Life happens while you’re making plans

The actual quotation is ‘life is what happens while you’re making plans’. I’ve always liked that John Lennon apparently recognised the immense uncertainty of life, and I’ve often wondered if that realisation helped him to make moments count for a bit more – whether at work, or with family and friends.

I’ve had an immense dose of life this month. Someone once told me “It’s been a hard week this afternoon”, and I feel rather like it’s been a hard year this month. It’s certainly not been all bad, but I’ve not always been in a place where I could sensibly sort the good from the bad.

Today I’m blogging just to blog. For me. Because I like coming here to write. Because every day is precious which is something I need to recognise and celebrate even in the smallest of ways – even by blogging. In my small circle is a dear friend who is critically ill and lying in hospital too far away for me to visit, as well as a new friend who wrote to me from equally far away, in the middle of his night, because my silence had gone on for too long. As I worry about one, another worries about me. I pray that I never lose sight of the fact that it is the people who are desperately important in this world; far more important than our work, our goals, our dreams, or our achievements.

I don’t often quote song lyrics, but Harry Chapin has left us and I don’t think he’d mind me quoting from the song which says so clearly what I’m unable to adequately put into words.

It seems like I’ve been here before, I can’t remember when;
but I got this funny feeling that I’ll be back once again.
There’s no straight lines make up my life and all my roads have bends,
there’s no clear-cut beginnings and so far no dead-ends.

All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown;
The moon rolls through the nighttime till the daybreak comes around.
All my life’s a circle but I can’t tell you why;
the seasons spinning round again, the years keep rollin’ by.