Since the divorce (two and a half years ago) and in the last year, I have discovered something quite wonderful. It is that each and everything that we do is important. So, consequently, I am no longer in a rush. Seems I spent 12 years rushing, rushing, rushing to please, to prepare, to arrive on time, to make sure "they" were on time, to get things done. And it nearly killed me.

Today, I take pleasure in the smallest of things. I simply look at the job at hand and begin. I cut linings for my friend's drawers today. I did not over think it. I did not look at all the drawers and think, "Oh, my God, there are so many of them."

She gave me the assignment, and I poured myself into it. I sat in the sun at my "work" station, which was a bench on her deck. I sat on a cooler with wheels, and I had a razor blade and a block of wood, an ink pen and a tape measure to complete my work.

I sat and drank a Smirnoff lemonade thing and began the task at hand. I did not care if there were rolls and rolls of this shelf liner that needed to be measured and cut and that the dimensions had to be 19 ¼ for some and 8 ¾ for others. I spread the material and measured and marked and cut using a quarter round to hold down the liner. I ran my blade as close to the quarter round as I could, paying attention to the fact that I wanted the edges to be smooth and not ragged.

I accomplished my task.

When the kids spill Pepsi or milk. When my dog gets sick and throws upon my floor or when the kitchen pipe under the sink leaks and I have to stop my current task or effort to relax and must stoop, bend, twist, unscrew, wipe, I do it willingly and almost happily.

I am a grateful Samurai, today. A soldier with Krud Kutter and Lysol as my weapons.

I fight the system. I fight the school to understand that a child is in puberty and might need a little more understanding now and again and that the fact that my eleven year old son threatened to knock another child from here to Sunday is just how "kids" express themselves and establish pecking order.

I am a Samurai.

Each day I am off to battle. But, in the course of each and every fight, I find a place to lay my head and my thoughts and to rest and to be thankful for my ability to do the task at all.

And when the electric bill arrives, I pay it knowing that I am grateful to have lights and AC and heat and the microwave. Our life is far less complicated but nonetheless challenging. We are all soldiers of our own fortune and destiny in a way.

I'm off to battle each day. I'm destined to find pleasure in the smallest of chores each moment. We're in this together, so take heart. Enjoy the ability to breathe and to walk and to simply exist with or without a mate.