Hello again Travellers,

I didn’t really plan out this whole writing everyday for 30 day event very well, did I? This week is stuffed so full that I have not been able to fit in my time here with you beautiful people. My apologies to you and to myself as well. I disappoint myself when I fail to arrive here because it matters to me. It’s hard to select what has to fall away sometimes in order for other things to be accomplished. And I’m yet to figure out how to do it all. I’m still working out this whole how to do life thing. Trying to align my values with my behaviors.

Because you should know if I’m writing about, I’m struggling with it to. I do not have anything more figured out than anyone else. In fact, I think we each have pieces of life figured out, but no one gets the whole cake. We can share the same recipe, but it never tastes the same from human to human.

One of my closest friends had surgery Tuesday morning, so I’ve been doing whatever I can to help her, this is a very hectic work week, there’s working out everyday, walking dogs, cleaning up EVERYTHING and all the general nonsense that keeps a human life in motion and just exhaustion. It’s exhausting. I have felt tangibly exhausted.

I made a cake last night and iced it this morning for one of my meetings today. THE meeting of my day, which is where I present my proposed annual budget to the Board of Directors I work for… I tend to pry them with desserts. Not that they won’t show up, but my baking capabilities are bordering on legend at this point.

Ok, maybe not legend, but I do make really good sweet stuff…anyhow, I was thinking about a few things this morning and so, here we go:

That phrase, “Have your cake and eat it too.” What kind of ridiculousness is that? If you have cake, you are going to eat it. What else is cake for? And why would you want to both keep it and eat it..it’s gonna spoil, especially if it has cream cheese frosting. Everything good has an expiration, doesn’t it? Think about it…

Obviously I had to google it and Google says:

It means you can’t eat a cake and continue to possess that cake once you’ve consumed it. The use of the phrase, therefore, is to tell someone that they can’t have two good things that don’t normally go together at the same time, like eating a cake and then continuing to possess that same cake so you can eat later.

I think there is something fundamentally wrong with humans. It’s like every other lifeform on Earth just goes with the flow of life, BUT NOT US, why is that??

Why do we insist on making things so damn difficult?

Why do we so often sour our appreciation with wanting more?

Why do we want what we know we cannot have? Why do we seek that kind of frustration?

Because I have to tell you, I’d rather eat my cake and savor it. AND in a way, I do get to keep it. You keep the memory of it’s taste, texture, flavor subtleties and that moment. I think there is alot to be said for appreciating rarity versus wanting a never ending supply of something.

One of the photos I included in a this post, was a piece of red velvet cake. Or what was left of it. It was my birthday, I had just cut off all my hair, Dave was with me in one of favorite dining establishments and they brought it out as a surprise. Because they overheard us talking about my birthday and there are kind people in this world still. It was a surprise and not on their menu. Only for birthdays. And I never had another piece again. It was the best red velvet ever in the history of my life. And there’s something about the fact that I couldn’t have it again that for me really sweetens that whole memory. Which is why I took that photo.

The experience of having it and savoring it so fully that one time was enough.

Speaking of enough, yesterday I had a rather heartbreaking conversation with one of my favorite people. He reads this actually and he is 85 currently. He is on my Board and over the years we have become something near family. Yesterday he brought information about Excel, which is a program I despise but he runs quite easily, in case he wasn’t here sometime soon. And it hit me all at once just how close he might be to the out door of this life. After he left, I sat and cried because I don’t want him to go wherever we go next. I am not ready.

And it has been my sincerest privilege to know you and your wife.

This morning I realized, people are the best cake that we don’t just want to consume, but keep forever. But we can’t. That’s not the design, is it? It’s just the worst thing isn’t it? And we are all single pieces never to be consumed twice. No two will ever taste the same.

So my thought for your day is to savor everyone in your life. And don’t want what you cannot have, which is forever. Because it robs the moment of what you do have, which is now.