The state of my union.

I have a friend who’s a brilliant therapist. She never crosses the friend to therapist line, but boy do I listen when she quietly hands out little nuggets of advice.

One of her best pieces of advice to me was “Girl, you need to be lost in Kmart for a while.” 

Seems when she was a little girl, her mom would take her shopping (in Kmart) and she always got lost (or thought she was lost). And she’d find her little crying five or six-year old self frantically scrambling to find help at the customer service counter. Over the booming loudspeaker they would announce with great fanfare, “There’s a little girl in a blue dress and pink sweater who’s lost at Customer Service.” Her mother would come running but when they were reunited she always said in a hushed voice, “Elaine, when you think you’re lost, just stand still.  I will find YOU”

I love that story. Why is that when we feel the wee bit lost in life, we frantically go looking to be found? When really what we need is stillness and to settle — make friends really — with that uneasy feeling of being lost.

This year, looking back, will be the year I learned to get still. Even when I felt lost. Hard to explain how magical this stillness has been. Living (alone) in a pandemic has been scary and thrilling. Yes, thrilling! I’ve come to understand that I can trust the process of life. I can trust all of it. Including myself. Not sure if that will make sense to anyone but me, but I can say with 100% certainty if you ever feel lost, stand still and wait. Something magical WILL happen. Most likely inside of you.

So that’s all the looking back I’m going to do for now. No sense dwelling over 2020.

 What am I looking forward to this coming year?

 Well, I am looking forward to everyone or most of us getting a vaccine. Duh.

 I also want to find even more joy in the simple things. I will look for experiences, not things to fill my time.

I want to be a better friend. I want to get even closer to the people I love. I’m lucky to have a small community of really close, ride or die kind of friends. This eclectic group of people I adore becomes more and more important to me with each passing year. How can I give them what they so willingly offer me? How can I be there for them?

I’d like to shed some of my biases. I hate that I have them. And I’m not sure where to start or how to shake them. But I know at times I am I’m not open to people unless they share my views. And that is not a trait I admire. I’m going to work on that.

Lastly, I want to be BRAVER. I want to do things that make my heart feel like it is going to jump out of my body. I have a friend who wrote a compelling business book about judgement. There’s one line in it where he talks about his early days as a Navy Fighter Pilot. I’m quoting from memory (Sorry, Barry) but it said something like, “Somedays we were so excited, we felt like our hearts would jump out of our bodies.”. I know adrenalin chasing is a form of distraction but I crave it. Where can I find more of that feeling is something I will look to answer this year. I’m hoping the answer is more surprising than the obvious.

Okay, let’s do this 2021. My word for you sweet 2021 is BRAVE.

“You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” – Mary Tyler Moore