Zen and Slo-Mo Metanoia

Of course as soon as I post Magnify the Good, I come up against a giant Monday through Friday sized barricade ala Les Miserables, but instead of a barricade built out of random wagons and barrels, mine was comprised of a broken water bottle, an anxiety tsunami (not my own, but I find anxiety contagious so it became mine), having those same old resentment scars poked this week,  still going on social media beyond my self-prescribed limit of just a quick 2x a day to post positive things and check on family/friends in medical yikes--and reaping the consequence of THAT fail (sigh, ugh, alas), driving all over Jersey as Mom-chauffeur, and the dog peeing on the floor because she was mad I left the house...twice...

At least the dog is really cute and lovable.

So many, many opportunities to practice staying positive!

Yup. That is exactly what  I di...gah, I can't even type it. I found everything challenging. I am the worst at practicing.

Full disclaimer (again), any time I suggest any kind of strategy for positivity or dealing with piles of ugh, you have to know I am saying that first of all to my own dang self, because I do not listen to me very well. Case in point, this week. 

About some things, I am a slow learner.  Zen is one of those things. Another is dancing. Some time I will tell you about my attempt at Irish step dancing in a Celtic Theater Company show...

My knees have still not forgiven me. 

Anyway, I really do want to learn, to grow, to practice healthy striving for zen. That's why I keep writing. That's why I started the new blog page. I want a "beginner's mind" (quoting Jonathan Fields).  LEARNINGS GALORE!

To that end, recently I read a quote by John Paul II describing metanoia, a super cool word that describes a radical change of ideas and mindset--the BEAR LEFT! BEAR LEFT! moment in life that goes hand in hand with the original theme of this blog years ago. You know,  Movin' Right Along with Kermit and Fozzie. :)   Life is a road trip, don't panic if you inadvertently end up in Rhode Island when you thought you were going to LA. Make the most of it.

This is where I feel the last two years or so have really been leading me--towards accepting new roads, towards radical change in a lot of areas of life while understanding that we are on a road chugging forward, not static or trapped in one spot--but perfectionism and anxiety and resistance and ugh just keep getting in the way. 

But really, don't we all have to change? Nobody is the same person they were 5 or 10 or 15 years ago.  We can all keep learning and growing--life forces us to, in some respects--and to magnify the good is to acknowledge that, really.

We don't have to be stuck in the things that weigh us down.

Admittedly, as much as I enjoy the word "metanoia", I loathe change (OH THE THINGS THAT CAN GO TERRIBLY AWRY!!!—Dr. Seuss’s unwritten sequel to Oh, the Places You’ll Go), but to keep moving on the zen path, I need to radically change my mindset over Do vs. Be, over seeking zen vs. trying to control every variable and force zen to produce itself, to demanding perfection instead of gratefully accepting and celebrating progress. 

Brene Brown’s facebook entry for January 8 clarified ALL THE THINGS caught up in my personal Wrestlemania of what the constant struggle is about, so I will let her say it better than I can. 

BRENE BROWN 1/8/19

…Perfectionism is not the same thing as striving for excellence. Perfection is not about healthy achievement and growth. 

Perfectionism is the belief that if we live perfect, look perfect, and act perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. It’s a shield. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around thinking it will protect us, when, in fact, it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen and taking flight.

Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval and acceptance. 

Most perfectionists were raised being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule-following, people-pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, we adopt this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Prove. 

Healthy striving is self-focused – How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused – What will people think? ….

Oh snap. 

Herein lies the heart my personal struggle of Do vs. Be.  Healthy achievement and growth vs. perfection to avoid shame of failure. This is where I need ye olde metanoia.

It isn’t that we aren’t supposed to TRY, to work, to strive, to improve, to be faithful in the little things ala Mother Teresa. It is WHY are we trying—if our trying is to be perfect, to earn approval or cosmic brownie points, to protect our mind from our soul’s feelings, we are going to be frustrated and miserable.

I can personally attest to the accuracy of that. 

This is why Brene Brown’s work continuously blows my mind. Her research opened for me (for the first time) a window into why the heck I am the way I am—and by extension into why a lot of folks probably are the way they are.  Understanding that 20 ton shield that so many people carry fuels compassion—for others, and for me. Because nobody is harder on me than I am. 

And I know that spills over into me being hard on everybody. Ugh. 

