You know how life shifts, and suddenly takes over, and you’re left wondering what just hit you, and if it left a mark, and if it matches your shirt or will you have to change, and your wife will ask you why you didn’t come home and pre-treat it, because that blood stain will never come out now?

Or is that just me?… Probably just me.

Anyway,  you realize that the summer just vanished, you’ve not touched your corner of the interthingie since last spring, and you’ve just been moving from point A to point B while getting hit by bus C and recovering in ditch D.

Ouch.

So, here’s a few things Calbert learned along the way…

• Three Jobs Are Hard, Two Jobs Are Better – We decided to let one of my part-time jobs go, after the other one gave me a couple of extra shifts. So my weekend night gig at the airport went away a couple of weeks ago. Loved the job, loved the people, but hated the night hours. So, now I get to keep my life in a single time zone, which so far is remarkable.
• Somewhere Along The Way, I Became a Morning Person *shudder* – I have no idea when it happened, and frankly I have a hard time accepting it, but somehow I went from night owl to crazy morning dude. My alarm (on work days) goes off at 2:05am. AM. Very-freakin-AM. And yet, I haven’t had a morning on this shift yet where I wanted to throw the clock against the wall. I just get up, sit and stare at the wall for 30 minutes, get dressed, and toddle off to work. Freakishly weird and weirdly freakish.
• You Can Shine a LOT of Light In Less Than 30 Seconds – My present gig is as a sales associate in one of the stores at the airport, usually up in one of the concourses. We open a little after 4:30, and are a “convenience store” – selling water and snacks to travelers who are up way early and have just come through security. They’re sleepy, they’re annoyed, they’re overwhelmed… And I, in a tiny little way, can ease that a bit, if I’m paying attention. A smile (always), a word here or there (when appropriate), or simply pleasant efficient service – all can slightly change someone’s trajectory. It astonishes me how often I can live Kingdom life without saying a word.
• Life Has Been Dictating What I Do – And that’s wrong. Instead of me dictating what life will do and be, events and deadlines and pressures have been telling me what I will do and where I will spend my time. That’s backwards. And it’s always bad when I get in that situation. I lose all mindfulness and forget all the things that have gotten me to this point – all the things that make me “me.” Since I’ve made a tiny bit of space, it’s up to me to use that leverage to turn things around. Small moves, small changes, big results.
• Creating, Writing, Thinking, Being are Essential – and that’s what gets forgotten when life tries to steer the ship.

Captain Calbert reporting for duty. Time to turn this puppy around and steer the dumb thing. Hold on, saddlepals – it’s gonna get messy.