Sitting at My Table

Life comes at us fast. Even the best laid plans are torn apart by the forks in the road. What you want to day is never the same as what it was yesterday, but hopefully we choose the path that brings us the most happiness and inevitably takes us home.
I have every intention of spending my final days just east of the Muddy gap, but I hope that time doesn’t come for another seventy-five years. In the time between now and then I plan on seeing as much of this big old world as I can, but that’s not what this blog is about. This blog isn’t about seizing the day, living in the moment, reaching for the sky or being at the front of the pack . It’s more about smelling roses and drinking a little wine with the ones you love.
I’ve regressed back into my college days, due to the struggling economy and the isolation of Whidbey Island. I’m waiting tables again. I love doing it, but it’s the wrong way for my career and the right direction for my self satisfaction and happiness.
One of the perks of my job is people, I love people and I love talking to strangers. I can tell a lot about a person in five minutes of just listening. They’re not all bad and they’re not all good, but what you have to understand is everyone you meet has their demons and even a good day can be a battle. If you want to be good with people don’t fight their battles just be their shelter from the storm.
I encountered a group of ladies this week that stuck with me. For a moment I was their angel. These five ladies cam in on dreary rainy day. The day was beautiful if you like the color gray, can’t feel the cold, and aren’t afraid to be soaked to the bone. Today these five ladies were going to have a picnic on the beach. Instead they were looking out my windows and ordering wine by the bottle, showing family pictures and having a good time despite the change in plans. One lady asked for my name, which I should have already told them but I never tell. Most people remember faces and hope people have more important things in their lives than remembering my name an hour later. “Oh I think that we all can remember that” You see where there was five there used to be six, but a year ago these five ladies pulled together to take care of the sixth before she succumb to cancer. They toasted my name. It was a shame that tragedy was what brought these ladies together but it was wonderful to know that Grade School friendships could remain strong for fifty years. They had all taken different roads, lived very different lives, had very different opinions, but all roads had led home.
Some twenty years from now when I’m settled , realized and took a swing at my dreams, seen the world, defeated my demons, been a lighthouse for the ones I love, smelt more roses than what grows them, and drank a lot of wine, I hope that I’m lucky enough to still have my oldest and closest friends sitting at my table.