So much of my life I defined my identity in doing, in meeting some standard of perfection, of doing things RIGHT. Either do all the things scrupulously so I would get the invisible (or literal) gold star…or avoid hard and scary things like the plague, because my fear of imperfection or failure swallowed my oomph to step out of my comfort zone and try new things. 

I have missed or avoided a lot of things in life that I wish I had not, because I was so very afraid of failing, of revealing my less than perfection.

When I can’t DO, or can’t do something well, or fear I won’t do something well, I question who I am, and do I even matter? NO,  I SUCK! 

It is a slippery slope that slides me right off the road of any healthy growth.

I am learning, oh so slowly learning, that I do matter regardless of flaws and perpetual failings. Failings are lessons, not condemnations of personal worthlessness. 

Ugh.

I find that even hard to type. Like, awkward pause…mental question, “do I say this?”…then type really fast.  Weird, right? I totally believe everyone matters, regardless of what they do—that is THE critical component of a consistent pro-life world view, that every single being has dignity and worth just by existing.

I am only a preference utilitarian with regards to MY value. Meh.  Work in progress. No pun intended.

I am grateful that in recent years I have learned to recognize my anxiety and frustration with imperfection to identify WHY I am plummeting into the depths on any given day, but I can’t remotely pretend I avoid the depths entirely. Instead of “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!”, now I am more “I tripped on that pile of expectations and I can’t get up!" 

An important step, I guess, but I’m still on the floor far too often for my liking. 

And that’s ok. If you are down here too—know you aren’t alone. We can get up again. We will.

I need me some more metanoia. I want some metanoia. I like saying metanoia.

also, it is fun to write metanoia

 

A radical change can be a knocked off the horse moment ala St. Paul in the biblical story of his conversion (I know, the knocked off the horse part got added in artistic representations later, but whatever, it's a memorable visual, especially you are the guy plummeting from the horse, artistic or otherwise)—OR it can be teeny tiny steps, like when Adriene Mishler says in a yoga video to take little steps to the top of the yoga mat…or jump, or float (?) or get there, "Yogi's choice". Little steps  still get you where you’re going--just choose to take a step. Little steps can get me where I’m going.

Slo-mo metanoia is better than no metanoia at all. It is the choice to change that matters.

I can’t jump right into radical change.  I am who I am. But tiny steps can lead down the road toward healthy, positive striving, too. 

I can practice tiny steps to self-acceptance (which helps me accept other people, that is why it matters). With practice, I can keep movin’ right along.  I choose THAT. With practice, we can all keep movin' right along...in a way that is healthy, happy, and hopeful.

How do you approach changes large or small? How do you make peace with the uncertainty in moments of change? Where have you seen your own "metanoia" moments? I learn so much from the things people share...

Also, how the heck does one "float" to the top of a yoga mat? How is this different than hopping? gah…

Zen and the Restart

Happy 2019, all.

So…while math is not my first language, chronology is the language of my chosen profession—and I realize that this entry is in no way two or three days after my last entry. 

Oops.

I kept adding BLOG in increasingly urgent fonts to my bullet journal. I dug out my gold star stickers. And yet I could not write the words. 

What the heck happened?

Well—a few things happened. Thing #1: I started working more. Substitute teaching holds a set of challenges that keeps me on my toes until I get home and utterly collapse. As time has gone on and I have worked through most of the different schedule configurations and academic departments, I am starting to get more comfortable with what I have to do. Still, the drain on my mental and emotional energy is pretty profound—especially since as soon as the school day ends I am back on Chauffeur Duty for my daughters, whose schedules are extremely full. Staying awake past 9 has become a challenge!

I understand now why my mom has always been such an early to bed kind of lady.

I am profoundly grateful to be subbing, especially in such a great school where things are clean, organized, coherent (ie there are systems in place for any kind of situation or schedule that might arise) –for my anxiety-plagued brain, the ORDER in this school just makes me so happy. Both my mom and my mother in law have commented on how much happier I seem. I am grateful. This sort of busy just depleted my writing energy tank. 

