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Talk with a difficult manager

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I once had a talk with a manager that was very difficult. The talk, and the manager, I mean. Both were difficult. She’d been psychologically abusive the entire time I was there. It wasn’t just me that she was abusive to – she was abusive to everybody. I like to joke that she alternated between being a bully and a tyrant. Upper administration knew about her, or suspected quite a bit, but felt powerless to do anything because of her race. She would have threatened to sue if she had been disciplined or fired. It wasn’t her race that was the issue, but she would have made it one.

I didn’t say anything to her for years. I didn’t say anything in part because I didn’t often have to deal with her directly. There was a manager between her and me, and that manager caught most of it. I also didn’t say much because I grew up in an abusive home, with a pushy and manipulative brother and compliant parents. Being pushed around and not treated well was my normal. It was only in my 40s that I started doing my boundary work.

When the bad manager finally decided to retire, I knew I had to say something. I steeled myself up and prayed quite a bit. I sat, in her cramped office, lights and furniture angled to make everyone visiting in it feel like they were being interrogated (this was intentional on her part). I reminded her of the sentence she’d said at the announcement of her retirement. She’d said that she’d “been hard on us all this time because it was for our own good”. She meant that she was abusive because it would help us, she thought – spur us on to be better employees. She nodded, she remembered saying that. I asked her “Would it have hurt you to say ‘thanks for the good work’ every now and then?”

She didn’t reply. She was stunned. In 12 years she’d never said that, and she knew it. She recovered, and turned it around so that it was all my fault. This is her way. Leopards don’t change their spots, you know.

I didn’t do it for her. I didn’t expect her to change. I did it for me, because I’d changed. I wasn’t seeking revenge, just reconciliation. I had to speak up, even if it was just a little, even if it was at the end of our relationship. Late is better than never. I didn’t want to push her or abuse her – then I would have been the same as her. I just wanted to speak up, to let her know that things weren’t what she thought they were.

I left her office, holding myself together. I went into the bathroom and cried. I cried hard, not caring if anybody heard me, not really. I knew she wouldn’t. She rarely ventured out of her office. I didn’t want to cry in front of her – I didn’t want her to get the satisfaction of pushing another person around.

Poem – she left

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She left years ago.
She didn’t walk out.
There were no bags.

She left his comic books and cartoons.
She left his callused hands and callous ways.

He was thin skinned
and thick headed.

He never saw it. He never saw her leave.
He never saw her as anything
other
than a roommate, a prop, a support.

Her accomplishments rendered him speechless,
more impotent than he already was,
self-depreciating, self loathing.

A man isn’t a man just because of his age.
A husband is more than someone who is married.

She left him,
left him in her heart,
sad for his emptiness
his neediness,
his brokenness.
To try to fix him was to take away his power.

She left him
to his own devices –
Playstation, computer, and tablet. Action figures too.
Maybe they will help him to grow up.
Maybe one day he will learn from his
mistakes
instead of celebrating them, sickly
by repeating them,
over and over and over and over
and wondering why nothing ever goes his way.

She left him,
because she woke up,
and kept waking up
next to him.
His daily drunkenness on his own failure,
his addiction to his own pathology,
sickened her.

It threatened her.
It threatened her.

Like an alcoholic fresh out of rehab,
his ways threatened her
sobriety,
her awakening.

She left, because he threatened her,
not with words, not with fists
but with his very being.

Lonely, alone – about reconnecting the disconnected

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I met a guy at a party who was in a lot of pain and he didn’t even know it. He was drinking more than anyone else at the party, and didn’t know when enough was enough. Even at one in the morning, with the party over and his wife ready to go home, he was looking for more liquor to drink.

His wife and he are both young, and they have an infant child. I don’t know what he does for a living. He looks like he hasn’t been an alcoholic for long – his face isn’t red and flushed. His wife seems exasperated but not resigned. It looks like this is a new thing, but it is a thing. This behavior isn’t a one time dallying with excess, judging from his comments and his wife’s concern.

Perhaps having access to so much alcohol all in one place is what made it worse. These parties usually have people who bring enough alcohol for themselves as well as enough to share. The host has decanters full of hard liquor too. This much alcohol simply isn’t usually available at home – it costs too much.

