Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
On Mud and Its Radiance
When the plane landed, I wasn't nervous. It hadn't occurred to me to be nervous. I felt excited and confident; eager to dive head first into what would be my new and temporary life. The airport was small and dimly lit as I recall, but surprisingly clean and well-managed. It took quite a while to get through customs, and I bit the tongue of my impatience despite my anxious desire to get outside. When we were finally allowed to gather our luggage and exit the facility, we didn't hesitate to do so.
We walked outside in a group, ready to find our ride. I stepped into the intense heat and before I could determine my direction, my senses overcame me with a disorienting flurry of stimuli. I think what hit me first was the noise. The muddled sound of human voice was almost deafening. I say it was muddled because I couldn't understand anything I was hearing. I was an infant in a strange world of developed human language. I could distinguish emotions in the voices, but that was where my knowledge ended. There were people everywhere, coming at us from all directions. We were swallowed up by a crowd of the unfamiliar. Pressing in on every side were people asking me questions that I was unable to answer. What hit me second was the smell. Repugnant body odor unlike any I had ever smelled before. Gaseous dirt and disease relentlessly invaded my nostrils and throat. The third hit was to my sight. I was swimming in a blur of faces and colors; lost in a Madhubani painting. The haze cleared and I was suddenly able to focus on individuals. I saw mostly young men. They were pulling on my bags, offering to carry them for 20 rupees...15 rupees...10. I felt hands on my arms and some pulling on my t-shirt and pants legs. I looked down to see that one hand was disfigured; missing several fingers. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it belonged to a leper.
We made our way through the chaos and began loading the shuttle that had been sent for us. The plastic seats were cracked and dirty, but I was thankful to be in a contained space. I sat silently, barely breathing through the stifling, musty heat. From my spot in the small bus, I had an elevated view of the city that would be my home for the next few months. Even from my perch on the hilltop, the devastating poverty was unmistakable.
...I can't recall the exact date of my arrival in Kathmandu, Nepal. We had been in Thailand for a week...so I think our arrival was on a Saturday afternoon. It was the very beginning of June (maybe the first or the second of) in 2000. (It's hard to believe that it was so long ago.)
As I mentioned, we had been in Thailand for a week. This week in the small coastal city of Pattaya (on the Indian Ocean) was our orientation...a time of learning about what we could expect to experience for the next 3 months. We talked mostly about Hindi/Buddhist culture, how to be safe, how to behave, etc. We spent quite a bit of time out in the city trying to acquaint ourselves with, well...everything. Pattaya was, by no means, a wealthy city, but its' modernity was not dramatically behind what we were used to in the states.
We talked extensively about the indigence we would encounter while living in Nepal. We were told that the average yearly income in Nepal (at the time) was equivalent to 200 American dollars. We were educated about the widespread disease, the unhealthy living conditions, the lack of food and clean water, the human trafficking rings, and the abandoned/homeless children that spent their days and nights on the streets. I wasn't suprised by anything I heard. I had done my research. I had watched movies and documentaries. And I certainly wasn't new to the concept of poverty. I had worked with impoverished people all over the United States. I was ready. I was prepared. Nothing was going to shake me.
As we drove from the airport to our hotel in the middle of the valley, none of us said much. We didn't know what to say. Words wouldn't have been helpful in expressing what was going through our minds at the time, anyway. The crowded streets, apparently governed by no traffic rules, were overridden by pedestrians carrying oversized loads on their heads and backs, slow moving rickshaws, and gaunt cows. Bikes or motorcycles carried so many passengers at once they looked like clown transportation at Ringling Bros. If you've ever been to Hell's Kitchen in New York City, then you have a vague idea of what the storefronts are like in Kathmandu, only...there, they're about 50 times dirtier and 100 times less sophisticated. Grocery stores, tailors, electronics shops, post offices....they all looked the same.
Driving by the entrances of various bastis (or slum colonies), one could see down the narrow alleys that appeared to go on and on forever; a horizontal precipice into unfathomable despair. I never did enter any of those bastis, but I knew that following any of the alleys would lead me to hundreds of families living on top of each other like foul in a coop. Tiny one-room huts with tin roofs and tacked-up bedsheets for doors; communal bathrooms without so much as a toilet stall; no plumbing and no electricity; row after row after row of human doghouses. These bastis were all over, and every one I saw was sadder and more vast than the last.
