Restless

I still have a lot to blog about Mississippi, but it's just not making itself into a bloggable format in my head right now. So those stories must wait.

Instead I've been playing catch up trying to make up for lost time. I'm moving faster, thinking faster (but not totally more effectively,) talking faster, typing faster, multi-tasking, consolidating... and last but never least in my book: playing dodge-the-unknown and hide from the fear like my life depends on it. Hi, I'm Meg and I can sit here and drum up a good blog, I can manage 2 hospital's billing departments, charity and admitting offices, I can read a book in one night, I can show you hours worth of pictures of my kids, I can show you how to do peritoneal dialysis, I can change your tire or build you a fire, french braid hair, take an entire shower shampooing and conditioning with a baby on my hip. I cannot however, give you directions because I simply have no sense of it at all, and I cannot sit face to face with you and let you in my world.

I am a good listener, and I can listen to your stories. I will listen from my heart and not begin to think of a reply...I will just listen. I will hear you when you speak and tuck away your sorrows right into my own heart so you don't have to feel them alone.

Quiet is good. Invisible is better. Because then when the fear looms, nobody else has to know.

I've learned something new recently. I haven't been able to benefit from it yet in the moment, just in hind sight. We all fall into our routines, or comfort zones, and nestle in. Take whatever your first response is, take it in, mull it over, acknowledge it and hear it. Validate it. Now set it aside. You are now free to have a next response. What is it now? My first response is always fear- run, hide, get out of the way, duck and cover, don't draw attention... If I don't repress it, then my analytical self moves past and wants to solve it (Like work through it! Dealing with it, not completely avoiding it.) Here now are two completely self-justified reactions... and now there is a choice to be had.

I haven't been able to get beyond the idea that there IS a choice. But I'm there... I'm right there. I get that there's a choice and I'm not shooting that down in its totality yet. I'm observing it, respecting it, letting those ideas run restless in my head.