Fate or Destiny?

Do you ever think about the chance encounters in your life? Those split decisions that you make and think they are insignificant at the time, yet they influence your path and the people in your life?

When I reflect on some of these decisions I have made, I am in awe at the change in course my life took.  Call it fate, destiny or however you want describe it, but I believe that all of these moments happen for a reason. People are brought into our lives at exactly the right moments we will need them and situations do not occur by accident. Some are there for that temporary relief and some will stay forever - you just never know, but that is part of the fun of this journey called life!

Even the tough times can bring good things our way. I have seen my share of misfortune and sadness, but the irony is that some of the best things have come into my life as a result of the bad things that have happened.  I have met some of the closest people in my inner circle as a direct result of going though a tough time or loss. I have also met some pretty awesome people in some of the greatest times in my life!

I have been given some signs recently to reflect on this very topic. It is so important to take time to reflect on what is going well and what is not contributing to your best life! As I have quoted before Life is long. It is living that we risk being short on. I want to take full advantage of every day I am given and embrace every opportunity to feed my soul. 

You can't predict the future. But, you can't compromise your future based on the past.  Live your life deliberately and the possibilities truly are endless.  I believe in creating my destiny through the opportunity of fate.  Chance encounters can simply be random events that happen or you can embrace them and turn them into possibility. I have some pretty cool examples of turning them into possibility and I highly recommend it! 

Another Trip Around the Sun!

Another birthday.  

I am blessed and thankful to celebrate another year of life!  
As I reflect on 41, it was full of ups and downs, a few more downs than ups this year, but the biggest up was that I was here to live my 41st year - right?!?  This year brought greater loss, anniversaries of loss and a few more challenges, but I also celebrated some amazing moments, as well!  

As I reflect on the last year, I can't help but reflect on this day three years ago - this was the day I had my post-op visit to receive the pathology report from my surgery.  The cancer was not contained, we found evidence of cancer in a lymph node....blah...blah...blah...radiation...chemo...more chemo...hair loss...nausea...exhaustion...clinical trial. It's difficult to remember what life was like BC (before cancer).  It's hard to remember how you celebrated birthdays when you never gave a thought to not having another one - I was young and took the the gift of life a little for granted.  

After losing my mom in April, some days, I just want to curl up, cry and wallow in the sadness of loss. While I suffered much loss during 41, I learned from each of every one of these experiences.  I continue to be reminded that the anticipation of hard things is much more difficult than actually going through them and I can do hard things!

Some prefer to ignore their birthdays, but I will celebrate and celebrate big and I look forward to conquering more hard things in the next year!  Cheers to 42!