Falling in Love with Life All Over Again

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Next stop, McDonalds Breakfast
 In case you are thinking, this is rather prosaic, McDonalds, I must let you know that McDonalds in Singapore has been elevated to a very high art.

All the burgers are customised to local tastes - for instance there is a breakfast Curry Burger. And they serve Green Tea. The bacon is turkey bacon. And there are any number of different kinds of locally flavoured snacks - like macha cakes. Durian McFlurry. It is utterly unrecognisable.

Thanks mom!

You are welcome
So, yesterday was mostly sleeping. Recovering from the year and from Jura. And jetlag. I did however do the pen to paper thing yesterday and it came to me, the theme for this year, and possibly for the rest of my life. The phrase falling in love with life just popped into my head and at once my heart leapt at it.

But it wouldn't be a first encounter falling in love - the way you fall in love in all carelessness and innocence. It will be a falling in love but warmed through with experience - which is the birth of wisdom. Love + Experience = Wisdom. To take all the sorrows and laughter and all the boring bits and all the successes and bring them back to the table and be open to life once again. And that was it, to fall in love with life once more, to fold it back into itself.

I have gone running twice already and it has been bliss. I have also decided that I am not running on the roads here, I'll just stick to the park. But the usual 8 rounds has gone very smoothly and I am thinking of upping it already. I am doing 40 sit ups with nae bother and I am sweating like a monstery sweating thing. I love exercising in Singapore for this very reason. Five minutes into the run and you are dripping with perspiration. I know that you sweat the same amount in Ireland, it just evaporates faster, but for some reason having the sweat drip off you just feels so much nicer. My entire face is just running with water and my arms and legs are just slippery. I really can't explain it. It is when I sweat like this when I exercise I feel like I've come home.

The small weird things.

Yes, but being in love with life all over again, but not in the swoony, interjectery way I did this when I was younger will be what everything is. So, over the past few years, I have gathered a few things I have begun to live by.

1. The future is walking towards you

2. Never take anything personally

3. I am not responsible for anyone else's happiness

4. Fall in love with life all over again

Possibly having such a tough year is the reason for this. Having emerged from the tough year. I was reading a friend's FB post - would you take the red pill to correct past mistakes or the blue one for five million? I said the blue one because (a) the mistakes were not mine to fix and (b) I defined myself by not just my successes but failures as well. My mistakes are the battle scars I wear - they have shaped me as much as everything else has. I love my mistakes, the way I love my children with their warts and all.

So, yes, this year's theme, fall in love with life all over again. And maybe it will be something which is not just this year's theme, but will continue a little longer.

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