 Years ago, the cutest Old English Bulldogge to ever grace the face of this earth, Cain, called me mom. Okay, technically he didn’t call me anything because, as magical as he was, he couldn’t talk - so it was more of a self-declared title. But, still…  My leetle buddy, Cain Cain snored like a 80 year old man that had lost his CPAP machine, loved a good walk, hated to have his picture taken and loved to chase bicycles. He even caught one once and it was the best damned day OF HIS LIFE. But more than anything, Cain loved to eat - treats, leftovers, whole live mice (true story) - everything but tomatoes. The second best day of Cain’s life, after catching the bicycle, was the day he discovered a Magical Pancake Fairy had left a stack of cold, homemade flapjacks carefully arranged around the bird bath in our side yard. The Magical Pancake Fairy being my husband who had cooked enough pancakes for a family of eight, but we were only a family of two at the time, so he placed all the leftovers around the circumference of our bird bath in hopes of building the neighborhood’s first, and best, birdie breakfast buffet. But Cain found the smorgasbord first and gobbled it up before a single bird ever got a peck. From that day on Cain made a beeline for the bird bath every. single. time. we let him outside. He never gave up hope that the Magical Pancake Fairy would once again visit him. It was cute and endearing. That little brown and white, slobbery, bulldogge was nothing if not an eternal optimist. Of course, Cain was a dog and his ability to reason was slim to nil. Luckily you and I have that ability to reason and would never do something as stupid as circle the bird bath day after day waiting for magical pancakes to show up, right? You’re catching the sarcasm I’m throwing, right? Truth is, we circle life’s bird baths for pancakes that were once there (or maybe never there) ALL the time… the job we’ve come to hate, but won’t leave. The relationship that now sucks the life out of us, but we feel too guilty to end. The pair of pants that stopped fitting five years ago, but hang in the closet to mock us every morning. We humans have figured out how to outsmart thousands of years of predators, build self-driving cars, send people to alien planets and have frozen yogurt delivered by complete strangers in their own vehicles to my east side Detroit neighborhood WHENEVER I WANT (#UberEats4Life!), but we collectively keep hurting ourselves, day after day, waiting for the day it might not hurt. If we’re not careful one day it will stop hurting - because we’ve finally gone completely numb or, worse - we’ve died. Hashtag - doomandgloom. :( We can make different choices - though after years of circling the bird bath most of us have lost the ability to find a different path or that belief that we can carve a new path ourselves. Luckily there are lots of people among us that not only know how to help us make different choices, they want to do so. Find those that have figured out how to stop circling the bird bath themselves - or those that were trained on how to do so - or both. They have valuable wisdom to share. Change never happens in a vacuum. Gather your people. Who are the people that are helping you see a different path when you can’t see if for yourself? Share your story by leaving a comment below. Who knows who you might inspire! With much love and gratitude,  Comments are closed.
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