If there is one thing the last several years have taught me, it’s that life is about second chances. Every day, every moment, every interaction, every breath is an opportunity to begin again.

Life, Love, & Second Chances

Life—

One of my favorite aspects of being a mother/baby/NICU nurse has been teaching first-time parents. It is a humbling, steep learning curve and I get to watch them transform before my very eyes. They come in with very specific plans of how they think it will be: what the birth will be like (all will go according to their plan), how they will parent (perfectly), how their baby will be (perfect), and how the rest of their life will look (all will go perfectly perfect and according to plan). Almost without exception, all of these plans and expectations unravel within hours of birth, if not sooner. The degree of unraveling depends on various factors, including if they had to have an unplanned C-section, how sleep deprived they become, the baby’s temperament, and any unseen complications which can range from feeding difficulties to major birth defects. Whatever the first hours and days look like, first time parents quickly learn the same life lesson:

Plans change.

It has been my observation that the parents who pick up on this quickly and display flexibility, resilience, and adaptability (all while maintaining a sense of humor) are best able to enjoy the journey. The parents who are inflexible and resistant to accepting that things aren’t going to plan become anxious, irritable, and sad. They miss the beauty of the experience, part of which is the epiphany that they are not in control!

This is a microcosm for life. Plans change. The only constant is change. Sometimes that change goes as expected. Sometimes it doesn’t. While I believe in planning ahead and being well prepared, I have learned that life does not always follow the route I have laid out. There are just too many wild cards in the mix. It has been my observation (of both myself and others) that when we respond with flexibility, resilience, and adaptability (all while maintaining a sense of humor), we are best able to enjoy the journey. When we resist and are inflexible, we miss the beauty of the experience, part of which is the epiphany that we are not in control.

Stephen and I have definitely had this lesson reinforced in the last few years. We are in the thick of navigating the blending of two families, the emptying of our nest, the changing of our aging bodies, the evolution of the vision of our lives. We are finding ways to maintain flexibility, resilience, adaptability, and a sense of humor. We are sharing what is working in hopes that it can help you too.

Love—

One of life’s toughest lessons is that opening our hearts to love also means making ourselves vulnerable to heartbreak. We learn this early, often while we are still children. Again, the question is how will we respond—with flexibility, resilience, and adaptability or with resistance, anger, and bitterness?

No one is perfect. Resistance, anger, and bitterness can be steps in the grieving process as we adapt to change. Feeling these things does not mean we are doing anything wrong. In Second Chances—A Love Story, I share how I evolved through these feelings and opened my heart to love again.

Perhaps that is what life is trying to teach us, over and over and over—to open our hearts to love—again and again and again. I don’t speak just of romantic love, but also of love for our families, friends, and life. Life is intense! And sometimes the very monotony of life is as intense as the traumatic moments. This can dull our senses. We can fall into survival mode.

But the understanding that has kept my hope alive over the years is that every day, every moment, every interaction, every breath is an opportunity to begin again.

Second Chances—

I lost track of how many times I switched majors in college. I switched colleges several times as well. I started my Junior year at a very cold location, where it was below zero for much of the school year. It was then that I learned something important about myself: I don’t like the cold.

I was miserable and it affected everything. I was unhappy and I barely passed my classes. At my lowest point, I had to go talk to one of my professors about what I could do to salvage my grade (up until then, I had earned straight A’s). Before I knocked, I paused to stare at a picture he had posted on the door. It was a picture of a frog strangling a pelican as it is being eaten alive and it said Never Give Up!

I passed that class. I left that school. I moved to Hawaii and found my smile again. I have never forgotten that picture. In fact, when my son was at his lowest point in his health struggle with PANDAS, I searched the internet for that picture and printed it for him. Over ten years later, he still has it in his collection of special things.

Like you, my life is still a work in progress. Stephen’s life is still a work in progress. Not everything has gone as we had planned, but we have learned a lot along the way and what we have learned has made us stronger, wiser, and more resilient.

Never give up.

Life is about second chances.

Every day, every moment, every interaction, every breath is an opportunity to begin again.