Smelly Waiting Rooms and Kindergarten Chairs.

As I sat in the Firestone waiting room, I was overwhelmed with the smell of rubber and oil. It’s not an exciting place to be, even though they have tried to cheer it up, they have gotten it a bit wrong. They have taken away the counter and put these random round checkout kiosks in the middle the room that brings my mind immediately to a Radio Shack. Everyone seemed sad and the ones who had hair, had bad 1980’s permed hair, and that was a guy! It was a sad place.

But as I sat in that smelly, 1980 version waiting room, seated at the children’s table waiting on my little fiat, I got an email. An email that made me so happy I smiled, wide. It was an email from EzineArticles.com. They had published another one of my blog posts, that they call “Articles”. It was the one called “What Would Julia Do?” and it’s a good one and one that I had forgotten. I wrote it in the very beginning and had four simple rules that Julia Child believed we should all follow.   They helped me get through the dark days after the closing of the bakery, but I’ve forgotten all about them, until now.

Living with Abandon, A La Julia

Make the most of the makeshift

Make it Up as you go along

Make this your Mantra:  I’m never too anything for anything

Those four rules are probably the best advice I had ever gotten and they hold firm all these months after the closing of the bakery. They hold true even now that there is more sunshine than darkness in my life. I wanted to tap the sad dude with the bad perm at his little circle station and have him read those rules. I think he’d be happier.  However, I’m pretty sure he’d put my car at the end of the line.  I’d be stuck in that smelly place writing and working instead of being where I’d rather be, which was at a coffee shop.  So I didn’t get up from my kindergarten chair.  I just sat there and smiled and typed away, happy that I had those rules tucked away in the front of my brain where they should always be.

I’ve gotten really good at most of those four rules, and I’m proud of myself. Proud that I got through the darkest moments in my life and came out the other side, still standing. I adjusted my sails in the storm and weathered through the dark times.   I challenge you to pick one or all of those rules and try them out. Let go for a minute. The letting go will be the hardest part. It will start slowly and at first you’ll find you can breathe a little easier. Then gradually you will see that you will begin to smile faster, and it will last longer.