Playing for Time

Welp, sorry friends, you signed on so you’re destined to be exposed to my Diary Thoughts on a regular basis, because if I don’t blog it, it didn’t happen.

This morning was a milestone of sorts… a cool 62º at 7am, blue sky, flowers in full bloom everywhere… IN MID-AUGUST! I’m compelled to record that I enjoyed every minute of my most ambitious solo stroll to date, south down New Hampshire all the way to South Park via a shortcut through the courthouse lawn, where I took a cool minute to appreciate a handy park bench and all the casual but carefully-planned flowerbeds, freshly watered by an army of vest-wearing city employees while I was still sleeping. Then a loop around the gazebo and north toward home on Mass Street, which was in the throes of waking up and opening its doors. Nobody screaming in front of The Replay this time, just kindred spirits enjoying a perfect morning… bagels, coffee, a newspaper or two. Cool air, not a leaf moving, everything green and blue as far as the eye could see… felt right to smile and say good morning along the way. Most people do, which is nice, but they’re cool about it. We’re still in Kansas, but not all-up-in-your-bidness Kansas. Natives will get the nuance.

To make a long story longer, what I’m full of appreciation for this morning is incremental positive gain and the fact that it’s a fact. When circumstance prevents progress for long enough the concept gets buried in the mud, so when altered circumstance enables nearly unlimited progress… it calls for a moment. It truly is step by step. Every day. Over and over. You’re getting there, do it again, some more. See how much better it feels today than yesterday? Think what your one-year anniversary will look like and keep going.

And now I’m bringing the house lights down for the people who can’t help hating me a little or a lot. If you’re somebody who lives with silent pain, who’s likely been disrespected for not jumping into your big-girl/guy panties and getting on with it, who’s had it absolutely up to here with people who don’t get it… please know that my empathy is genuine because I’ve been in your shoes… off and on for fifty years, steadily for the past eight before my spinal fusion. I know intimately how much it hurts to be told YOU CAN DO something you cannot do. There’s not a thing I’m telling you to do. If circumstance prevents you from being part of the life you’re living, you have my complete understanding. That’s all I know to say to you, because I’m as helpless as you are to alter anything. And that whatever is still within your power to do, do that, and don’t willingly give up your personhood because your life refuses to conform with what you see out there. You’re here, your life belongs to you and no one else, and if you’re living in your head make it a good place to be… insofar as you have that power. I’m saying don’t give up. I did and I can tell you from experience that it doesn’t help because you still have to BE here. And if things get better, you have to fight your way back.

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Sometimes we give other people too big a vote in what our life will look like… because it takes time to figure it all out.

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Sometimes physical pain is so linked to psychic pain we can’t sort it for ourselves… and very few people are in a position to help us with that, especially our fellow walking-wounded. We look for answers from people who have none for themselves… we forget that we are all we have, requiring a kind of strength that takes a lifetime to build.

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This. Because it’s exquisite and speaks volumes without words…

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It’s Thursday, a good day for letting real love into our secret worlds… and allowing it to heal us.