Living 101

I walk to the refridgerator and drink from the carton, sit down on the couch, press a button to turn on Access Hollywood and as the antennae goes in and out creating a partial picture I stare mindlessly...petting my needy cat, Blue. DON'T WAKE ME UP....I'm sleepwaking.

SleepWAKING? After all my blogs on conscious living and propelling myself into moments of Nowness?? THE SHAME! I'm guilty....and yes, I made that word up.

Tiff-tionary meaning of "SleepWAKING": Being awake, yet walking around without mindfully living.

I blame it on the fact I haven't had consistent sleep in nearly a year and a half (due again to my needy "I'm going to start meowing at 3am" ass of a cat). Each day I start to feel a bit more like maybe I AM actually sleeping and my days could be the hallucinations. Suddenly I remember my uncle is narcoleptic and wonder if I am? I realize, one of the things I was voted in high school was "always sleeps in class", and I wonder if my genetic clock is a giant snooze button? I learn today my boyfriend has mono ...and wonder if I gave it to HIM?

Everyone is quick to offer solutions, including, get rid of the cat, to which I reply;

"I'll get rid of you" - Or- "Your mom should get rid of you", that's always a classy response too.

What I've realized lately is a few things:

1)New mothers are superheroes: they never sleep and yet they don't actually get rid of their children.

2)You have to keep waking up and living even when you don't want to get out of bed.

3) Life isn't a journey...it's a test.

I'm a good test taker you say? Me too, I rarely had to study to get A's, but sleepwaking, that's definitely getting an "F" in Living 101!

I thought about all this today because my friend's mother passed away...a punch in the gut from life and I cried for his loss. Two days ago I posted, "death, teaches us how to live", and today I was tested to think about what my own words really meant again.

I'm reminded, we don't know how much time we're given on this earth. We don't know how much time we have with our loved ones. Life is a constant test of character, strength, mindfulness, trust, faith, humor and resilience. No wonder we don't make it out alive. But if we live it right..we get life ever after.

The goal, however, is to ace the test and live out loud while we can. Leave an exclamation point behind our name, be a good student to what life has to teach us, and be good to one another.

My dad said to me once, "You can't get to home, without hitting all the bases."

So no matter how tired, beat up, sad, stressed, unmotivated or apathetic you feel -WAKE UP each day and run the bases. Don't be impatient, live in the Now. Each day embrace and accomplish something, even if that something is simply telling someone how much they mean to you because you never know when we will finish this test and graduate to Home Base.