"I bless you on your path..." now GO.

"Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring." ~Edward Gorey

I have had to do some stuff that I have not thoroughly enjoyed doing in the past week or so. And because of some of these choices I have been pretty engaged with my own life. I have had to sit through some trainings and listen to friends going through their own pains, but I could not seem to focus on any of it. I knew social protocol demanded that I listen to my friends and their hurt and contribute in the trainings. I just couldn't do it.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. I wanted to kick and stomp. I wanted to cry. I wanted to hurt and I sure as hell wanted to be pissed off. I wanted to talk till I was blue. I wanted the answers and I sure did NOT want the apologies. I wanted answers. I wanted to hit something.

I kept getting these people who wanted to have ME hear THEM out. I just wanted to scream...YOU ARE AN ADULT...deal with yours and I will deal with mine! JUST. LEAVE. ME. ALONE.

I sat frustrated and hurt in training after training. Listening to people with only a half ear. Then I got to my IST training and another VISTA mentioned a saying that she heard at one of HER trainings, "I bless you on your path, but I cannot engage with you at the moment."

And bam. Things clicked. Suddenly it made sense. I don't have to listen to these people, I can choose to tell them that I am in not in a good place to listen to them. That at the moment I am fighting to keep myself in balance...I am not stable enough to try and keep them from tipping. That it is okay for me to awknowledge that my balance, my healthy life, is something I need to maintain before I can do any good for them.

So maybe, we can all stop being so demanding. Shut up about us for a second. Really find what we need. Why we are in our hurt. How WE can fix it. And then, and only then, engage with others. And maybe, just maybe, things will balance back out.

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
-Janis Joplin