in which the author of the blog proclaims her newly formed plan for her life to her readers.
folks. this is the moment of truth. (until further notice.)
My Current Grand Plan of Action is to move to boston in February or March in order to spend as Much Time with my older sister's babies as possible before the whole troop packs up and makes the Great Move to Africa this summer. (translation: my bother in law accepted a medical job offer in Tanzania. they move in july.)
consider this a giant F.Y.I. with abnormally large capital letters.
high stakes
if i were a card player (which i am not) and challenged my automobile to a rousing winner-takes-all game of poker, my car would stand a solid chance of gaining a considerable sum. the same thing goes for my life. sometime i will have to pay up. it's not going to be pretty. in the meantime, i rest and wait. and do yoga.
beauty
please don't touch me like the last time
i'm sorry i could be so weak
to let you off so easily easily easily
i guess you play by the law of the land
cause you're the king of your own jungle
but you could treat me better than
just a piece just a piece of woman kind
kind of you offer
but it's another kind of love i'm searching for
forget me not
let me be let me be let me be beauty.
please don't think me too familiar
if i couldn't figure out how not to give
in to you so easily so easily easily easily
i don't remember giving my permission
but then i never meant to let you get so
far ahead of me tenderly tenderly
to my softer side
why did i surrender
to the opening of your heart and hands
but then i should have known better
than to be than to be free beauty
oh, reeeeeeeally.
there are some people who i would L. O. V. E. to be able to implicitly trust, because they are fabulous. i mean that quite literally. sadly, recent experiences show that blind trust is usually (if not always) a bad idea. sigh. it's been a hell of a week.
a series of unfortunate events, really.
but enough about that. i'll do a follow-up post.
let me tell you a bit about my client. first of all, he is hands down my all time favorite human being in the known universe. by divine benevolence (or grievous mistake), this glorious little person has been placed in my charge. the idea is that i am to instruct him in the wise ways of the world and help him develop tools to navigate his way across social waters. this happens about 30% of the time. the other 70% is where HE teaches ME how to function in life.
oh yeah. i also have an E.T/Elliot bond with my client. (as it would happen, i am more frequently on the E.T. side...) Whatever he feels, i feel. today i found myself choking up over the tragically short life expectancy of sea lions. (approx. 25 years.) i promise you: had you been part of the conversation, you would have cried.
anyway a dear friend called me yesterday and was struggling against skepticism. (i'll tie it all together soon.) she quoted a portion from one of my previous posts in which discussed how consciously i need to keep my heart soft. to be honest, it's hard work. there have been several choice events over the past year that could have pushed me all the way into the raging sea of bitterness. as it stands, one foot has mercifully stayed grounded on hope. here's why:
my client is patient with me. sort of. i suppose as patient as any fourth grader can be. anyway last week i really hurt his feelings by snapping at him. it was completely unintentional. i noticed that he had put his head on his desk and was not actively engaging with the assigned classwork. i asked if he wanted to talk about anything. he shook his head no. i asked if i had hurt his feelings. he nodded yes, squeezed out a few tears and told me i had yelled at him.
i was immediate on the defense. I did not yell at you. i sternly gave you a completely reasonable direction, blah blah blah.
we went in the hall to talk about it and once i realized his meaning, i knew an apology was in order. i needless to say, i did the adult-y thing where you give the i-am-sorry-you-thought-that-i-yelled-at-you-because-i-did-not-yell form of an apology. (ps. this does nothing.)
what i needed to do (and what i finally figured out how to) was ask his forgiveness.
you'd never believe how difficult it is to squeek the words "will you forgive me for yelling at you" out from behind clenched teeth.
but i did, and i am better for it. it is powerfully important for grown-ups to appologize to children. the next day, my client got mad at me for something or other and fumed it out for about an hour. but then he came up to me, told me he was calm and said "i'm sorry for getting so mad at you earlier".
that, my friends, is how i learn lessons in grace and forgiveness and why my heart stays soft...
and now, for the art of living. if only i could live as beautifully as a kid in elementary school.
where does it hurt?
everywhere. maybe it hurts for a reason.
and that's the truth.
