Welcome, Twenty-eleven!

I mean, you might as well welcome the new year because being inhospitable to it won't do anything good for you. :o) And that is true of so many things. For instance, you can push hard against whatever you encounter and make it worse, or you can accept it as it is and try to dance with it a little.

This is a core idea to Buddhism that I find really practical. I am terrible at it sometimes, but there have been times of my life when I have been blessed with the ability to really let things be as they are, and those times have been joyful at their core.

Stacy is 27 weeks pregnant today, and that makes her one week more pregnant than she has ever been before. A couple of weeks back, she was placed on bed rest because she was having frequent Braxton-Hicks contractions, and with our history of early babies, her doctor wanted to play things really safe. My response was to freak out! I went batshit inside, mostly because of fear buried from the last baby (I have pretended to be enlightened before, writing about the problems of embracing love instead of fear, but that is all intellectual posturing in the face of real, latent fears). Anyway, things are okay, now, just as they would have been had I relaxed and accepted the situation as it is. The drama came when I rejected the situation with a hearty, "this cannot be happening again."

2011 will see the birth of my second daughter, Anna (Beth or Reese, as of right now). Mia will finish up with first grade. Stacy will deliver this new baby and be able to enjoy her at home without waiting months for the baby to get out of the hospital. She will survive bed rest with her sanity and we will be fine without her income. And who knows what else this year will bring?

Dance the dance to the tune that is playing; don't try to make the music fit the steps you have practiced and prepared for because you will be the one who looks silly, not the music.

I'll keep telling myself to practice what I am preaching. :o) Welcome, 2011!