He’d said earlier to anyone who was listening that he didn’t have a drinking problem – he only drank a box of wine a night. He was aware that equaled about four bottles of wine. He kept drinking after most people had stopped. He wasn’t falling down drunk or slurring his words, but he wasn’t by any means sober for any of the evening either.

I thought about him later, and prayed for him. In my prayers for him, I visualized asking him if I could put my hand over his heart. In the same way a doctor listens to your heart to determine your health, I was listening as well, but with a different instrument. My hand provided the connection with his center, his core.

I don’t know if he would have been ok with this if I had asked for real, and I’d never thought about doing this before. I can only imagine this is a new tool that God is giving me to help people. I’d just met this guy, and our society has pretty firm rules about physical boundaries. He might have been weirded out by me asking to touch him at all, especially over his heart. Strangely, I’ve found that my being married and female takes away some of the awkwardness of some interactions, however. I get some of the side associations of the wife role which are “nurse” and “mother” even though I’m not.

In the vision I sat with him for a bit, “hearing” his heart, seeking out the source of his pain. What was he trying to anesthetize? What was he trying to not face? What trauma or malformed part of him was hiding, covered up by years of not dealing with it head on?

All addictions are just symptoms. They are the result of the soul trying to get away from pain, but doing it in an indirect and not helpful way. They are bad reflexes.

So, using this new tool, I’m building on it. Where to go from there? Like a doctor, we must diagnose and then heal. But this kind of healing doesn’t involve pills.

Good questions to ask – Who first abandoned you? Who first made you feel that you had no power? When did you first feel alone?

We must find the source of the pain. The infection won’t get better if the wound isn’t addressed. People won’t want to look at it – the soul wants to avoid pain at all costs. But a little pain is necessary to get the result of no-pain in the future. Sometimes people have to “lean in” to their pain, to look at it sideways.

Then, transition to the source of the healing, which is always inside. We have our own strengths within us. We have the tools we need – the healer doesn’t heal, so much as reconnect the person with their own power.

What was the first time you felt powerful? Remember the first time you felt capable. Remember the first time you figured something out for yourself. What awards have you gotten? What recognitions have you achieved?

Our job is to help people re-member, re-unite. We join them back to themselves. Then they are re-joined to the community.

Like the story of the mustard seed, even a little bit of faith can grow into something mighty. A tiny flame can become something huge. Our job as healers is to find that little spark, that little seed and nourish and nurture it. We have to help the person see their own inner goodness and give them the tools to help it grow.

Getting people to volunteer is good. They get outside of themselves, and stop focusing on their own problems. They feel like they are useful and a part of the solution. Often what separates people from their true nature is feeling separated from the community. They don’t feel connected or valuable. The most healing thing you can do is to include someone.

Waiting to escape part two.

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Right now I feel I’m working an 80 hour a week job, but only getting paid for 40. My other “job” is non-paying, and in fact I spend money at it. Classes in being a facilitator aren’t cheap. Materials aren’t either. Books, drums, paint, canvas, beads all add up. This doesn’t even add in all the time I’m spending learning how to do this thing I don’t even have a name for yet.

I don’t want to charge people to help them. That is part of the appeal of the library. Anybody can come in and get what they need to educate or entertain themselves for free. It is open to everybody. Sadly though, it is more entertainment than education that happens. Sadly, more movies and romance novels are checked out than books on how to make life better – either for themselves or others.

I feel like I’m selling panaceas. I feel like I’m pushing palliative care. The vast majority of people are getting something to ease their pain and bide their time. They aren’t living life – they are escaping it, enduring it. I feel like a sober person working in a bar. I can see through things now, and it hurts.

Doctors swear to “do no harm” and while I’ve not made that same oath officially, I have in my heart. While I’m not encouraging people to get things that are wasting their time, I’m not encouraging them to get anything else either. I’m not allowed to suggest, really, because I’m not a librarian. That requires a Master’s in Library Science. I check in and check out materials. I get you your library card. I serve, and I solve some problems. I’m a facilitator there – I make things easy for them. Facilitators make things easy. But I have an issue with “easy” versus “good”.

