Cindy Lou Who and Tidings of Great Joy

Welcome to my unique tale of Christmas. From the outset, let me just apologize to Dr. Seuss and Isaiah and Luke from the Bible. Creative license will be taken.

Once upon a time there was Me. I ran Leslie Inc. more or less by myself with my crazy talented board of directors. (More on that in a later post!) And then things, well, they just hit the fan! Conjure up Dickens at this point and Jacob Marley or Mrs. Havisham. Things were not looking good. In fact, as these last two Dickens tales suggest things were downright bleak. In addition to the fan going haywire my doctor took away my driving privileges due to a nasty seizure. How was Leslie Inc. going to stay up and running without wheels? There was Uber of course but what about the “in and out errands” I run every day?

I turned to my intrepid CFO, Cindy, for guidance. Not only did she provide answers… Cindy provided wheels, advice, take-out, doctor’s appointment visits (you can imagine there were a lot of those), running me to all my Leslie Inc. appointments, help settling mother’s estate, cooking occasional meals and company at my favorite watering hole when the days got just a little too long. And those are just the highlights. She was so much better than Jacob Marley! Just like Who-ville needed their Cindy Lou, I needed my Cindy to be the central character in helping me keep going.

But one day, Cindy Lou had to have shoulder surgery. We don’t know in Dr. Seuss’s version whatever became of Cindy Lou after Christmas but my guess is she collapsed in total exhaustion and ended up in the hospital having one of her little joints replaced! Bless her little heart.

It took me a minute to realize, but Leslie Inc. could run okay without Leslie. But its capacity to operate without Cindy was another matter altogether. It couldn’t. It didn’t. Not well anyway. Think about your computer crashing and all your life’s work with it. Gloom and doom settled in my bones! Just like Dickens! But honestly, even Dickens had the foresight to write a happy ending. Maybe not for Mrs. Havisham but because this is a Christmas tale he did reverse the Fortune of poor misguided Ebenezer. Remember little tiny Tim? “A Merry Christmas to us all. God bless us every one!”

So in my daily mantra when I breathe, meditate, pray, and stretch my sacrum (I am definitely a multitasker), I asked for wisdom, love, contentment, and joy to fill my heart. Because, really, what is the point of living if we allow negativity to cripple us. Or if we constantly desire a different life? How truly sad it would be if we are so busy wanting for something else, that we miss the everyday blessings and miracles that offer themselves UP not in a giant bow but many times, offer themselves up to us quietly, gently and lovingly. They are so easy to miss if we are not aware; if we do not go through our day with open hearts and eyes. That is what meditation has helped me do; see those little things, the smiles from others and the many random acts of kindness that are not random at all.

I’m not sure about wisdom finding its way to me but I am here to tell you, without any equivocation, JOY did. I just didn’t know it at the time when I was repeating my mantra and said reverent prayer that she would be a real person in the shape of a 29-year-old mother of two! I’m here to tell you, JOY is real and she does exist! Joy and I have ridden all over Charlotte. We have gone in the mall a dozen times, cut and pasted my novel until Joy remarked that all the cutting was causing her to break out in hives! And we are about to embark on our first ever office party!

While we may not receive physical manifestations of our hopes and prayers in exactly the packaging we have specified or our mind’s desired shape size or color (I’m not sure Ebenezer really welcomed the trip down memory lane nor did I exactly expect this young woman to show up on my doorstep in her Lululemon) it makes me wonder: why do we limit our prayers in that they have to be standard issue according to OUR specifications. If you really think about it, just remember who the true GIVER of all our gifts and blessings is.

I certainly hope Cindy Lou Who will be up and driving before you know it! But more than anything I hope her shoulder has healed and mended so she can return to being the life force in her own “Who=Ville”. And I really hope this 29-year-old can keep up with me and stay warm in my menopausal, “cold enough to cause hypothermia” house. I wanted to keep her alive and healthy so I had to invest in a space heater. Bless her little heart.

And to all my wonderful but tired villagers in Who-ville who have picked me up both literately and figuratively, and to all of you all who have generously read this blog, I wish for you to find your own joy and that the light will shine on the everyday miracles in the upcoming Year. Here’s hoping 2018 will offer itself up to you and each day you will be simply astonished by the beauty that surrounds you.

#EnjoyYourLife

Leslie XO