Today, I felt like I had literally lost my brain. It was somewhere between my bed and Rt 50. They say (you know, those people that say things...) that when you’re busy multi-tasking you can start to lose focus. That happened to me today. But, this memory lapse resulted in a great conversation, early in the morning with a former Air Force Colonel, turned car salesman, turned shuttle van driver.

You see, I took my car in for service this morning. I’d been experiencing the worst brake noise ever. The grinding of metal that makes me cringe every time I need to brake. The kind of noise that makes a runner with headphones turn and stare. I even dreamed that I was on Pike’s Peak and lost my brakes (there’s my subconscious telling me it’s time to take action!).

I dropped off my car and jumped into the shuttle van. Front seat, door-to-door service with a charming 82 year-old driver. We’re half way to my house when I realize, “OMG, I’ve forgotten my keys on the service desk!” Driver says, “hey, no problem…we’ll just turn around and go get them.” At this point, I’m shaking my head, looking out the window in disbelief.  Where did my brain go this morning? (I won’t even begin to tell you the other crazy stuff I either said or did..shaking my head all day…good thing my brain wasn’t in there.)

On drive x 2, Colonel and I had a great conversation, on what I’ll call “You can stick it, Florida.” Okay, maybe not Florida, but just “Stick it” or whatever term you use to tell someone off. 😉  My driver gave me the best quote of the day when he said, “People keep telling me I should move to Florida. Why the hell would I do that? All the old people live there!” That’s a word-for-word quote that I laughed at and then paused. This guy is living his life- where he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Why SHOULD he move to Florida just because he’s of age?  Just because that’s what everyone THINKS he should do? The conversation continued, but this quote has stayed with me all day.

As you can probably tell from my previous blog post, I’ve been in a somewhat reflective mood lately.  It’s so important for me to learn to be myself. It’s important for all of us to be ourselves. So often we choose which role we’ll play- which actor we’ll be, as soon as we wake up. We’ve got the script down and our “costume” picked out. We know which boxes to check and which smile or “voice” to use for the people we’ll see that day.

I say this: Don’t conform. Don’t let others tell you what you should do or can’t do. Stand up for something. Stand up for yourself. Be Brave. Be YOU.

(and yes, I do like Florida)

photo credit: http://bit.ly/107xWZ2