“Easy” is getting ten movies to watch at home while you are nursing a hangover, or depressed because you are lonely. “Good” would be learning what you are trying to escape from and working on that. But that is hard. That requires real work. Soul-work is painful. It is like doing surgery on yourself without anesthesia. But the final result is healing and wholeness and harmony. The final result is clearing out the pus of the infection that is bad coping skills and bad habits.

There is too much pain in the world, and it is all avoidable. I can’t wait until people are ready to be healed. People say that the alcoholic won’t change until he’s ready to change. Meanwhile, should I keep giving him booze? I feel that I am doing this every time I see someone check out more time-wasting materials. I see the same people in every few days, getting the maximum number of DVDs or an armload of mindless romance novels. Sure, everybody needs a diversion every now and then. But when all you do is diversion, then you are never going straight on into life.

Entertainment and distraction shouldn’t be the main course. Dessert isn’t filling or fulfilling. Of course, I feel the same way about going to a buffet, but I don’t work there. Half the food is healthy, half is deadly. Too much of the good stuff isn’t good either.

“I set before you a blessing and a curse” God says. We have free will to choose every moment of our lives. I just feel like I’m being an enabler when I help people check out things that are more like a curse than a blessing.

I want to help people wake up to the wonder and beauty of life. I’m trained in processes that help people dig down deep, getting in touch with their true selves. There isn’t a way to do that at the front desk. Perhaps I can ask to teach classes at work? Then my “other job” and my “real job” will start to merge. Libraries are all about the free flow of information and communication. What is more basic than being able to communicate with your own self?

Before and after

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There is a Zen saying – “Before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.”

Sobriety is much the same way. After you become sober, the problems are still there, but your coping mechanism isn’t. The troubles just trouble you more. You safe cocoon that you spun around yourself is gone. You realize that you got stuck in your own web of lies and avoidances. You realize that you were cramped by that cocoon, not comforted.

But those daily things are still there, those annoyances. You’ve spent years not learning how to deal with them in a healthy way. You are at least a decade behind the curve. Even though chronologically you are an adult, you are a child when it comes to dealing with life.

It sucks. It’s hard. It makes you want to start using again. Dependency groups seem to focus on the disease, not on how to live life. They seem to glorify the illness of addiction, rather than teach new and healthy ways of dealing with everyday and extraordinary stresses.

Sometimes just getting out of bed is a stressor. Sometimes coming home is one too. Sometimes the people you used to hang out with when you used were the only friends you had – and they still use.

So how do create this new life, this life without using? Plenty of people just trade one addiction for another. A lot of ex-drinkers become smokers. I remember one year I gave up smoking pot for Lent, and ended up drinking every day instead. I know a guy whose parents were recovering alcoholics. He loudly proclaimed that drinking was evil, but then every Tuesday when they would go to AA meetings, he would get stoned at home.

Addiction is addiction is addiction.

It isn’t about being a recovering former user. It isn’t about counting the number of days you’ve been without your intoxicant of choice. It is about every day forward and what now.

Back to chopping wood and carrying water.

Sometimes the only way to learn is to just do it, painful though it is. Nobody can tell you how to best live your life. They can tell you how they did it, how they got over the hump. They can offer suggestions. But for you, you just have to do it, step by fumbling step.

Why he hits. Why she stays.

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If you wonder “why she stays” or “why he hits” it is all the same. It is all about power. They both feel powerless.

She doesn’t leave because she thinks she can’t support herself without him. He makes all the money. He knows how to repair the cars and the house. But also he feels powerless. If he doesn’t have her then how is he going to get fed? How is his laundry going to get done? They stay together out of a sense of desperation and powerlessness.

If you want to address the cause of men hitting women and women taking the abuse, you have to address the root of power. You have to teach boys how to cook and clean and take care of the household in addition to teaching him how to use tools and repair cars. If you want to teach women to be strong you have to teach them how to use tools and how to repair cars in addition to teaching them how to cook and clean and take care of the household. Only when there’s a sense of equality will there not be a sense of powerlessness.

Men also abuse others because they have not been taught any other way to deal with their emotions. “Boys don’t cry”, remember? Boys are taught to roughhouse and to fight. They are taught to be aggressive. Anything less than this is seen as weak. If a guy shows any gentle tendencies he is seen as gay. He is excluded from the pack. Thus when guys feel powerless, they will lash out with the only tool they are allowed to use and that is violence.

