Musing

today’s Musing written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park

11C/52F (high 68F), sunny, soft breeze ripples hay-esque grass around the lagoon where everything grows daily, if only by inches; crews work the encroaching next subdivision cell, Gusta oblivious to noisy yellow machines as if they are big animals in the next field, ducks gathered ‘round for morning swim classes, Gusta breaks into a light jog around the lagoon as if surveying her country estate while my efforts to keep up break a sweat

sometimes I/we dismiss someone’s troubles or my own as small stuff, the stuff not to sweat, because we’ve been there, done it and observe an over-reaction to the obvious, stressing over inevitably inevitable inevitabilities; of course it matters in the moment, but in the fullness of time, much of it won’t matter much

toss out platitudes, put people on ignore because 'we've heard it all before'; maybe you have
done that, I know I have; so easy to be smug - sometimes I quote my friend Annie from New Jersey who taught me to say 'build a bridge and get over it'

I was talking to one of the SB’s; she said she keeps a piece I’d e-mailed last October, folded up and ratty now, in her purse – she pulls it out to read on days when the struggle is hard and yesterday was one of those days; as the conversation ended I asked that she send my words back to me, that I wanted publish them, SB replied ‘they’re your words; sure, you can do whatever you want with them’; here they are:

Monday, October 23, 2006 3:24 PM
To: SB . . Subject: emotions
surely you know, that whatever happens there will be lots of emotion attached to everything you do
you will have moments (perhaps days or weeks) of sadness, anger, joy, freedom, pain, more joy, more sadness, more joy etc. etc. . . for whatever length of time you need to deal with all that good stuff; if you stifle it that will work for a while but in the long run it all needs to leak out all over you & anyone close to you . .
having been through this a couple of times and having met lots of others who have, you can rest assured that:
- it's not fatal
- every 3 months you will feel 'great & ready for anything' only to look back another 3 months later to again say 'I'm great & ready for anything' & 'what was I thinking 3 months ago?'
- if you had a cut, it would take time to heal
- if you had a broken bone it would take longer
- if you had a broken spirit . . longer still
The feeling of being lost is the first step of being found; you've started taking those steps so don't sweat that you don't know who you are, what you want & where you are headed just now . . that's pretty normal
Sorry to tell you that you are normal when you are going through so much that feels exceptional . . but . . you are normal
I like you just fine!
tossing encouragement someone’s way is a boomerang that may come back when you least expect it; to SB: you are still normal and I still like you just fine

Mark Kolke
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