Thing #2: Hospital Day. More accurately, hospital days, plural. Due to scheduling what-nots, we had to have my daughter’s MRI and neuro-oncology follow ups on different days, around her busy school schedule. The challenges of an evening MRI in Philadelphia, plus days in between, plus oh sh*t we are back in neuro-oncology (an out of body moment that happens every.single.time we find ourselves back in clinic)—all these things put my writing brain into severe overdraft mode. The scan was stable, really stable. There were some other things that had to be pondered/dealt with mentally acknowledged…and once again my brain couldn’t put together words. 

I am continually agog at this phenomenon, how going back into neuro-oncology world puts my brain into insta-survival mode. The mental muscle memory that kicks in as soon as we get on the road to Philly astounds me. If only I had that kind of muscle memory for things like roller skating or backbends…

Thing #3: aka The Big Thing: Enter a Crisis of Ideas. I finished reading New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton—I had been reading a chapter a day as part of my morning prayer/get set for the day time. This book blew my mind—for folks doing any kind of spiritual seeking, check it out. Anyway, the later chapters of this book broached the idea that we really can’t force zen (he didn’t say it like that, but that was the idea). We can’t structure or create inner peace, we have to get to a point of acceptance and surrender for zen to happen.  I am not saying this right—but basically, you can’t control freak your way to zen.

Hey now.

I like me an action plan. I want to DO THE THINGS AND BE ZEN. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO CONTROL ALL THE THINGS AND GET TO ZEN!

I want zen to be the first thing I can check off on my to-do list.

Not only that—not only can I not control freak my way to zen...there is no actual end point to zen. It’s not like I can do all the things and force my way to some Be all And End All of Zentastic Zenitude. I can’t just map a route to some magical place in the northwestern hills of New Jersey and be like Ha! Found you, zen!

Nope. Although note the skillful avoidance of 287 and Rt 80. No zen to be found on  those roads.

This is likely beyond ludicrously obvious, but my denial is industrial strength and honed by years of practice.

Years ago I used to proclaim that I thought running was silly because why would you run and not go ANYWHERE but back where you started? I could see running to Dunkin Donuts, or to get fries somewhere, but in a random circle? What the heck?

I hadn’t even thought of this in years until I started wrestling with my crisis of ideas. The zen quest is like running—you get a lot of benefit out of it, even if sometimes you don’t feel like you are actually GETTING anywhere. Progress is measured by a different rubric than a simple point A to point B hooray for fries kind of way.

In this wrestling I have found my task…er, focus for the new year. (How quickly I go right into Do It! mode …) How to reconcile the deep truth I see in this need to let go, the understanding that it is the trip that matters, the destination remains in flux…with the deep truth I see in myself, that I need to know/control/handle all the things. 

I am not sure I have figured it out. Rephrase, I KNOW I have not figured it out. Anyone who lives with me will assure you there has been zero figuring out. But I can no longer let my questions stop me from writing—I have to embrace the uncertainty and keep moving. In some ways, I think that is what Merton means. Similar ideas resurfaced in my subsequent re-read of Jacques Philippe’s Interior Freedom (another mind blowing read—on this second time through I took notes in the margins).  Freedom comes through letting go, not from holding tight. You get peace and THEN do the things, not do the things to get the peace.

HEY NOW.

As much as this idea initially rankled, (Elsa can keep her “Let it Go”)—I see its truth.

I can’t MAKE THE ZEN HAPPEN. But I can take steps to invite it in.  Brene Brown said it perfectly in this week’s “Dose of Daring” email—“The willingness to show up changes us. It makes us a little braver each time.”

I want to keep showing up in 2019.

I will keep movin’ right along.  I will try to move forward in letting go of resentments and embracing forgiveness as a PRACTICE.  I will try to use my life experiences to help other folks who are wading through the quagmire of yikes. I will keep Christmas all the year…ok, wait, wrong resolution. ;) 

I will share some more of the tools that have helped me—and honestly, will probably find myself wading through quaqmirish moments of my own (next hospital day is in about 5 weeks). But hey—2019 provides a fresh start on my search for zen—or at least my search for how I can let go and let zen in, while accepting that the work remains ongoing. 

Peace, all. And apologies if the Frozen soundtrack is now stuck in your head. ;)

Zen and the Trigger -- or, More Work to Do

For context: I do not have a #metoo story. I am the rare woman who does not—I did not know HOW rare until the last year or so. So many of my closest friends have been affected by harassment, assault, or abuse, I am appalled.

The fact that these women have gone on to do amazing things in defiance of what happened (or happens—ongoing in the workplace) to them inspires me beyond adequate words.