Once we arrived at our hotel, we walked a few blocks to the closest bank. I pulled out of my bag an American Traveler's Check for $200. I stared at it for a moment and realized that, in my hand, I was holding an entire year's income for a family in Nepal. I started sobbing uncontrollably right there in the bank. A travel-mate of mine was already at the counter when my emotion bursted out of me like a monsoon storm. The banker took notice and asked her why I was crying. Thinking quickly, she told him that we had just arrived in Kathmandu and that I was overcome by the beauty of the city. He believed her and was touched by the sentiment. He greeted me with a huge smile and gentle words and did the same every time I visited him that summer.
I didn't break down in that way again while I was in Nepal (except maybe when I left to go back home). However, I did cry many times after that, and, suprisingly, every cry really did express that I was overcome by the beauty of Kathmandu...the beauty that I learned to see. I learned to see the poverty as a birth mark. It was an imperfection that would probably never fade, but after I gazed at it for a while, I almost didn't even notice it anymore. Instead of detracting from the radiance of the figure, it enhanced it. Just as kudzu can overtake the side of a building or a forest, the beauty of the culture of that place grew over my soul. I became completely entangled in it, and to this day, I still haven't been able to free myself from its leafy grasp. I hope I never break free of it. So much physical freedom would mean that my soul has disconnected from what it learned that summer.
The draw-back...or maybe the benefit (depending on how you look at it) of my new job is that I'm faced with impoverished people on a daily basis. They are my work now; my sustenance; my heart. Sometimes it all gets to me. Sometimes I feel discouraged and dirty in the midst of the ugliness of poverty. It makes me feel diseased and injured and lame...just like the leper that begged me for money that day so long ago. But I think I'm re-learning how to see the beauty through the dirt. My soul is trying to remember.
We walked outside in a group, ready to find our ride. I stepped into the intense heat and before I could determine my direction, my senses overcame me with a disorienting flurry of stimuli. I think what hit me first was the noise. The muddled sound of human voice was almost deafening. I say it was muddled because I couldn't understand anything I was hearing. I was an infant in a strange world of developed human language. I could distinguish emotions in the voices, but that was where my knowledge ended. There were people everywhere, coming at us from all directions. We were swallowed up by a crowd of the unfamiliar. Pressing in on every side were people asking me questions that I was unable to answer. What hit me second was the smell. Repugnant body odor unlike any I had ever smelled before. Gaseous dirt and disease relentlessly invaded my nostrils and throat. The third hit was to my sight. I was swimming in a blur of faces and colors; lost in a Madhubani painting. The haze cleared and I was suddenly able to focus on individuals. I saw mostly young men. They were pulling on my bags, offering to carry them for 20 rupees...15 rupees...10. I felt hands on my arms and some pulling on my t-shirt and pants legs. I looked down to see that one hand was disfigured; missing several fingers. My heart skipped a beat when I realized it belonged to a leper.
We made our way through the chaos and began loading the shuttle that had been sent for us. The plastic seats were cracked and dirty, but I was thankful to be in a contained space. I sat silently, barely breathing through the stifling, musty heat. From my spot in the small bus, I had an elevated view of the city that would be my home for the next few months. Even from my perch on the hilltop, the devastating poverty was unmistakable.
...I can't recall the exact date of my arrival in Kathmandu, Nepal. We had been in Thailand for a week...so I think our arrival was on a Saturday afternoon. It was the very beginning of June (maybe the first or the second of) in 2000. (It's hard to believe that it was so long ago.)
As I mentioned, we had been in Thailand for a week. This week in the small coastal city of Pattaya (on the Indian Ocean) was our orientation...a time of learning about what we could expect to experience for the next 3 months. We talked mostly about Hindi/Buddhist culture, how to be safe, how to behave, etc. We spent quite a bit of time out in the city trying to acquaint ourselves with, well...everything. Pattaya was, by no means, a wealthy city, but its' modernity was not dramatically behind what we were used to in the states.
We talked extensively about the indigence we would encounter while living in Nepal. We were told that the average yearly income in Nepal (at the time) was equivalent to 200 American dollars. We were educated about the widespread disease, the unhealthy living conditions, the lack of food and clean water, the human trafficking rings, and the abandoned/homeless children that spent their days and nights on the streets. I wasn't suprised by anything I heard. I had done my research. I had watched movies and documentaries. And I certainly wasn't new to the concept of poverty. I had worked with impoverished people all over the United States. I was ready. I was prepared. Nothing was going to shake me.