Part of power is also about giving people a sense of worth and value. They have to feel like they can take care of themselves. This includes being able to get and keep a job. People need to feel like they are needed.

Address these issues and you have solved the reasons why he hits, and why she stays. Teach people how to be independent.

Time travel dream

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I had a dream that I travelled back in time to visit my Mom. We were together in the living room in our old house in Chattanooga. She was sitting on the couch by the windows, where later we would put the hospital bed. She died in the same place she had sat all those years.

When I traveled there in my dream, I told her that I was really 45, that essentially, I was possessing my own body. I asked her how old I was at the time, because everything always looked the same there. She told me that I was 12.

I told her that she died when I was young, but I didn’t tell her when. I told her how it affected me. I told her that she might want to stop smoking and start eating well.

We had a steady diet of junk when I was growing up – no fresh vegetables, a lot of fried food. If we ate vegetables at all they came out of a can or the freezer. A lot of food was brown. The walls of the house were stained yellow with all the tobacco smoke. It was a very unhealthy place to grow up. I had no control over my environment, and the people who should have looked out for me were killing me day by day.

For some reason I felt like I could warn her about the train wreck she was making of our lives by smoking and eating poorly. Her bad choices were my bad choices by default. I was her child and had no control over what I ate and the air I breathed when I was there. For some reason I thought I could change her ways by coming back as an adult to tell her what would happen if she didn’t change.

When I woke up, I pondered on that dream and I thought of this Bible passage. Jesus told this story about a rich man and a poor man. The Lazarus in this story isn’t the same one he raised from the dead – that was the brother of Martha and Mary.

Luke 16:19-31
19 “There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Laz′arus, full of sores,21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man’s table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried; 23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Laz′arus in his bosom.24 And he called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Laz′arus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.’25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Laz′arus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.’ 27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’ 29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if some one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.’” (RSV)

So I realized that it didn’t matter. Even if I had been able to go back to tell her to change her ways, it wouldn’t have done any good. She knew that smoking was bad for her but she still did it. She knew that she should eat better but she didn’t do it. She had made her choices and she stuck to them, regardless of the warning signs and the evidence.

How many people are like this? They’d rather stick with what they know to be bad rather than make the change to what they know to be good.

Change is hard. It takes a lot of energy to break free of a bad habit. But it is worth it. And the more you push towards being healthy, the more energy you have to make other changes.

How NOT to do Pastoral Care.

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There is a lady I know who took the same Pastoral Care class that I did. She is a nurse and goes to church regularly. She is certified as a minister in her church. She isn’t ordained, per se. I thought that she would know how to handle it when I told her some heavy news.

My mother-in-law is now in the hospital. She passed out and hit her head. Just days earlier she found out that her cancer had spread to her lungs. I know that means she has just a few months left.

I don’t want this lady to pray for her to live longer. That isn’t why I started to tell her what was going on. I thought we were friends, and in a way we are. She tells me heavy stuff and good stuff. She tells me about the important things going on in her life. We celebrate together and mourn together. But it really is that I celebrate and mourn with her, about her issues, and she doesn’t return the favor. It isn’t reciprocal.

One thing that you have to remember about Pastoral Care, about mindfully listening to someone while they are in a bad situation, is that it isn’t about you. You aren’t supposed to talk about your situation, or compare, or outclass. You can’t tell the other person a story of how it is worse for you or someone you know. That kind of “perspective” isn’t helpful and it isn’t kind. It is the exact opposite of what is necessary.

What is necessary is just listening, and I mean really listening fully. Not being distracted, not trying to leave, not looking around at your phone or watch. You can ask the other person how they feel about it, and you can say “Gosh that has to be hard” but that is about all you are allowed to say.

They just need a safe person to talk to – one who can handle this information in a way that is healthy for both people. A good listener is like Houdini once he had prepared. He could warm up his stomach muscles in just such a way and then anybody could punch him in the stomach as hard as they wanted and he’d be fine. He had trained himself how to do this. A good listener does the same. If they aren’t ready for it, a hard story can destroy them, so they have to train to be able to receive it. Taking a pastoral care class is part of this training.

