I can’t help but notice the envelope itself. That very piece of paper molded into a pocket for treasure has my name on the front. This means that no one else is legally allowed to read it without my consent. This means that the person writing wanted ME to get something special. This means that what is inside is just especially for ME, Marissa, from someone who cares enough to write and give the cost of a stamp. Yes, I am convinced that good letters from friends are some of the very best things in life and that those special envelopes can make your day. Because what’s inside is just for you…Totally, completely, 100% just for you! Think about it, I sure like too

Not all days are sunny ones though, and that fact seems tragic to me at times. All I will want to do is go outside but find the rainy weather an automatic turn off of the trip outdoors. Or perhaps I find the forecast to be cloudy or windy or any number of other hindrances of my sunshine enjoyment. It’s those rainy or cloudy or windy days that force me to find some other way to spend my time. Cooped up within the walls of my home I often begin my work with a less enthused attitude. But as time goes on, I find a way to adapt to a new working environment.

Although it is not sunshine, the rain is necessary for things to grow. The water soaks into the soil of plants wishing for nourishment and hydration. Water is wonderful. Rain is wonderful as well and the sooner I appreciate it the better.

So it is with our lives. There will be times of sunshine, when nothing could possibly feel better, as will there be times of rain, forcing us to get comfortable inside. The flow of life and challenges often give us cause to adapt. I’ve been thinking about this lately and have come to the conclusion that, just like plants, we need both sunshine and rain.

On this list was “to order ice cream from an ice cream truck”. This is something I have wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Each day an ice cream truck makes its rounds through my neighborhood and I think about how someday, before I die, I am going to go out there and get some. I’ve gotten close to going out there probably twenty times, but I always seem to let it go through the neighborhood.

Last week I heard that familiar sound of the ice cream truck and thought “today is the day!” Today was the day for me to live my dream and do something I’ve always wanted to do. I got up and went out the door, flagged down the ice cream truck and bought ice cream. It was amazing!! I could taste my dream coming true…quite literally.

So today really is the day for you to live your dreams. Whether large or small, it’s time to take those steps out to the ice cream truck and live the life you’ve always wanted. You can do it!

So often we hear the coined phrase: be the bigger person. Usually what warrants this often unwanted advice is some kind of an unfortunate experience that reaps a difficult choice. Someone does something to you that is not what you want in any way shape or form. Often times this same action repeats itself over and over until finally the last straw is pulled and the only possible resolution seems to be seeking revenge. When discussing the revenge options, which for me usually occurs by fuming all the aggravating details to a friend, they usually want me to “be the bigger person.” It’s not worth it to even fight with the antagonist, express your personal feeling about what’s going on, so really you should just let it go and forget about what happened. That’s often the message I receive from someone else, or because it has happened repeatedly, from my own mind before I even ask another person.

A few weeks ago this scenario was playing out in—as usual—a very annoying and hurtful way. Someone wanted me to do something, I agreed. The plans changed and I didn’t do anything to tell them that it really bothered me so I could be the “bigger person.” Making sacrifices in my own schedule, going out of my way to do what was important to them, the plans changed again. Frustrated, ready to call it all off, I let them take control of me again, for the third time, and had a miserable experience. Never did I tell them that it bothered me, never did I take care of myself in the situation because I thought I was being “nice.”

I think perhaps, it would have been better for me to say something at the first offense. I could have explained to this person that it was not alright with me to be treated that way. Before feeling the need to seek out revenge, I could have nipped this issue in the bud. I could have avoided a lot of unnecessary anger if I would have taken care of myself in a way that didn’t hurt me or the other person early on in the situation.

What I learned by this experience is that you don’t have to hurt yourself for the sake of being the bigger person, or even for the sake of being nice. If someone is bothering you don’t just stand by letting them control your life. If that is how to be the bigger person I must be a giant by now. Like Gulliver, in the classic tale of Gulliver’s Travels, becoming a giant in this sense will only get you attacked by tiny antagonists until they break you. My thoughts instead are to do what’s right for you whether that means being the bigger person or eating one of Alice in Wonderland’s magic shrinking cookies. Most of all, take care of you, and instead of revenge or being trampled, say what you need to say in a positive and effective—even a nice way.