As we drove from the airport to our hotel in the middle of the valley, none of us said much. We didn't know what to say. Words wouldn't have been helpful in expressing what was going through our minds at the time, anyway. The crowded streets, apparently governed by no traffic rules, were overridden by pedestrians carrying oversized loads on their heads and backs, slow moving rickshaws, and gaunt cows. Bikes or motorcycles carried so many passengers at once they looked like clown transportation at Ringling Bros. If you've ever been to Hell's Kitchen in New York City, then you have a vague idea of what the storefronts are like in Kathmandu, only...there, they're about 50 times dirtier and 100 times less sophisticated. Grocery stores, tailors, electronics shops, post offices....they all looked the same.
Driving by the entrances of various bastis (or slum colonies), one could see down the narrow alleys that appeared to go on and on forever; a horizontal precipice into unfathomable despair. I never did enter any of those bastis, but I knew that following any of the alleys would lead me to hundreds of families living on top of each other like foul in a coop. Tiny one-room huts with tin roofs and tacked-up bedsheets for doors; communal bathrooms without so much as a toilet stall; no plumbing and no electricity; row after row after row of human doghouses. These bastis were all over, and every one I saw was sadder and more vast than the last.
Once we arrived at our hotel, we walked a few blocks to the closest bank. I pulled out of my bag an American Traveler's Check for $200. I stared at it for a moment and realized that, in my hand, I was holding an entire year's income for a family in Nepal. I started sobbing uncontrollably right there in the bank. A travel-mate of mine was already at the counter when my emotion bursted out of me like a monsoon storm. The banker took notice and asked her why I was crying. Thinking quickly, she told him that we had just arrived in Kathmandu and that I was overcome by the beauty of the city. He believed her and was touched by the sentiment. He greeted me with a huge smile and gentle words and did the same every time I visited him that summer.
I didn't break down in that way again while I was in Nepal (except maybe when I left to go back home). However, I did cry many times after that, and, suprisingly, every cry really did express that I was overcome by the beauty of Kathmandu...the beauty that I learned to see. I learned to see the poverty as a birth mark. It was an imperfection that would probably never fade, but after I gazed at it for a while, I almost didn't even notice it anymore. Instead of detracting from the radiance of the figure, it enhanced it. Just as kudzu can overtake the side of a building or a forest, the beauty of the culture of that place grew over my soul. I became completely entangled in it, and to this day, I still haven't been able to free myself from its leafy grasp. I hope I never break free of it. So much physical freedom would mean that my soul has disconnected from what it learned that summer.
The draw-back...or maybe the benefit (depending on how you look at it) of my new job is that I'm faced with impoverished people on a daily basis. They are my work now; my sustenance; my heart. Sometimes it all gets to me. Sometimes I feel discouraged and dirty in the midst of the ugliness of poverty. It makes me feel diseased and injured and lame...just like the leper that begged me for money that day so long ago. But I think I'm re-learning how to see the beauty through the dirt. My soul is trying to remember.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
..So That I Don't Consider You a Lazy Audience...
My coworkers and I had to participate in a mini-ToastMasters training last week. During the training, we had to prepare a speech in 5 mintues and then present it (in 5 minutes). I decided to present an informative "How-To". "How to Survive a Bad Date". Everyone loved it, of course, because I'm full of wit and charm. (as if you didn't know that...)
The speech had my mind racing about all the bad dates I've been on. Honestly, I haven't been on very many that were VERY bad. The lot of them usually turn out to be mediocre, but not awful. Then someone asked me about the WORST date I've ever been on. That required some thought...
The guy's name was John. I won't go into who he was or how we met (because I'm tired and I don't feel like typing all that crap). Let me start by saying that he wore a striped turtleneck and a pair of sandals on our date. I could just leave it at that, couldn't I? Aside from the outfit, he wasn't nearly as attractive as my first impressions had left me thinking. He obviously didn't share that opinion of ME, and he spent the entire evening flirting with such creepy persistence that I caught myself visibly wincing at his comments (which, unfortunately, he didn't notice). He had lots of really wonderful things to say about himself and told countless anectdotes that were neither amusing nor interesting. I could have done the "nice" thing and offered fake laughter for his work, but I don't think I did as much as I should or could have. His mannerisms and facial expressions were awkward and exaggerated and it made looking at him while he told his stories all the more painful. He told me more than a half dozen times in more than a half dozen ways how pretty he thought I was and seemed overly eager for me to return the compliaments. ...which I never did...
