Befriending Crows, Finding Joy, and What The Heck Do I Do Now?

I love birds. Anybody that knows anything about me knows that I have been flamingo obsessed since I was about four.

My great-grandma actually used to have these porcelain flamingoes in her house and I loved them so much. When she passed, I got to keep them. I haven’t pulled them out of storage yet since the move.

Maybe that’s why I am feeling so blah. Because my flamingoes need me to go and find them and get them out of storage.

What do I mean by blah? Well, here’s the thing, you guys know I’ve been reading this book about being all stressed and burned out… (It’s here on amazon if you want to read along with me.) and one of the big questions it asks is what makes me happy, and I am just one of those people that tends to find the happy in whatever I do, so I don’t really know what just makes me happy.

What do I mean?

The other day, I had to drive over an hour to a hospital in another town to pick up pain meds for my daughter. I did NOT want to drive that far, I hated that she had to wait an extra two hours to get her meds, and who the heck wants to go into a hospital on a weekend? Germ city… but instead of thinking about all of that, I went straight to the silver lining…

“I hope they have that delicious quesadilla in the cafeteria!”

And, when we got there, her meds weren’t ready yet. They needed me to wait EXACTLY the amount of time it took for them to make me a delicious quesadilla and eat it out in the cute little courtyard before her meds were ready. Oh, and the drive was gorgeous.

And so that’s the problem. Right there. I don’t know what makes me happy because I can be happy doing anything. But I think that finding the thing that makes me really happy, the thing that brings me joy, the thing that makes me want to keep coming back for more and more… I think that maybe that’s what I am missing right now.

Motherhood was fun. Honestly, it was the MOST fun, and it was a crazy ton of work. I hated doing all the extra stuff around motherhood, but I loved being a mom.

Now, my daughter is off to college, and I am here. I wake up and I look around and I have so many possibilities. I could start my own social media company, I could go work for somebody else, I could sit on my porch and read all day.

I am not going to lie… the first two didn’t make me feel good, but the last one did. That’s because it’s something I’ve been doing from the book. Redefining what it looks like to win. For me, right now, it means sitting on my porch, looking at the mountain every afternoon right around 4:20.

If I can make that happen, then it’s a day that goes in the win column, no matter what else occurs. So maybe right now what brings me joy is sitting on my porch.

Weird, and pretty old lady of me, but like… I am not going to be mad at it or whatever.

And then, maybe I am wrong completely. Maybe it’s all about the fact that I want to explore. I love seeing the world. Do I want to travel? I’ve had a whole year to travel and I never left… is that because I am in a whole new place and every day still feels like I am traveling? Maybe?

I don’t know. I do know that I like taking a daily walk. I like feeding the birds on my walks, and I like talking to everyone in the town. It sort of makes me feel like Mr. Rogers, and when I get done, after I’ve said hi to everyone, I feel better.

Is that me seeking connection? Possibly. Is that me looking for more? Maybe? Or is that just me getting out, getting my people fix, and then coming back to my little porch to read and write and just talk about everything going on in the world.

Because like… yeah I have a lot of fun seeking connection but I have just as much fun befriending the crows…

Why is it that when I write that, it makes me smile? How does that become my whole life? I mean that’s great and all… but like how do I make a living doing that?

So like I want to befriend crows, sit on my porch, and hang out with people.

Uh, help?