My Scrambled Eggs Smell Like Wet Dog

By Wendy Pierman Mitzel

My scrambled eggs smell like wet dog.

This is my morning observation for the second day of the year 2020.

This is the year, we all say, things will become clear with 2020 vision. But really, how is anything different than two days ago, when the calendar read 2019?

Hindsight is not always 2020, by the way. More often than not, it is no easier to discern the why or how of anything with ten years distance than it is in the moment.

But what is possible, I think as I get older, is the ability to honor intuition. Looking back, the gut feeling has been the right call a lot of the time. Even when I fought it. Tried to reason with it. I don’t always trust it. And even when I do, I don’t know exactly how to act upon it and often don’t. But when I have, it has given me no good reason to doubt it.

A few years ago, I became convinced I had a tumor in my abdomen. I jokingly told my doctor, who dismissed it as I had no real symptoms. I was ready to let it go, but my inner voice spoke louder. I firmly asked for an ultrasound and we discovered a giant ovarian cyst, ready to burst.

Still, it’s not just about the physical.

It’s about seeing that person across the room and listening to the voice that says: “go make friends.” It’s the voice that tells you to go back to school. To quit your job. To hold back on making a decision because there’s a piece of the puzzle you don’t have yet. It’s the part of you that takes a risk and does what feels right, as opposed to what should be right. It’s what happens when you look at all the facts, and you still feel the butterflies pull you in another direction.

It sounds like falling in love, right? That thing that makes the difference between calling the person who checks off all the boxes, and calling the one who makes you feel , well, yummy.

Fall in love with yourself this year. That part of you that knows something you don’t, but doesn’t quite know how to explain it.

Kinda like how I can’t explain the eggs, but I ate them anyway.