I'm not a mermaid... I'm a sperm whale!

"I must be a mermaid... 
I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living." 
Anais Nin

I have always loved that quote and it still resonates with me. 

I think a lot. I analyze more. I'd say "thoughtful" is a characteristic that pretty well describes me. I've always felt "wise for my years" - although the longer I live the more I realize how little I know, and that growth will always be a part of my journey.

But last night as we finished up watching "The Bachelor" and I had a Facebook "conversation" with a couple of friends about the show, I realized that I'm not really a mermaid... I'm a sperm whale (I know it's not as exotic as a mermaid, but come on, the image and the word "sperm" must make you giggle a little!)

Click on the picture to make your way over to my Facebook page! Then like it, it will make me happy :-)

I've talked about this with some of my friends. One of my best friends told me that she can "only" be friends with people who would subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and US Weekly. (We only subscribe to one of those in our house - luckily she's still my friend.) The point being, we can't take life too seriously ALL. THE. TIME. It's good to be thoughtful, deliberate, and be AWAKE in our lives. And that takes some effort. We have to examine ideas, question "truths" that have been fed to us our whole lives, identify what's most important to us. 

When we grapple with these issues we're like the sperm whale diving deep into the ocean and wrestling with a colossal squid that will hopefully be it's dinner. 

The sperm whale can dive down almost 2 miles and stay under for almost an hour and a half if it needs to. But eventually it needs to come to the surface to breathe. We all do. 


And those long, deep dives aren't even the best for the whale's health (I just learned a lot from Wiki-pedia! My base knowledge of sperm whales came from "Wild Kratts" though - thank you PBS Kids.) 

And just like the deepest dives are hard on the whale, we can't be serious all the time. It's not good for us! Laughter is good; and, combined with lightness, fun, and connecting with others, it's not just good, it's life-sustaining.

I need to remind myself not to take everything so seriously all the time. I do pretty well in my everyday life - my kids won't let me stay too serious (I mean a day can't go by without a huge belly laugh from my boy and a sparkly smile from my girl!) As a writer I seem to like to stay down in the depths, wrestling with my own giant squid ideas. It's where I'm comfortable. But I like to push my comfort zones, so I'm going to try and share even more of myself here, and include the silly, immature, and "shallow" parts of me. I hope you'll join me!

Can you guess which we subscribe to, the WSJ or US weekly? (Family and friends, please don't give it away!) How do you make sure that you come up for air and lighten up when things get too serious?