In my younger days people were mean to me because I exuded dorkiness, and back in the pre-Bill Gates days being a nerd was not so much understood as a key to power; now more folks understand that the smart folks will eventually inherit the earth, so to speak.  I rarely think about the perils of 1980s nerd-dom now, but when I see mean behavior directed towards my children, my response reflects my past, as well as my knowledge of how hard we fought to keep my child alive.

So—the thing that triggered me this week was the public discussion of a Supreme Court nominee’s yearbook.

I have wrestled for days with whether I should write about this or not.  But only through wrestling with vulnerability can courage be found (Brene Brown’s Dose of Daring for the week!)…so here we go.

At the end of the day, it is only partly my story to tell, so I can really only say that there was a situation in 2016 in which some male students tried to put a demeaning joke about my daughter in their class yearbook—in a small, Christ centered school, in a class with less than 30 students, most of whom had been in school with my G since kindergarten, through her entire brain tumor battle. 

I caught it—because in a peculiar twist of cruelty, they TOLD my daughter, knowing she would not understand the reference, and they did not realize that She Who Is A Walking Press Release would instantly tell me. And I know all the things.  I. Know. All. The. Things.

I am proud to say that being a nerd involves having encyclopedic random knowledge that occasionally comes in handy. Ugh.

Without going into more details than that—the yearbook advisor had NOT seen or approved this (and horrified—she got the reference, too -- and put the kibosh on it instantly), the principal (a mighty woman I deeply respect) rained down righteous fury and the day was saved. My daughter wanted to just move on, and respecting her wishes, we did.

At graduation I had a moment…when a male Board member spoke about the beautiful relationships formed in high school that would last a lifetime, the saintly students…in that moment I was torn between wanting to scream BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO like the crone in Princess Bride, and between screaming “bleepity bleep, Brain tumors, SHE GRADUATES TODAY!”…so ultimately I made the right choice and screamed NOTHING, I was in church, after all, and chose to embrace the abundant and hard-earned joys of the day…and tried really, really hard to put this behind me, because after all, that day was a victory for my mighty girl. 

And we moved on in the joy of that victory, and college has been a thousand times better for my daughter, and we are trying to all live happily ever after, ish.

But in the rhetoric of this week, the discussions about high school and saintliness and yadda yadda…I realized that there is a trigger for me—and bam, I was right back in the emotions of that week.  I realized Dagnabit, I have a lot of forgiving work to do STILL.

I THOUGHT I HAD DONE THE FORGIVING!

Dagnabit.

Zen? What zen? I don't have no stinking zen!

Dagnabit.

I still have so much work to do.

And yes, when frustrated I do talk to myself like Yosemite Sam. What in tarnation?

Sigh.

I return again to an amazing link perpetually open on my phone,— (language alert in title)  Forgive Assholes, by Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber . I need to remember that I can forgive and break that chain of connection to the wrongdoing. 

Watch her 2 Minute Talk on Forgiveness HERE

“Forgiveness is about being a freedom-fighter!”

The transcript of this is the first page of my bullet journal—and will be on every subsequent bullet journal I create.  You may find it helpful. I found it profound in all kinds of ways.

 I need to keep working, so I can be free.

I am so rattled by things I have not yet exercised today, or prayed, or done yoga, or anything. I had to think. And then I had to speak, to my friends…

 I will not comment here on the politics of this week. That is not what this blog is for, and I am all kinds of upset over what I have observed this week, especially from men I respect.  But these last few weeks have put me, without any personal history of sexual assault or abuse, in a really uncomfortable place—I cannot begin to fathom how painful this is for my survivor friends.  The “if it was that bad you would have come forward sooner”…the ignorance of the research on the way victims deal with assault…of all of these things are leaving new wounds on victims who deserve love and support.

THIS IS NOT A STATEMENT ON WHETHER OR NOT YOU THINK A PARTY IS GUILTY OR NOT. THIS IS ABOUT THE EFFECT OF THE NATIONAL CONVERSATION ON THE HEARTS AND MINDS AND SOULS OF SURVIVORS.

I must say, for my friends, my strong, amazing friends for whom this week has been an excruciating trigger for painful memories:

I love you.

I am sorry.

You are mighty, and brave, and worthy of all good things.