In reality I do not enjoy the sundae nearly as much as I would if I weren’t so caught up in what I place on each spoonful. The process of rationing chocolate becomes stressful and obsessive for me to the point that I’m not melting into each bite the way that I normally would. I was doing this the other day when I realized that the deliciousness of the sundae was diminished and my personal stress level was elevated over something quite stupid.

Both parts of an ice cream sundae are delicious and if there are some bites of just chocolate or just ice cream it’s not going to be the end of the world. So why do I worry about such things? I think in order to understand this we have to take into account every small thing we stress over in life. Is any of it really a life or death issue? Sometimes things are, but usually, at least for me, they are not. Perhaps it would be good for us to relax and enjoy the ice cream sundaes in our lives without worrying about running out of chocolate, because in reality, there is plenty of chocolate, we just have to quit staring at the spoon.

I really don’t know why I get so nervous. I don’t understand why I feel fearful when I know someone is watching me, but I do. It’s so funny because I love to talk, but if you ask me to show you my skills or to explain something that involves my application of knowledge on the spot I freeze. I think that this is because I am constantly afraid of being wrong. I am afraid of saying something incorrectly or finding out that something I have thought was true for the longest of time is really false. I am afraid that someone will reject me and shoot me down just so that they could be “right”. I am probably afraid of these things because these things have happened to me repeatedly over time.

As a result of my experience I make an effort to not over correct people when I am talking to them. I can only wish that they would give me the same courteously. Something else I have learned is that when other people do this to me it doesn’t have to offend me. I can choose to take lightly what they are saying and get over it. So this experience, like every other experience has the potential to do, has taught me a couple of different things.

I can only hope that now that I am aware of these things about myself I can make a resolve to work on my nervousness. When have you experienced something like this?

I am definitely the kind of person who loves to talk. Even if I am sitting in the car with someone else and neither of us is talking, I’ll bring up something that is almost pointless just so that we are exchanging some sort of dialogue. “Awkward silence” is something that is almost non-existent in my life because I pretty much always have something to say, and if I feel comfortable talking with you about it, you better brace yourself for an exciting earful.

I am also the type of person that rarely meets a stranger. When someone is sitting next to me in a waiting area, in line for an amusement park attraction, next to me at an event or performance or walking around in a similar section of the grocery store I look for something to say that would connect us.

Maybe they are wearing my favorite brand of shoes or have my same kind of cell phone. Maybe they are stylishly modeling gear from one of my favorite sports teams or have on a shirt from the school that I go to. Maybe they just look nice and approachable, or perhaps a bit scattered or exhausted, in need of a social lift. These kinds of people are everywhere and the kind of conversations I have with them often make my day. I usually never see these people again, but I will probably always remember the random thing we talked about like how they prefer to eat their rice crispies with marshmallows—TRUE STORY—or how they had that Yankees hat I would have bought from them right that second because I love it so much. But anyway, these little moments of smiling or talking in the car are what spike ideas in my mind and are often among the ways I enrich my everyday life. A philosophy I have is that everyone has a story, and I want to know what that is…

So, this time with other people, these moments where I am given advice, support or a smile make my life better each moment at a time. So, do you think we are better when we are together? You betcha! Jack Johnson couldn’t have said it better…unless maybe he was with someone else

Share your life with those around you and see if that makes things a little bit better. What’dya say?

I remember when I was a little kid, I was in charge of a cupcake frosting expedition with a bunch of other little kids at my school. They were fun and delicious, but really didn’t look that great because part of the activity was to frost the cupcake blindfolded. There was frosting everywhere, it was disproportionate, and everyone found it more challenging than they thought it might would be. The purpose of frosting the cupcake blindfolded was to illustrate what it would be like if you couldn’t see anything. This activity was part of a presentation about Helen Keller, one of my all time heros. She was both deaf and blind but conqured her weaknesses by learning how to do things in different ways. Her life was filled with rich experiences and accomplishments. Being deaf and blind could have been a reason to give up on everything good that she did, but she didn’t do that.