Despite all of my signals, John felt good enough at the end of our date to shove his tongue halfway down my throat. I felt like I was in a Jim Carrey movie. There was no slow lean-in. No warning. It was truly one of the most disgusting moments of my life. We've all experienced bad kisses, right?
Yeah, so, as I said before...I don't really feel like adding lots of fun details or making this into more of a literary treat...but maybe YOU could post your own story about YOUR worst date. Yes, that's what you should do. Post it in my comments or email it to me (if you have my email address) and I'll post it as an annonymous entry. It's not fair that I always have to do all the work here, people.
The speech had my mind racing about all the bad dates I've been on. Honestly, I haven't been on very many that were VERY bad. The lot of them usually turn out to be mediocre, but not awful. Then someone asked me about the WORST date I've ever been on. That required some thought...
The guy's name was John. I won't go into who he was or how we met (because I'm tired and I don't feel like typing all that crap). Let me start by saying that he wore a striped turtleneck and a pair of sandals on our date. I could just leave it at that, couldn't I? Aside from the outfit, he wasn't nearly as attractive as my first impressions had left me thinking. He obviously didn't share that opinion of ME, and he spent the entire evening flirting with such creepy persistence that I caught myself visibly wincing at his comments (which, unfortunately, he didn't notice). He had lots of really wonderful things to say about himself and told countless anectdotes that were neither amusing nor interesting. I could have done the "nice" thing and offered fake laughter for his work, but I don't think I did as much as I should or could have. His mannerisms and facial expressions were awkward and exaggerated and it made looking at him while he told his stories all the more painful. He told me more than a half dozen times in more than a half dozen ways how pretty he thought I was and seemed overly eager for me to return the compliaments. ...which I never did...
Despite all of my signals, John felt good enough at the end of our date to shove his tongue halfway down my throat. I felt like I was in a Jim Carrey movie. There was no slow lean-in. No warning. It was truly one of the most disgusting moments of my life. We've all experienced bad kisses, right?
Yeah, so, as I said before...I don't really feel like adding lots of fun details or making this into more of a literary treat...but maybe YOU could post your own story about YOUR worst date. Yes, that's what you should do. Post it in my comments or email it to me (if you have my email address) and I'll post it as an annonymous entry. It's not fair that I always have to do all the work here, people.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
things that are cute
My brother Ryan got married last weekend in Memphis. He married Mary. (cute, right?) She's awesome and I'm so happy for them both because they're SO in love and so perfect for each other. I've never seen my brother happier.
Aren't they cute?
So cute. And happy.
I loved being able to see all of my family...all together in one place at one time. Doesn't happen often, due to us all living so far apart. I got to meet my baby neice for the first time. She's incredible. I don't have a picture of her to post right now, but I do have one of the older neice. She, too, is incredible, by the way. She thinks I'm the cat's pajamas...which makes my world. That's us pretending to drink coffee together. Cute little cups...they were appropriate for tea-party behavior. More cuteness...I know! You can hardly stand it.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
injustice never ends
It's the little things that affirm for me that I am working in the appropriate field. If I weren't doing something close to what I'm doing, I think I'd be in the wrong place. I'll give you a couple of examples.
I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie the other night (Dead Man's Handbag, or whatever). Did you see the first one? Remember the skinny, oafish pirate with the troublesome wooden eye? Well, in the new movie there's a scene with him trying to rescue his eye back from the ghosty skeleton monkey. They're on a wrecked ship and the monkey is, predictably, jumping from sail to sail with the eye in paw as the pirate is in frantics trying to get it back. Everyone in the theater was laughing, as well they should of been. It was meant to be funny. I even laughed a bit. But under my laughter I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. I sat for a full 10 seconds or so worrying about this fictional pirate's life condition. I was thinking "You know, that's really not funny. He's obviously poor and couldn't afford proper medical treatment to begin with. If that damn monkey loses his eye, how will he get another one? Artificial eyes, whether wooden or not, certainly weren't easy to come by back then. He must be really upset and hopeless right now. He's had such a hard life. This is just one more thing for him to worry about. Hasn't he suffered enough at the hands of that cruel world?" I swear to you...I was really processing all of this during that 10 second scene. I got all teary eyed. If I was going to analyze it, I should have gone in from the angle of: the reality is that he probably deserved losing an eye after all the thieving and pillaging he devoted himself to over the years. Karma, baby.
What? Oh, yeah. This isn't a real person I'm talking about here.
