BitterSweet to the Core

-I finally got out on Robert's zodiac and here's a great photo of him along with some beautiful scenes from the water.

I'm not sure if you experience this but every so often I get glimpses into the bittersweetness of life with such clarity that it almost brings tears to my eyes.

The poignancy of someone's personal struggle to find their place in the world and seeing how they are feeling a little lost and yet I can see who they are - their strengths, their character - and wishing they could see what I see and then maybe they'd have more hope. Knowing that people have, in the past, felt that way about me.

Watching a deer walking tentatively down the middle of the road as I make the morning coffee. Its beauty and fragility as seen from the kitchen window.

Being privy to the challenges of old age. Not wanting to be a part of what I see and yet knowing this gift of seeing my lady is a daily reminder to live in the moment and always be conscious of the next move in life knowing that it's a balancing act between making a choice and being part of a flow that will simply lead to the next chapter.

The sorrow I feel on the one hand being there for a stranger at night and yet knowing that my own 91 year old father sits, alone, in his own house watching TV and yet he tells me, when I ask why he won't come visit, that he's just content where he is.

And, during the day, helping to manage the intensity and anxiety of people on a small island who are seeking employment and who walk through our door. Each of them seeking a way out of a transition, a new path, answers, purpose. And, being on the other end of that (because I have walked in their shoes an undoubtedly will again) I see the sheer life energy and struggle behind finding a way to find paid employment that will bring more than money even if money is the immediate need when we all know that it's never really ever just about money.

It all just strikes me so vividly at times that the intensity of feeling for a split second seems overwhelming and then it's gone. Just like life.