It IS What It IS

When you adopt this philosophy as your way of life, things become clearer and your life becomes less complicated. You cannot change everything and those you can, you must. Those you cannot, you must accept if you are to live in peace.


Not everything we first perceive as being unchangeable is so. It never hurts to sit back and evaluate each situation and search for what might be done to improve any situation. What might not be done to improve the same. Sometimes it's not so much what we must do as it is what we must NOT do to make something better. We need to learn when to act and when to retreat and let things play out.


Understanding that we can only change or control who and what we are, never who or what someone else might be, helps to evaluate what can be changed and what is what it is.


Today I am thinking of our future. Planning the summer. Planning the winter and looking forward to our real retirement. (Roomy still works 40+ hours a week.) The time when we don't either of us have a job and our time really is our own. That means, selling our house. We both love living here, but also know that in retirement it is too much work and too much expense. We don't want to be owned by the house we have worked for years to pay for. We want to recoup some of our investment and use that cash to make our new lives. Deciding whether to buy a nice motor-home or just head to Arizona full time is not easy. No decision there yet. We might even just rent an apartment here in Michigan and winter in Arizona until that is not practical. Then another decision will have to be made.


So why are we still thinking all this over and not really making a plan?  Simple enough, really. I convinced my mom to move here a couple years ago and I love having her near me and part of my everyday life. She doesn't want to go to Arizona to live and I don't want to go without her. She doesn't want to winter there and I don't want to go without her. She says she likes the change of seasons, but I can tell you that she has not enjoyed this rather mild winter we just had at all. She likes to be outside. It was too cold for that. She likes to be barefoot, a little cold for that, too. She got a little cabin fever, but didn't want to go anywhere. So, it is what it is, I can't change this and I have no desire to be a day's travel away from her for more than a couple of weeks. I love Momma and I have waited many years to have her nearby and I am going to enjoy my time with her for as long as she will let me and as long as God will let me. I am where I belong right now and what will be, remains to be seen.


Accepting that our life is what it is for now, wasn't easy at first. I am used to doing what I like when I like and for as long as I like. Now I consider what will work best for her and how I can make it better. That is what my life is right now and I am fine with that. She did that for me and two other kids for many years, it's now my turn to reciprocate. Now I think about how we will do whatever it might be to make her life better and that in turn makes mine better.  


I married a man who thinks I should have what I want. I love that about him! He also loves my mom and understands and agrees that making her life all it can be is our job one now and that my friends and readers is what it is.


It IS what It IS because Roomy and I have chosen to accept what we cannot change.


Jo