On to the next example. There's a commercial currently airing for some type of kitty litter. It shows a cute lil' orange kitty on the internet searching ask.com (or something) for his litter box. The point of the advertisement is that the litter absorbs odor so well, you won't even notice your litter pan. Clever, huh? When the internet is no help, he calls information...and he lets out this sad, pathetic meow...pleading for an answer. As cute as it is, I just feel so badly for the kitty. Cats don't ask for much. All they need is food, water, love, and a litter pan to shit in. (Or, if it's Allie's kitty, a litter pan to shit NEXT to.) I can only assume that the little guy has been holding it in all day so that he doesn't have to go in a houseplant or on the bathroom rug, and nobody understands. Nobody even cares! This is all very upsetting to me, as you can tell. It's an atrocious defacation on the dignity of domestic felines.
I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie the other night (Dead Man's Handbag, or whatever). Did you see the first one? Remember the skinny, oafish pirate with the troublesome wooden eye? Well, in the new movie there's a scene with him trying to rescue his eye back from the ghosty skeleton monkey. They're on a wrecked ship and the monkey is, predictably, jumping from sail to sail with the eye in paw as the pirate is in frantics trying to get it back. Everyone in the theater was laughing, as well they should of been. It was meant to be funny. I even laughed a bit. But under my laughter I couldn't help but feel sorry for the guy. I sat for a full 10 seconds or so worrying about this fictional pirate's life condition. I was thinking "You know, that's really not funny. He's obviously poor and couldn't afford proper medical treatment to begin with. If that damn monkey loses his eye, how will he get another one? Artificial eyes, whether wooden or not, certainly weren't easy to come by back then. He must be really upset and hopeless right now. He's had such a hard life. This is just one more thing for him to worry about. Hasn't he suffered enough at the hands of that cruel world?" I swear to you...I was really processing all of this during that 10 second scene. I got all teary eyed. If I was going to analyze it, I should have gone in from the angle of: the reality is that he probably deserved losing an eye after all the thieving and pillaging he devoted himself to over the years. Karma, baby.
What? Oh, yeah. This isn't a real person I'm talking about here.
On to the next example. There's a commercial currently airing for some type of kitty litter. It shows a cute lil' orange kitty on the internet searching ask.com (or something) for his litter box. The point of the advertisement is that the litter absorbs odor so well, you won't even notice your litter pan. Clever, huh? When the internet is no help, he calls information...and he lets out this sad, pathetic meow...pleading for an answer. As cute as it is, I just feel so badly for the kitty. Cats don't ask for much. All they need is food, water, love, and a litter pan to shit in. (Or, if it's Allie's kitty, a litter pan to shit NEXT to.) I can only assume that the little guy has been holding it in all day so that he doesn't have to go in a houseplant or on the bathroom rug, and nobody understands. Nobody even cares! This is all very upsetting to me, as you can tell. It's an atrocious defacation on the dignity of domestic felines.
It's a good thing I'm working with the homeless and impoverished and not within the pirate community or for the SPCA. If so, I'd get no sleep at night.
Friday, July 07, 2006
Here's to Breathing
A lot can happen in a year. The past year has been rife with unexpected turns along the path of this; my journey. A lot has happened, yes. Much has changed. I've changed. Actually, I've changed more than once and in more than one way. Lots of changes.
I was explaining to an old friend (to whom I hadn't spoken in many many months) this morning how the transition in moving here proved itself to be a challenging one. Challenging is a G-rated term, considering. If you've visited my site before, then you may have read through some of what the past 14 months has supplied to me. To be honest, I've expressed my various impediments through mostly indirect stories and illogical thought patterns. But maybe you've caught on despite that. Anyway, the good news is that the discomfort of my minor and major tribulations has led to...something else. I don't know yet what this "something else" is exactly, but I feel better right now than I have in over two years.
Now, when times of "something else" come about, it's usually difficult to pinpoint the reason(s) for it. This, of course, is due to the process of overcoming. A coworker of mine is a fan of gospel music, and he frequently plays it loudly in his office. There's one song in particular that he must like a lot because several times he has set it on "repeat" for hours at a time. "This too shall pass" is the phrase that the song iterates over and over. I've never found extreme comfort in that phrase...even though I believe the truth it speaks. (Sometimes when things suck, they just suck...and knowing that they won't suck forever doesn't always help.) But, what inevitably happens is that we keep an eye out for "the passing" and we aren't always aware of the process around us and with us and IN us that is leading us there. Suddenly we poke our heads up for a breath of fresh air and find that there is plenty of air to breathe, after all; that the dungeoness tunnel we've been spooning out for so long has finally taken us to the other side.
