Living and letting go

Wow. What an unpredictable birthday I’ve had.

First I awoke at 7.20am when the power went off. It stayed off for two hours. It is the first power cut since I moved in here 4 months ago. Then a friend took me out to the winery region for lunch and we got lost. Finally we got to the winery we intended to go to. As my friend hadn’t told me where we were going I hadn’t been able to point out when we went the wrong way. But it worked out fine in the end.

Then this evening another friend took me for a ride in the hills in a 1963 (same year as me ) MG convertible. What a ride, with the top down driving through the hills on a balmy summer evening. Then we ran out of petrol! My friend knew we were getting low but he didn’t anticipate how low. We managed to coast down a huge hill to a small town but at 8.30pm out of the city there was no petrol station open. We had to wait for 30 minutes for the RAA to arrive with some spare petrol. It was such a lovely evening and such a beautiful spot it was no hardship to sit there and chat.

I tend to think that what happens on your birthday sets the tone for the year. So I wondered what these events were indicating to me. I think the message (if there is one) is that I need to accept there are many things I just have no control over, so I should just sit back and go with the flow. The power cut didn’t inconvenience me in any way, the getting lost meant we drove through some beautiful uncharted territory and we did get to our destination eventually. And the drive in the MG was exhilarating and even running out of petrol was funny. An adventure.

So I aim to live life more spontaneously this year. I will let go and not try to control events. I will allow life to take me where it thinks I should go even if it is not the most direct path. And I’ll laugh at the ‘misfortunes’ that occur. For I will get where I need to go, in the time I’m meant to get there. And I might as well enjoy the ride!