Your zen may be rattled right now. But know that YOU ARE LOVED. YOU ARE MIGHTY. YOU ARE WORTHY OF ALL GOOD THINGS.  You can find peace, your zen. I will stand with you. Probably awkwardly, and I will  nervously chatter about random things...but I . Am. With. You. 

YOU are not defined by rhetoric or being unheard or judged by those who have not even seen your shoes, let alone walked in them. 

You are strong just in every day that you keep going. Even when you don’t feel strong.

I hear you.  I see you. I am inspired to be a better me because of you.

For young women who may now be afraid to speak— you are not alone.  You too are mighty and worthy and will be heard by women who have walked the road before you.

The triggers will come. As a brain tumor parent, I know this is true…at a routine appointment a few weeks back I had to wear a medical robe that smelled like the detergent at CHOP…and my brain was instantly back in the awful days of scary inpatient days.  Certain songs, pictures, smells put me right back in the early days of our journey.

I will not let those triggers rule me, but I cannot deny their reality. Accepting them and working through them is part of finding Zen.

For my friends who have suffered so much this week especially, don’t give up.  We can help each other find that Zen. 

The Flip Side of Do the Thing … and a Narrative Flipped

(my apologies for how long this got--but part of it is a musical interlude. that flipped my narrative ;) )

So after that last glorious list of all my personal gold stars—my virtual, wordy sticker chart – I realized that this is totally only half the story. Listening to Brene Brown’s Rising Strong while I painted my youngest’s room,  I have been working through the idea of how we engage with our own stories—that is, what are the stories we have crafted about our experiences? How much of those are informed by things that we honestly believe, but are not true? (a confabulation, which is one of my favorite words, although in a different usage).  I get caught in my own inner narrative of ugh so very often, even when it is more fantastical than factual; that is just what my brain does.

For years I have tried to make sense of my daughter’s medical nightmare through story. But what about ALL THE OTHER THINGS?

I talk a good zen game, but on the actual field of play…I am more of a Zen Fumbler. I have to be honest about that—I can say I am doing all the things, but I have to acknowledge all the time NOT doing all the things. 

Everyone was so kind after that last blog post…and then I felt the creeping wave of anxious dismay, the OH MY GOSH I MISREPRESENTED MYSELF AS HAVING MY PROVERBIAL ...stuff... TOGETHER! THIS IS SELF INDULGENT DRIVEL...nooooooooooooooooooo….

Sigh.

Enter Saturday, a train wreck kind of day here. The kind of day where yoga almost made me more stressed, where I felt very let down in a particular situation, where parenting my teen pretty much took away every gold star I ever cheerfully gave myself.  Ever. In the history of gold stars. All of them.  I glommed through a funk the entire day, a funk of frustration, exasperation, and disappointment.  I felt so stressed I washed my kitchen floor (a task left incomplete for a horrifying length of time)…got halfway through and realized I used the wrong cleaner. So I gave up. Woo. THAT kind of day.

I found it very, very hard to do anything at all, and the things I did try to do got screwed up. Whomp Whomp galore.

This, really, is the flip side of my Do the Thing, the reason I feel compelled to be like HEY, I GET A GOLD STAR FOR BEING BY OTHER HUMANS!, even though by all  normal accounts, that is ridiculous to put that in the list of achievements.  So often, I struggle to do any of the things, even little things, even stupid “how is that even an issue?” kind of things.

This story of Yay, I did stuff!  is incomplete and really a lot less helpful to me or anyone without the flip side. In Brene Brown’s work, she describes this less festive part as Act II…you can’t skip it to get to the resolution in Act III…you have to work through it.

This was a summer of many, many painful losses and challenges. A dear friend’s father passed away very suddenly (a man I have known since first grade)--the week before my friend's husband was due to have a long awaited kidney transplant (something we've worried and prayed about for years), a former student who my son had gone to elementary school with died in an accident, a beloved and mighty friend finished her fight against metastatic breast cancer—my friend I went to see in April on my second flight-- in those days of loss, I did no things except wander my house and cry.  Then we got to my G’s 14^th anniversary of her diagnosis, and I was a bit whomped by remembering the awfulness of those early days. Being in those moments of grief and worry takes all that I have and then some. I do no things.

I DO NO THINGS.

