The luck of the Irish

My Mom was part Irish.  We always believed that her dad, McGee, was a leprechaun.  He was small, always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye.  "By Ginger!" was how he made a point or added to a conversation.  Whether he had the luck o' the Irish or not truly depends on where you stood.  He was dirt poor, yet he had friends too numerous to count.

I was having a pretty serious pity-party earlier this week.  I'm not quite sure how or why things have fallen apart for my family over the last 5, 6, 8 or so years.  Seems to go from bad to worse every time I turn around.  My mind was drifting down a very unhealthy avenue about being cursed, but as luck would have it (ha!) I was detoured by a little article from an old issue of Journal magazine that helped me get out of my funk.

(Page from my art journal, by Anne Marie Gross)

I don't think luck is something you fall into, under, or out of.  It's really a matter of not only answering the door when opportunity knocks, but going out and actively seeking opportunity.

The more roads you travel, the more people you meet, the more conversations you have, the more likely it is that opportunities -- good opportunities -- will present themselves to you.  Then of course, you have to have the guts to take some risks and go for something that could create good in your life, AND you must be ready and willing to let go and move on if no good ends up coming from your choices.

With the troubles we've had of late, I know my tendency has been to withdraw -- partly out of sheer exhaustion, but also partly from embarrassment.  When our children's peers are excelling in academics and sports (which tends to be the main focal point of conversations as you run into people), it's pretty hard to share that Princess is bipolar, Bud quit high school, and Kitten is struggling with Sensory Processing Disorder.

But I have to remind myself that by openly sharing about Kitten's symptoms and putting myself out there with that story, "luck" dropped the right people in our lap who were able to give the right diagnosis and refer us to the right therapies. If I had talked about this with only 1-2 close friends, chances are that I would still be stressing over her initial misdiagnosis of ADHD.

And by having the guts to follow my instincts about alternatives to high school and asking the right questions and pressing for different answers, it resulted in a much happier Bud who, I dare say, is downright delightful at times now.

It's good to have this reminder that luck is right there in front of us.  Some of us can see it, some of us cannot.  But it's there, waiting for us to find it.

When I was a kid, I used to spend hours combing our grass in search of a four-leaf clover.  And after hours/days of searching, I usually would find one.  But if I just stood on the porch, glancing out at the sea of green grass stretched before me, what do you think my chances would be of finding that four-leaf clover?

Luck comes from a lot of effort, not necessarily hard work.  Effort to engage in life, reach out, and jump in.

I like the way that sounds.

P.S.  I posted a few of the art journaling supplies I use over in the left column, as well as a couple of books I really like for inspiration.  I use watercolor pencils and a water-filled brush A LOT for my backgrounds.  Then I just doodle and collage on top of that.  One product I forgot to add to the list was gesso.  I'm recycling old stationery, which is pretty porous paper.  So I prep each page with a brushing of gesso first.