I can only imagine how hard it would be to do everything without being able to see it with your eyes or hear with your ears. However, her life was not devoid of beauty, she saw and heard it with her heart. She once said, “Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”

Sometimes things may not be perfect, sometimes it may feel as though we cannot see where we are going or hear the right directions, but that doesn’t mean we cannot do what we are trying to do. We can seek out other ways to experience life, maybe by closing our eyes and opening our hearts. It did not matter what the cupcakes looked like when we removed our blindfolds, because they still tasted wonderful. We could have made a big deal about how they didn’t look perfect, but it really wasn’t a big deal at all. Close your eyes and taste a cupcake, or in other words, do not focus on the inperfections of appearences, but open your heart to the beauty within.

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.” ~Helen Keller

I love reading in the sunshine. It doesn’t matter where I am, as long as there is sun and as long as there is me lying there soaking in the beautiful rays. I love country music and checking out trucks as we drive around town. I love the idea of fishing off a bridge or boat, learning to surf and going mudding on a four-wheeler.

I love a good baseball game and screaming at the TV for the NBA playoffs to end up just right. I love talking in the syrupy sweet southern accent my momma gave me and dreaming up a future filled with all these things. I love crying during a chick flick and when everything in my room matches. I love knowing the words to dozens of songs I never would have listened to because my little brother keeps singing them to me. I love taking mini road trips through life dancing through beautiful conversation and figuring out a little more about myself and those I love most.

I love sitting at the computer with my radio playing writing out every bit of my heart I’m willing to give to you. I love going out to the mailbox and finding a letter just for me—that’s more meaningful than an ad or set of grocery store coupons. I love the smell of freshly washed laundry and the way I feel when someone loves me. In short, I love this life and so many things in it.

Lately though, it has been easy to find things a little less lovable. There are the stresses, the traumas, the difficulties and so many things that make me want to curl up and cry. It can be talked about all day and still not cover everything that’s going wrong.

One of these conversations was going on (the one where everything about a certain situation seems horrible) when I finally said “Let’s talk about trucks and fishing.” In other words: let’s stop talking about all these miserable things excessively and think about the things that aren’t. I love trucks and fishing! They are still here in this life along with the things that are hardest to get through. There is a time and a place to talk about those things, but sometimes it’s time to quit that subject, or subjects, and talk about trucks and fishing or ketchup that squirts perfectly onto a French fry. This life is too short to worry about everything that you hate all the time…spend time discovering and remembering things that you LOVE.

What do you love anyway?

This book wasn’t any different than those which I had written before now. I found inspiration and started writing like crazy. Months went by, and my story evolved and changed courses many times. Then, after many pages, I realized that really there wasn’t much of a purpose to my story. This was horribly depressing for me. I was writing about the life of my main character and his family, but there wasn’t much of a point to any of it, except the everyday ups and downs of a teenager, which I knew wasn’t enough. I felt the growing need to have a purpose to my book–at least one reason why everyone who turned it’s pages would feel it worth their time. So, my book began to take all sorts of turns. I hadn’t figured out where I wanted it to go when I laid the many pieces of paper to rest and chose to stop writing, at least for the moment. I didn’t feel like I could write the book I wanted this to be, so I quit writing it altogether.

I can’t recall the exact length of time that I spent avoiding my book, but I remember when inspiration struck again. And when it struck, I was suddenly craving the paper in front of me, the thoughts and feelings that flowed directly from my heart to fingertips. I jotted down some words on the first paper I could find, transferred it into a Word document and kept writing. I still didn’t have much of a purpose figured out, but I wouldn’t stop writing and I hoped that through the many pages I wrote I would find my purpose.

Page after page I kept at it, writing, rewriting again and again. I had to find my story, their story, and your story while I filled the pages with as much as I could. Day after day that I could spend on it gave my story life and through it all I did find my purpose. It has taken close to four years since I started writing about this idea, and finally I know what my book is about, its purpose.

Maybe sometimes we don’t understand what we are doing or why we are doing it…but by writing I learned how to write, and by living we learn how to live. Keep trying and you’ll figure it all out. I know I did.