The lack of closure in my old job nags at me, and I waste a lot of mental energy ruminating over how to let that go, or how to address it.  Ruminating is never productive—but since I’m working so part time right now, my ruminating is on overdrive. I get wrapped up in that anxiety/hurt/anger and do no things.

Dave asked the other day what I was doing with the mayhem of contents I took out of our thirdborn’s room when I painted –I told him of my multiple unsuccessful attempts to get thirdborn to deal with the piles of little animal erasers and pretty rocks she has saved for a decade. He expressed understandable frustration (he is so tidy and organized, we are all his nemesises. Nemesi?)—“I know you get stuck,” he finally said…and I could not be mad. Ok, I was mad, a little, but I could not deny his accuracy. I do get stuck. Like in mud/molasses/cement/sap sticky stickfest.  I do some things, and then…get stuck. Then no things get done.

I aspire to do the things. Just…I often don’t.

My annoyance/frustration/stuckness the last few days is a recurring theme in my story, and it’s a part I gloss over sometimes because it rankles. Getting stuck, wallowing in frustration and exasperation, being incompetent at basic human skills, having a perpetual pile on my counter, being a mess, ruminating on every painful interaction, allowing self-loathing to resurface from its swamp inside my head—these are ALL the anti-zen!  Yet without acknowledging these things, these ugly, unpleasant things, the gold stars make no sense. But acknowledging them remains a pile of meh.

I can’t be a golden fake. And while I AM really glad about those things I did, I know that they are only gold stars because my natural proclivity seems to be towards crabby cactus. You can’t just “om” your way out of some things. The work to get up is slow and ugly and fraught with ugh.

Phoo.

Also, I have a self-portrait as a crabby cactus that I can’t upload. Yay, Monday.

So, a qualified yay for gold stars. Not because I am super awesome for making a phone call or getting on an airplane, but because they remind me when I am super stuck in my own messy self, I have done some things. I hope…nope, I PLAN to do them again. Acknowledging the flip side is critical though, and provides essential context, even if it is meh-tastic.  

**************

And here is where I planned to end, but I had to get milk and cheese sticks at Costco and put gas in the car…so I left this draft to conclude later.

On the way to the store, inexplicably through my Bluetooth audio  came two songs I have not heard in years (I can never figure out why random music comes out…usually really old iPod stuff, but only 2 or three songs, and they are always different from the last mysterious song playing—I was trying to listen to my Brene Brown book).  I stumbled into a legit improbable musical interlude to interrupt my fest of frustration. So …here is my mind blowing ride to Costco Playlist from Who Knows Where…these songs helped me with the not so awesome feelings that accompanied today’s blog.

The first—“You are More” by the band Tenth Avenue North…

There's a girl in the corner
With tear stains on her eyes
From the places she's wandered
And the shame she can't hide

She says, how did I get here?
I'm not who I once was.  (this is super true)
And I'm crippled by the fear
That I've fallen too far to love.

But don't you know who you are,
What's been done for you?
Yeah don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade.  (egads)

Well she tries to believe it
That she's been given new life
But she can't shake the feeling
That it's not true tonight

She knows all the answers
And she's rehearsed all the lines (we call this rumination, sports fans)
And so she'll try to do better
But then she's too weak to try   (seriously?? Get out of my head!)

But don't you know who you are?

You are more than the choices that you've made,
You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,
You are more than the problems you create,
You've been remade….

(and onward)

Well then. I hit repeat so I could hear it again. And I sang along. Loudly.  The French horn part, if there had been one, I always sing the French horn part. Nurture v. nature?

Next song: Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten” , at which point I think I yelled WHAT THE HECK? at my car Bluetooth thing and started to get mildly creeped out by musical messages from who knows where….

…Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

 WELL THEN.

Thanks, God, universe, songwriters who put into words things that help me know that even if I’m crabby and frustrated, my story is more than how much I suck sometimes (pardon my use of the vernacular). Shake it off, and start again.  Acknowledge the ugh—but don’t let it define me. I AM more than my frequent ugh moments. And with practice, I CAN let the sun illuminate the words that I cannot find...

Onward…even if it’s slow and ughly some days…onward. Together we can keep moving right along and figure out this life thing, gold stars, ughulous days and all.

Peace.

This took a turn I did not expect! Glad I did not hit publish this morning.  Probably good I did not just Do the Thing, right? ;) ha!