#difficult challenges

Children reach a certain age and have a strong desire to climb whatever is in front of them, whether a chair, stairs, a toy box, or a bench. Thea has reached this mountain-goat phase, and she’s crawling on anything that poses a challenge. We’ve got these large beanbag chairs in our family room, and she wasn’t deterred by the fact that they’re so much taller than she is. Thea was creative in…

Elegant zinnia Between the daily visits from woodchucks, rabbits, and deer it’s a wonder that any plant from our garden with a mature height of six feet or less manages to survive. But zinnia flowers thrive and are resilient in the face of these adversities. This must be why many cultures see the zinnia as a symbol of perseverance and endurance. What a lovely flower to inspire those going…

Elegant zinnia Between the daily visits from woodchucks, rabbits, and deer it’s a wonder that any plant from our garden with a mature height of six feet or less manages to survive. But zinnia flowers thrive and are resilient in the face of these adversities. This must be why many cultures see the zinnia as a symbol of perseverance and endurance. What a lovely flower to inspire those going…

I used to think the song “Grown Up Christmas List” would’ve been a great song for Linzy to perform at Christmastime. As a kid, you know? 

Of course that was exactly wrong. Of course that we me completely missing the point.

Not that any amount of living won’t give us greater perspective. There’s a huge difference between being 10 and being 5, for example. Or being 13 and being 10. Or being 16 and being 13. 

And so on.

But yes. There is something about passing the half-decade mark that gives you a very healthy appreciation for all the different and specific ways that human life can go off the rails. Definitely you have a more expansive sense of the severe complexity of life when it comes to recovering from bad choices and capricious turns of circumstance. You know all the ways things can be worse. You know that more often than not the number of paths to even worse outcomes or stuck outcomes... massively overwhelms the very few paths to good outcomes.

Healthy outcomes.

And those very few paths?

Yeah. They often require us to play error-free ball.

And when.

Have we done anything error.

Free?

As we grow up, we grow more exquisitely aware of, well, everything around us. The sadness that’s present even when it seems that can’t possibly be there. The difficult challenges people experience on their own, out of sight. The failures. The crash and burns. The inability to thrive. The inability to sustain.

As we grow up, there’s no mistaking all of those who lose their way.

Because we know where they started.

And there’s no mistaking all those who never find their way to begin with. Because Once Upon A Time we would never have consider that...

An actual, you know, possibility.

We become aware of all the obstacles to growing up whether those obstacles are self-inflicted, pressed down upon us, or some tragic combination of the two.

We know all about the toxic in our lives, the toxic of other people in our lives. The toxic that’s somehow so impossible to escape. The complexity of it that makes for the most perfect trap.

As we grow up, we develop these imaginations, backed by a wealth of experience, to gives us a heightened sense of how one mistake...

Can derail a life.

And maybe the lives connected to that life.

Yeah.

As we grow up, we grow more aware of the baggage we carry like Marley’s Ghost in A Christmas Carol.

As we grow up, we have a narrative of light overtaking the darkness that valiantly battles... with a world in which darkness is overtaking the light.

And so on.

Let’s just say... “Grown Up Christmas List” is a favorite of mine this time of year. A favorite song, a heartfelt performance, an authentic reveal of how our wishes at Christmastime change over the years as the reality of this life becomes impossible to ignore. 

It’s a song that reminds me of all of that...

With each passing year.

Do you remember me? I sat upon your knee I wrote to you with childhood fantasies

Well I'm all grown up now and still need help somehow I'm not a child but my heart still can dream.

So here's my lifelong wish My grown-up Christmas List Not for myself, but for a world in need

No more lives torn apart, Then wars would never start and time would heal the heart

And everyone would have a friend And right would always win And love would never end, oh This is my grown-up Christmas List

As children we believed The grandest sight to see Was something lovely wrapped beneath the tree Well heaven surely knows That packages and bows Can never heal a hurting human soul.

No more lives torn apart, Then wars would never start and time would heal the heart

And everyone would have a friend And right would always win And love would never end, oh This is my grown-up Christmas List

What is this illusion called? The innocence of youth? Maybe only in our blind belief Can we ever find the truth

No more lives torn apart, Then wars would never start and time would heal the heart