My alarm went off and those are the words that echoed loudly in my head like a powerful wake up call.

"Your Life Is Over How Did You Live It?"

It scared me really. I don't think that has ever happened to me before.

When I came to my senses I realized my life wasn't really over and I wondered what I had been dreaming about.

I thought about the words and wondered why they had come to into my mind like that.

Was I supposed to learn something here?

Perhaps I needed to pay more attention to my life. My life is passing me by and there are no second chances. No do-overs. When it is over, it is over.

Am I having the life I want to have?

I realized that I go through a lot of my days in a kind of fog. This is especially true if I have spent a long time at the computer or in front of the T.V. I just do my routine without really paying attention.

I need to start noticing things. To really get into life.

Maybe I need to learn some new skills that really get me in touch with life like making homemade bread, learning to knit, starting a garden on our balcony, and paying attention to nature as I walk the kids to school. Maybe I need to pay more attention to people and less to things.

M came home from work and he was upset because his Rayban sunglasses were missing.

I would have felt exactly the same. Those are expensive sunglasses.

Then suddenly I realized how silly that was. M owns like 5 pairs of sunglasses.

Why do we hold on so strongly to our possessions that we don't need?

Perhaps that is another change I need to make. Let go of my possessions.

I mean let go about caring about them.

Be free.

Our family had our weekly meeting to talk about a goal we were going to work on this week. We decided to take Victor Frankl's advice and realize we always have choices. We can always choose our attitude and actions in every circumstance. We can choose to respond positively instead of our knee jerk reaction.

Hmmm. Maybe this is another way to be free.

Maybe those are the lessons I needed to learn, and maybe they are just the beginning.

Labels: self help for adoptive moms, what to teach your kids