidote to everything I did not like in my life. I spent a lot of time trying to achieve perfection.

And then I fell.

In falling, I discovered the perfection of being in the mess of life. Because, let’s face it, life is messy.

Learning to accept life’s messiness has many gifts. Peace of mind. Contentment. Joy. Life without fear.

When I was striving to create ‘the perfect life’, I spent a lot of time in fear. Fear I’d never make it. Fear I’d be found out as a fraud (perfection is not attainable but I sure tried to act like it was). Fear I’d never reach my goal (which was true because it’s impossible to reach something that does not exist.)

Living in the messy, I am free to celebrate every moment, triumphs and mishaps, highs and lows, falling and flight.

I am free to dance in the rain, and walk blithely under an umbrella.

I am free to sing out loud, and sit in silent contemplation.

In the messy, there is no right way. There is only the way I choose that works for me. And when I choose to walk in love, creating better in the world around me, my way works for me and the world around me.

Once upon a time, I thought a perfect life was the one where I’d always be happy, always feel ‘on my game’, always have everything I wanted.

In real time, I know striving for ‘the perfect life’ is not a goal worth achieving.

In real time, I relish the messy because the messy is full of juicy moments to explore as I dive deep into living from the inside out and outside in, breathing deeply into the beauty and wonder of every facet of my world.

In the messy, I’m okay with beauty and the beast, yin and yang, yoda and Darth Vader. Because in the messy, there is light and dark, all and nothing. And in the all and nothing of this precious life, there is everything I need to know happiness, joy, contentment, love. Because, in the messy. there is perfection in the messy when I am loving all of me, inside and out.

Namaste.