Just Another Day in Wileydise

I have thought a lot about what makes us who we are in the last year.  What makes some people take adversity and become more than they were through it while some justifiably just more or less give up?  What makes some people able to stay who they are regardless of what is going on around them while some change like chameleons?  What causes some people to spend a lot of time reflecting and ruminating while others are able to move on and deal more with just the now?

I am in the former rather than the latter category for each of these and I think the reason for each comes down to two basic things: an attitude of resilience and a commitment to being what you see is what you get.  I think the title of this blog, Just Another Day in Wileydise, really conveys how central both of these ideas are to me.

I started this blog back in August 2010 while pretty newly pregnant with the twins on a random whim.  It was at least the fifth blog that I’d started, but I’d never written more than a couple entries (I should perhaps move the handful of entries over here just for amusement) on any previous one.  I think part of the reason this one lasted was the attitude that went into it as reflected in the name (Aurelia’s death also probably increased the likelihood that I’d keep posting).  My first post dealt with why I picked the name Just Another Day in Wileydise and I read it today for the first time since I wrote it and I’m struck by how appropriate it is.

At the time, I wrote that “I was looking for a blog title and the two thoughts that have been most in my mind in the last couple weeks are Life Happens and Just Another Day in Paradise.”   I didn’t know how true these words were at the time.

Life happens, things will come at us.  It is what we make of them that determines our existence.

While I obviously think that our nature matters a lot, it’s also clear that the friends and family and support that we have are very important. 

One last thought.  It just struck me that the non-Texans reading this might not get the Just Another Day in Paradise reference.  It’s the title of a country song by a guy named Phil Vassar that portrays a lot of the banalities of life and celebrates them as being really the definition of paradise.  I think he’s got it right.  It’s the hustling around in the morning to get ready together and the time spent together as a family that really defines our paradise.

So I now take the title to mean two things.  First, that no matter what happens, it's always just another day and we just need to respond and react and second, life is wonderful and little things like a boy and his dog or grocery shopping really are what it is all about.