I should have known better when I first started talking to her yesterday. Just after I reminded her that my mother in law has pancreatic cancer (not a pushover kind of cancer), she turned away and made some (unrelated) joke to the instructor of the class we were in. I felt slighted, but I decided to give her another chance.

When she turned back to me, I kept on with the story. I’m a bit torn about what to do because of the history of physical and mental abuse she allowed in her house. It is my father in law’s fault that the abuse happened, but it is her fault that it continued. They were both very immature when they got married. They are both still immature now, and they are in their 70s.

So some of the issue that I’m dealing with is how much are we supposed to get involved in this situation. You reap what you sow, right? But as a Christian, I’m supposed to forgive, right?

I just feel like if I pretend nothing happened, then I’m doing the same thing she did. I’m saying that it was OK. And it isn’t OK. Abuse is never OK, whether you are the one doing it or you are the one allowing it. By allowing it, you are sanctioning it.

So this lady, this minister, this person who has taken the same class I have and should know better, she starts telling me a story. Now, it isn’t a story about her, but it isn’t a helpful story. It isn’t enlightening, and it isn’t useful. It doesn’t tell me a way to deal with this situation. It actually makes me feel worse.

(Trigger warning)
(I didn’t get this warning when I got this story)
(Such is life)
It was a story about a couple that she knew in a nursing home. Both husband and wife were in separate rooms, and it was for a terrible reason. The husband was abusing his wife, sexually, and their children were OK with it. “She’s his wife” they’d say, as if that excuses rape.

(Warning over)

She went on and on with her story and I felt trapped. Finally it stopped and there was some silence. I digested this, still not knowing what to do about the situation I brought up, and feeling worse because of the story she told. Helpless. Raw. Frustrated. Dirty.

I digested this story and knew that my boundaries had been violated. I told her that I can’t handle those kinds of stories, and she apologized. She said she was a nurse and terrible things happen around and to nurses all the time.

She proceeded to tell me some of the horrible things that have happened. It got graphic.

Somehow her apology ended up being even worse than the reason for the apology.

She didn’t see the error of her way – she didn’t get that telling that kind of story to anybody isn’t a great idea. It is especially a bad idea if the person is experiencing a problem.

I can handle it. I’m pretty strong, emotionally. I’ve learned a lot about boundaries. I wonder about anybody else she might “help”, and how they will react.

I now know that I can’t trust her with anything heavy.
She’ll drop it on me.

The purpose of taking a pastoral care class, in fact, the purpose of being a minister, is to learn how to help people. It isn’t to carry someone else’s burdens for them. It is to carry them with them for a little while. When you do that, you make it a bit easier for them to see what they are supposed to do. When you do that, you give them a little breathing room.

You are never supposed to add to their burden.

Fill in the blanks.

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I woke up thinking about my parents-in-law. Things aren’t going well with them, and I’ve been very distant because of that.

I’m angry with them. I’m angry about how they treated my husband, their son, as he was growing up. I’m angry about how they abused him. Their own history of being mistreated isn’t enough to excuse it. They should have known better.

I’m angry about how they haven’t listened to my advice on where to live, so they keep needing to ask for help. I was the one to suggest they move up here, closer to their sons, but that is all they have listened to. Five hours away was too far to help them, so they came closer, but they are still too far. Thirty minutes one way isn’t ten.

They should have bought a condo, or gotten an apartment. Basically they shouldn’t have gotten a yard and a place that has to be maintained. At their age, they personally need to be maintained more than their homes. I told them this, and they ignored me. I told them that my husband, their son, barely has time to take care of our house.

Now they need help. Often. Just like I foresaw. There is no need for these emergencies.

They continue to ask for my advice and input, but they continue to ignore it. They waste my time and that of my husband.

They are very needy.

They are too old to be this childish.

And then I stopped and remembered. Ask Jesus into it.

Jesus Jesus Jesus, I said. I visualized all of these problems as big blocks. I saw the light of Jesus entering them. It was like a glue, filling in all the cracks, making them stronger.

And I came to understand that the brokenness is part of the plan. The brokenness is necessary.

The poet Rumi reminds us that bread can’t become bread unless the grain is ground up. Then it is mixed with other ingredients and heated in an oven.

