REALIZED - PLEASED TO MEET YOU

REALIZED – PLEASED TO MEET YOU

The writer has changed, so too the voice.

Once meek and mild, full of equivocation, doing my level best to sneak up on things rather than call them out by name, stating a truth bluntly. What lovely poetry did it make, but it is too much work to continue to approach myself and writing that way.

So, the voice is sparser, more blunt, to the point. Hopefully funnier.

And I have decided that for this blog, I am going to be a little bossy. I have decided to try on, not an authoritative or pedantic air, but the air of an elder who really should be listened to, so sit down, be quiet, drink your cocoa and let me talk. You might learn a thing or two.

Now, this is brand new for me. I am not someone who has ever felt that I have any right to tell anyone how to think or feel or act. Somehow I made it to 52 thus shackled. But, this is what I know. I know that I spend more time and effort and imagination trying to figure things, the big things, out than most people expend on their most cherished pastimes. My passion is to understand life and God and myself and my place within this whole thing. I think that is a very reasonable thing to be obsessed with. I am cool with you thinking it's batshit insane. Most people do. They don't use that term. They've always preferred “weird.”

This need in me to know, to understand, to think and see as clearly and as wholly and as honestly as possible, to get down to the heart of the mysteries, to know the real reason behind it all, just all of it. Oh this thirst! This curiosity! This innate stubbornness of spirit which has made it impossible for me to be satisfied with life on the surface. I'm OK with the extra work now, but it's been a real pain in the ass, overall.

But I have learned a lot because I chose a profession which allowed me deep access to people's interiors, and I have, then, played in many fields of varying extremity, until I was satisfied that I knew what it was to be human and completely, utterly broken. The edges of where things are tolerable, and when they no longer are, that has been my home for these years of mine. I am grateful for it, and understand that this privilege that I have known, to be part of the nursing community, this has fed the part of me which kept the lights on when I fell down and had trouble, the bigger part of me that always knew that a time would come when it all gets pulled together and everything finally, and rather suddenly, makes sense.

It has been worth the wait. It was a lot of years in the dark, but of course that's just my style, always the extremist, the one dancing on the ledge, if not physically, then imaginatively. I have no idea what my life looks like to others. I imagine it is much like everything else in this world, it looks like how the viewer needs it to look like, prefers it to look like, within the confines of the viewer's belief structure and imagination and native personality.

So I am going to start a new blog, and begin expressing myself with just a little bit more confidence. Take or leave what I have to say. I'm just one person. But I am on to something. I know it. I just know it. There is something here that is real and true and current, and there are many things to explain to those who may not have been as freaking obsessed as me all these years.

I will tell you, some of what I have to say will not be entirely comfortable to hear. I see things sort of differently, I think, but mainly I just like trying on new ideas. It is so freeing to break free of mental constructs that you don't even fully appreciate so limit you until they are removed. And some of those mental constructs can only be tossed aside. Some of the stuff we have believed is just so distorted, it's not worth keeping going with it. Other stuff needs to just be tweaked. And then there is all this new information, all these new ways of considering things which bring weirdly sustainable peace.

So I may not tickle you with the stuff I say. I am not here to placate you. I am not here to keep lying to you if you. But, and this is quite a rotund butt, I speak only for myself. Forever and a day. It's the only way I know to buck the system without coming off like an embittered old crazy grandpa type to hollers at children and kicks dogs. Speak only for myself, keep things neutral, and for God's sake, always, always, always maintain a sense of humor. This is my life stance anymore, because otherwise I just freak people out, make them really uncomfortable, or come off oddly haughty.

So, I may throw around a “you” or two, but let me assure you, I have as little interest in what you do with this stuff as I want you to have in my business. Your path is your path, your “lessons” are your own. The only one who has true authority over you is you. And no one is the authority on me. No one has earned that right. No one worth their salt would presume.

I think that is where I want to leave my first entry. Short, sweet and to the point. I cannot guarantee such brevity in future, as any of my stalwart readers know, but through all of that writing I learned the thrill of getting to the point. REALIZED will be all about getting to the point. You know I love me my Leonard Cohen-tinged prose, but I enjoy a new economy of thought, and of expression.

So here we go.