Confirmation

I have struggled to explain, articulate, clarify the feeling I have had brewing in my soul these past few weeks/months. I still am struggling, and at some point, it is my hope to be able to put it down on paper in as eloquent a way as possible. Now is not that time. But I need to say something. I need to see it manifest through the tips of my fingers, to help draw shape and form to emotion, because soon, very soon, I anticipate a call to action on the very things in my heart that I can barely contain at this moment. Let's call it confirmation. Let's call it light after 35 years of darkness. Let's call it joy in the face of defeat and strength in the face of weakness. Let's call it, I don't know....my every hapiness and confidence returned. A lot of things have fed into this moment, this growth. Greenlake this year was perhaps the tipping point, where I was asked to do something that in as many years as I have been alive would have triggered abject shame, fear and self-hatred, but instead showed me how far I have come to finding what everyone else has known all along. My friends can thoroughly attest to my struggles and my barriers, and I wish I could write the very moment down of triumph for you to experience as well, but to do so would be to overshare and divulge, when I am looking to maintain my boundaries, even to an audience as minimal as those who read my blog. My career path is finally being validated, my strengths are revealed and I know where I am starting to go and it is all very exciting. Other things will happen, good things. I am looking forward to them all.

The Awkwardness of Laughing at Death

So, as a former sales person, reporter, waitress and current producer, I have learned well the varied nuances of communication and listening skill that enables me to do my job well. I am not always very good at communicating or listening, but suffice it to say, if I set my mind to it, it can be done.

I am also very aware of my failings, my nervous fillers and bullshit fillers and in general, my go-to fall back phrases, that for the omniscient observer, or really intuitive friend, indicate that I am either NOT listening as well I should be, either because I don't understand something, it is hard to hear, or I have boldly and perhaps ignorantly decided that what you are currently saying has no bearing on what I need to move forward. I am a deeply flawed individual, my friend. I am working on it.

Sometimes I laugh to fill in the space, other times I say 'oh wow'. This has become an unfortunate habit with my current task of speaking daily to health and safety professionals who work in an indsutry where fatalities are very real. It is not uncommon for me to receive an email that states "I apologize, I cannot send XYZ because we are investigating a fatality that happened yesterday." And it is serious. And sobering. And yet, several times now I have been in conversation with these professionals and inadvertantly laughed. AT THE WRONG TIME. When they are talking about death. They have not yet seemed to mind, but I hope I can get that horrible habit of mine fixed before it's too late.

I really wanted to talk about why people irritate me but that would be a really useless and soul-limiting thing that would not benefit me or anyone....

So instead I will talk about how much I hope that my African Violet plant recovers from the neglect of my half-hearted love and eventually blooms flowers again.

Right now we are at the point where I have eliminated the leaves that were yellowing and I have her at my desk so that I remember to water her regularly instead of not regularly.

I coo and coddle her with my mind (instead of my words, to avoid crazy looks from my worker neighbors) and let her know with my eyes how much she is loved.

It is possible she will remember with bitterness her time in the office window over there, where I could not see her, and where the old adage came true, 'Out of sight, out of mind.' I kept forgetting to water her, and even setting Outlook reminders on my calendar could not remedy the drought that was her bed.


I thought I was doing her a favor, giving her unencumbered access to sunshine, but according to the internet, she doesn't need that much sunshine after all, and can exist just as well on my desk under the flourescent lights as she can over there, out of my line of sight.

She is looking good, albeit a little sparse. Her bed of dirt is moist, and her leaves are green. I love her. I was a bad parent for awhile. But, God-willing, that shall change.