Have you ever had a thought or feeling or dream or wish that rattled around in your head, and wouldn’t leave you alone?
One of my favorite quotes ever is pictured above, “It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” How can you not love that? Missed opportunities can drive you crazy if you let them, but the thing is, more opportunities open up every day. You can miss eighty in a row, but there will be another one coming along today, so hop on and ride it hard!
So I love the quote, and a couple of years ago I was in my Mom and Grandma’s gift/home decor shop, and they had just gotten in a new shipment of little signs for the garden – and one had George Elliot’s words on it. I had to have it! And when I moved here, I put it up on my deck, between my two big rattan arm chairs. It looked lovely and I was happy to have a place for it. End of story! Or not.
I started to hear this rattling in the walls – especially at night – and usually in the bathroom. Was it the pipes? It’s an old house, could be. Was it an animal? I’ve had a couple of raccoons way up on my second story deck and a bird’s nest on my light fixture – so that could be it too. Could it be a ghost? I kind of liked that possibility! I finally figured out it was the wind causing the sign to rattle against the house. I am on the second story in the tallest building downtown, so I get better breezes here – but also stronger wind. So I took the sign down, a little regretfully, and everything was quiet.
But you know what? I didn’t like the quiet. I realized that I liked the rattle – so the sign went back up. It’s an aural reminder to grab those slippery opportunities. It’s so easy to just exist and live day to day, and rarely move out of your comfort zone – but if you have a dream, a vision of what you’d like be, and do, and see, and accomplish, then you have to grab those opportunities. Who wants to think about what might have been? Bottom line, it’s never too late. So I’m embracing the rattle in my walls – and in my head!