Clay isn’t useful unless it is shaped and heated too.

These broken bits, these hard times, these trials that we all have – these are what make us who we are.

They aren’t the bits to run away from. They are the whole story. They are it, everything.

They are what make us human. They are what make us who we are.

God isn’t the “bad guy” for letting bad things happen to us. These “bad things” are just the hard things that push us out of what we are and into who we are supposed to be.

They are what get the baby bird to get out of that shell. They are what get that same bird to jump out of the nest and fly for the first time too.

We are those birds.

Stuck in our shells, we would die.

Stuck in the nest, we would never live.

Adversity isn’t.

It is opportunity.

Jesus is the glue that holds us together, is the hand that pulls us out of the hole, is the thing that rescues is from being stuck.

Jesus is “out there” but is also “in here”. Jesus is instantly available -all you have to do is call on him. Ask and you shall receive, after all. But Jesus is also inside every person who has let him into their lives. Jesus builds houses for poor people through Habitat for Humanity. Jesus feeds people at the rescue mission. Jesus holds people’s hands when they die in hospice care. Jesus teaches children how to read.

Jesus wears a lot of faces and goes by a lot of names, and he’s here.

But he had to be broken and blessed for that to happen.

He wasn’t crucified for our sins. He was blessed and broken on that cross, just like how he blessed and broke the bread and the fish to feed thousands.

He became more, so we could become more.

Thanks be to God.

Alone again

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Until very recently I used to make sure that I had plans for a day or a weekend off. I always had to be doing something outside of the house. Errands to run, people to meet – something needed to occupy my time. I just realized yesterday how excited I was to not have any plans to go anywhere for today. I thought this was a good sign.

But then I realized that I still had plans. Make hummus and pesto. Work on the condensed Gospel (still an active project). Make jewelry. Paint my toenails. Write. Cook supper. Organize the fridge.

I realized that I was still packing my day full of stuff. The only difference was that I wasn’t going anywhere.

I know some of my need to stay busy has to do with my awareness of time, and how little of it there is available to us in our lives. I know some of it is my realization that if I don’t keep up some level of activity then depression will sneak in and set up camp. But this need to stay busy busy busy is in itself a symptom of a deeper problem.

Being still is, at the heart of it all, being alone. Deep down, I don’t like to be alone. Thus, deep down, I’m not comfortable with myself.

This is hard to admit, and hard to live with.

It, in itself, isn’t a bad thing. Different ways of living are just as valid as having different hair colors or textures. Different isn’t bad or good. It is just different.

What matters is that I am conscious of it, and aware. Do I let this way of being rule my actions? Do I let it decide for me what I am going to do? Do I live my life by reflex, on autopilot? To unconsciously act, whether directed by a crowd or an unnoticed impulse, is the same. It is, at the heart, to not be fully alive but to have your actions taken out of your control.

My need to stay busy is a need to fill up my time and my head with stuff. It is a need to get away from myself, even if I am the only person in the room.

There is strength in being independent. I’ve gained a real sense of power from preparing food for myself and my husband. I’ve also learned valuable lessons about myself and about life from doing this.

But still, even in this lesson, I’ve not really been awake. It is still a method to stay busy, and thus ultimately stay distracted.

I’ve heard “Hell is other people.” Perhaps for me, right now, hell is myself.

I don’t hate myself, not at all. That isn’t it. I have a good life and I’m grateful for my many blessings. But if I still feel empty in the midst of busyness, then something is wrong. My plan for this past year or so has been to uncover, and recover. It has been to dig up and dig out. Simultaneously I have been reforming and recreating myself by becoming more aware and awake.

Some of this is teaching me to be more conscious, while some of this is teaching me to let go. Some of it is about living in the moment as completely as possible. Some of it is about seeing the path ahead and planning wisely. And some of it is just simply about learning to be me.

You’d think I’d know how to do this by now. I’ve had 45 years to practice. But not really. For many of those years I wasn’t really awake, and that isn’t even including the years I spent in a pot-cloud. Or grieving. Or both. I’ve spent a long time running away from myself. Now that I’m conscious, I feel I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.

And that is part of it too. Being patient with myself, in the middle, in the mess. Being patient, and knowing that this is where I need to be, and who I need to be right now.