Bloom where you are planted

I have always loved the phrase "bloom where you are planted" from the first time I ever heard/saw it on a little sign in my friend Barb's house. Barb is a Methodist minister's wife. She was a minister's wife 10 years before my husband became a Methodist minister and taught me how to be a minister's wife ....but that's another blog.

Today on the way to work, I saw the coolest tree off to the side of the road. It was a dogwood on its side, blooming like crazy. I can only assume it blew over last May when we had a big wind burst of some kind blow through Salem during the day and downed over 100 trees. It came out of the blue; a beautiful day that turned into a sudden disaster and days and days of cutting up trees and making them into fire wood.

As I saw that tree on its side, roots half out of the ground, blooming beautifully, I thought...."I want to be like that." Even if I've been blown over by a wind that comes out of nowhere, I want to keep on blooming, even if my blooms are laying on the ground beside me.

Life is not near like I thought it would be....
I pictured myself in a little Missouri town, in a little neighborhood, with white pickets fences and 2.5 children. I pictured greeting my husband at the door everyday as he got off at 5pm. Yes, I really was that naive. I had a lot to learn about life.....

I still have a lot to learn, but one thing I think I have learned is that I cannot predict what life will be like. It is much better than I could have imagined. I wish I would have let go of my naive dreams and enjoyed each step more along the way, instead of wishing it was different and mourning what I wished it would have been. Oh, well....(that's one of the phrases I use a lot.)
That and "give up woulda, shoulda, couldas."

I'm still a dreamer and I'm still naive and I still love excitement and change, but I've also learned to enjoy monotonous, boring and normal....

So, no matter where life takes me I still want to bloom my naive head off, like that tree.