So, while I'm certainly aware of what has transpired to lead me where I am, I can't specifically credit any one factor with my current healthy state. In my ongoing analyzation of why the past year went the way it did, the word "fear" has consistently come to mind. I unintentionally allowed myself to be covered with fear. I felt it in many ways. Fear of loss was the big one (loss of relationships, loss of pride, loss of physical belongings, loss of safety, loss of comfort, etc.). Fear of being alone. Fear of failure. Fear of lost independence. Fear of too much of it. Fear of monetary shortcomings. Fear of ineffectiveness. Fear of the condition of the world. Fear of insignificance. Fear of poor health (of myself and loved ones). Fear of God punishing me for any and every imperfect move I made ( speaking of unhealthy...).
Most of my fears didn't render me immobile, but they definitely made me miserable. They definitely robbed me of sleep and of joy and of full life. (My first few months here I will forever consider lost time. I was dead for a while, and I'll never get that time back.) While I was aware of how fear was holding me captive, I couldn't figure out how to break free of it. I worked month after month to restore fortitude in my being. I made some rattalingly difficult decisions as I went. It often seemed that my efforts were getting me nowhere. But then, before I knew what was happening, the fears dissolved. All of them. It was just like that sudden breath of fresh air...it came into my lungs almost as quickly as it had been knocked out.
I've been breathing nonlaborously now for about 2 months, and I'm deliriously thankful for the fresh air. I know full well that I am not here due to my efforts alone, but my faith in myself has been restored nonetheless. Sometimes losing THAT is the thing we should fear the most.
I was explaining to an old friend (to whom I hadn't spoken in many many months) this morning how the transition in moving here proved itself to be a challenging one. Challenging is a G-rated term, considering. If you've visited my site before, then you may have read through some of what the past 14 months has supplied to me. To be honest, I've expressed my various impediments through mostly indirect stories and illogical thought patterns. But maybe you've caught on despite that. Anyway, the good news is that the discomfort of my minor and major tribulations has led to...something else. I don't know yet what this "something else" is exactly, but I feel better right now than I have in over two years.
Now, when times of "something else" come about, it's usually difficult to pinpoint the reason(s) for it. This, of course, is due to the process of overcoming. A coworker of mine is a fan of gospel music, and he frequently plays it loudly in his office. There's one song in particular that he must like a lot because several times he has set it on "repeat" for hours at a time. "This too shall pass" is the phrase that the song iterates over and over. I've never found extreme comfort in that phrase...even though I believe the truth it speaks. (Sometimes when things suck, they just suck...and knowing that they won't suck forever doesn't always help.) But, what inevitably happens is that we keep an eye out for "the passing" and we aren't always aware of the process around us and with us and IN us that is leading us there. Suddenly we poke our heads up for a breath of fresh air and find that there is plenty of air to breathe, after all; that the dungeoness tunnel we've been spooning out for so long has finally taken us to the other side.
So, while I'm certainly aware of what has transpired to lead me where I am, I can't specifically credit any one factor with my current healthy state. In my ongoing analyzation of why the past year went the way it did, the word "fear" has consistently come to mind. I unintentionally allowed myself to be covered with fear. I felt it in many ways. Fear of loss was the big one (loss of relationships, loss of pride, loss of physical belongings, loss of safety, loss of comfort, etc.). Fear of being alone. Fear of failure. Fear of lost independence. Fear of too much of it. Fear of monetary shortcomings. Fear of ineffectiveness. Fear of the condition of the world. Fear of insignificance. Fear of poor health (of myself and loved ones). Fear of God punishing me for any and every imperfect move I made ( speaking of unhealthy...).
Most of my fears didn't render me immobile, but they definitely made me miserable. They definitely robbed me of sleep and of joy and of full life. (My first few months here I will forever consider lost time. I was dead for a while, and I'll never get that time back.) While I was aware of how fear was holding me captive, I couldn't figure out how to break free of it. I worked month after month to restore fortitude in my being. I made some rattalingly difficult decisions as I went. It often seemed that my efforts were getting me nowhere. But then, before I knew what was happening, the fears dissolved. All of them. It was just like that sudden breath of fresh air...it came into my lungs almost as quickly as it had been knocked out.
I've been breathing nonlaborously now for about 2 months, and I'm deliriously thankful for the fresh air. I know full well that I am not here due to my efforts alone, but my faith in myself has been restored nonetheless. Sometimes losing THAT is the thing we should fear the most.
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