Judith Romanello

I write true stories with relative ease, but writing about me personally is much more difficult. For one, stories are about experiences, while the other is about self-exposure and can leave me feeling vulnerable.

To my surprise, I’ve learned mostly from the dark times I went through and saw that somehow, someway, everything was connected to a bigger picture, giving it value. I have tangibles I do rather consistently that help me, and one is journaling. For me, it brings awareness’ and insights into circumstances that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. Also, in the dark times, I would consciously turn to something I adored, like one of the animals I’ve had over the past forty years. This was important because I needed to feel loved and they delivered 100 percent of the time! I would smile, which eventually turned into laughter, an acquired habit of untold worth as laughter can become addictive just like anything else.

Along with my journey, I found anger and love cannot coexist at the same time. The best part was I got to choose. The why did this happen changed into what can I learn from this experience, and falling in the mud puddle, which I did often, wasn’t so bad after all for I know the value of a mud pack! Other important parts to the happiness puzzle of life are eating right, exercising, and good friends. But the most important for me is having a connection to God, the one constant I’ve had throughout my life, well almost, and eventually, all things come together.

This sums up my pot of gold everyone. It’s an eclectic combination of colors, shapes, and sizes. It contains pebbles and has room for the pebbles yet to come because I have made room for them because of the rocks I’ve already thrown out along the way.