Perspective.

As I sat down to write this post, initially, it was going to be about the amount of stress in my life and how poorly I have handled the load and some lengthy exposition of how my stress is so much more and so different from all others before...

Four or five sentences in, a co-worker walked into my office, sat in a chair and told me that one of our other directors had lost their husband last night - he was found dead this morning, in their kitchen.

I hit backspace - suddenly my 'troubles' didn't seem so troubling.

In the wake of something so big, I at once felt small.

Instead of another second wasted on spinning my wheels, I gave thanks for my life, my children, my health, my girlfriend, my family - the abundance that is my life.

I may be overwhelmed by the sheer number of reports required of me on a monthly basis but I go home to my children who love me and look forward to seeing me.

I have boxes all over my new apartment with contents that even I am unsure of but I am building a relationship that promises to take me into my future and she's here with me, loving me and adoring me.

My finances are tight but I am able-bodied and wake up healthy every morning with enough food in my fridge and the bills are paid.

We lay down at night, we wake up in the morning - we move through our days and nights, some more careless than others, some more mindful than others.

I hate that it took a someone else's tragedy to realign my life with gratitude.

Her world has been changed.

The hand she reached for across the sidewalk is forever gone.

The warmth she sought from his body in bed every night, no longer.

The 'thing' he used to do will now live on in only her memories.

I get overwhelmed with the details of my living sometimes but those hands I seek are still there, the warmth ever present and the 'thing'...draws me in every time.

My life is beautiful and my cup runneth over.

Reliable Happiness

Happiness = it.

You can count on it.

You can rest in it.

No amount of noise or confusion or unrest or dis-ease can sway you from it.

It belongs to you regardless of circumstance or mood and all reaction is tempered by it's reliability.

I have spent this lifetime, thus far, cultivating my own reliable happiness - so much so, that I'm pretty even keel.

I HAVE WORKED SO HARD FOR THIS...

...because for MOST of my life, I have been a slave to my mind, my emotions and subsequent reactions - I'd see myself lose control and fall out of balance and crash into chaos.

I want to be a witness of my mind and the emotions birthed from stories told there, to be a compassionate observer, to be an able warrior willing to stand strong in the midst of tumult, resistant to the pull.

I will get excited and jump around with silly abandon and I will get cursing-storm angry and yes, I will get can't-get-out-of-bed sad.

But it will be rare and for that, I am grateful - grateful to finally be here, in my skin - in a state of reliable happiness.

This phrase, reliable happiness, is a phrase from Rolf Sovik and I was introduced to it by my yoga teacher as she led us through class.

Once the words left her lips, I had found my mantra - that which summarized my state.

I live from a place of gratitude and equilibrium and I guard that place - I must. I cannot allow threats to this which I have worked so hard far, fought for even.

This life is beautiful - with all of its shades and imperfections, complexities and gifts - this life is beautiful and I want to bask in the richness.

Love for a Child

I am posting this piece of writing that I actually started months ago when I had changed my Facebook profile picture to a baby pic of mine.

In my re-read of the writing, I am moved to share here...in honor of time's complexities, in honor of the unknown and most importantly, in honor of resilience and personal power - something I have cultivated over time.

The post, in its original form:

I just posted a retro picture on my Facebook profile - a baby picture of myself as my father holds me against himself and my mom.

I always instinctively smile when I see this picture and inevitably, a slight sadness follows. I look at that fresh face of mine, those little wide eyes taking it all in, those delicate little hands, one up in a prissy gesture that would come to be my trademark.

I want to hold her for a minute...press that little body next to mine and whisper a truth into her ears that she won't understand until much later in life. I want to meet her eyes and have them never look away - they will do that enough over the course of her life to come.

I want to open the palm of her hand so she knows it is her destiny to receive.

I want to lift her chin, guiding her head up, so she never cowers under the brute forces to come.

I want to tell her that it's not going to be her fault.

I want to tell her that she is worthy and beautiful and I want to plug her ears to the painful contrary that will be waged against her defenseless youth.

I want to shield her body from the various assaults to be mounted against her innocent flesh as manifestations of someone else's shit.

I want to open her heart and fill it with love and trust in something more.

I want to write for her and sing to her an anthem of her grace, her beauty, her strength - so that her pulse only knows this rhythm and with every beat of her heart, another note its ode to her greatness.

This picture...this picture was taken just a few months after I almost died in my mother's arms...I know now, there was too much waiting for me for such a premature ending. Every moment of my life a thread in the greater fabric.

One day I want to look at that picture and not feel sad, or so pulled to rescue that sweet, dear little baby from what I know awaits her.

I've read ahead in the story - she turns out fine. She turns out beautiful and wise and deep and rich but the long road it took to get here catches up with her sometimes and demands reckoning - for all the tears never cried, for all the hurt never felt, for all the screams that never found their way out and for all the times she drew herself in because she didn't trust that she could reach out.

I am a product of my past but I am the ultimate author of this life - THIS belongs to me and now I know.