I saw this totally silly meme on Facebook today. Yes, I am still on Facebook. Although, I rarely post anything. I lurk more than I state. And, I barely even lurk anymore. Regardless of my lurking or non-lurking Facebook behaviors I did catch a silly meme that stayed with me for a bit.

See, this silly picture makes some people laugh. Why? Because dogs make memes awesomely funny.  Yes, I am a dog person.  But back to this other thought.  And, this meme captures perhaps the sense of exhaustion so many face these days.   The US economy unequivocally runs on productivity while people are running on fumes. You come home and you either want to watch the Walking Dead as if you, yourself, were a zombie or you want to nap. Add in the need for a glass or two of wine. But we all know that research says that last part is good for you. Wink wink.

Every morning I try to catch the sunrise. I am not that great at catching sunsets.  Which is a shame as my new home would afford me the opportunity to catch fiery sunsets. Why do I not catch them? A ton of reasons. I am running around trying to catch up on things I didn’t get a chance to do during the day. I am caught up as well in hearing about my son’s adventures at school.  I also have a lot of text messages that come in during the evening. with everything that goes on during the evening, we all run the risk of not being able to sleep well at night due to extreme ruminations.  I have a rule of thumb that I cannot go to sleep for at least two hours after my last email.   I try to take that time to decompress and orient my brain towards what would hopefully be a good night’s sleep.

But what if I started the process of non-rumination by making an effort to catch the sunrise and just stare at its beauty. No need to reflect on its beauty or contemplate it. One can just stare into the sunset.   Take it in and let it seep into your pores.  Exhale and just be. Be a human with hopes, dreams, and ideas that can be nurtured by the earth. Too much? Nah. Even though the dog is cute, don’t be that dog that is bone tired and misses out on a gorgeous sunset.

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.”