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I had ambitions once to be a great writer and that singular goal got diluted by a great fear. I was living in San Francisco when fear became my mode of operation. I feared I would never be a writer. I feared I would never have what everyone else was enjoying. I feared I would never have children. I feared my notion of success was as a lover said about me, “your dreams are too small.” I feared what I loved was unloveable. I feared so much that I gave up my ghost and sought comfort from other people’s notions of how my life should be lived. I lost my own definition of success and wove the definition of others around me so tight it became my shroud, and it was only on my funeral pyre that those cloths burned before I disintegrated.

I am thankful to have my vision back of what success is and what living is. I’m on my knees with gratitude.

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)

I was reading an article recently about Robin Roberts (sister of our very own anchor Sally-Ann Roberts) and was struck by this statement she made: “I have been mulling over how much more I have learned about myself through sorrow than through joy.”

Amen, sister.

I really think I was in some state of suspension for many years as I went through clone years of my 20s where I was trying to imitate what I had been raised on with television – get married, buy a home, get a job – and was not happy. Then in my 30s it was go out and travel (because I didn’t do this in my twenties), and then in my 40s it was about accumulate – I had found a job I could hang with, and a husband I was devoted to, and was accreting and accreting like a fast moving snowball – and then POP – mid 40s the ball started rolling back down hill but like Sisyphus I kept rolling it back up, and then it would roll down, and I’d roll it back up. And this went on for a very long time.

My 50s began and endured more sorrow than I have blog posts to write about and yes, there has been joy, but it’s the sorrow that has brought me here. And so it’s the sorrow that must get my gratitude.

Do you believe in coincidences? In what Carl Jung called synchronicity? Because the other day I wrote a post on being a seeker and next thing you know my friend in Boston sent me a link to look at my astrological chart and this is what it said:

You are always questioning and learning, and you seem young and alive no matter what your chronological age, for your mind is always alert, curious, flexible and open to new experiences. You have a childlike enthusiasm for anything new and you learn easily, but you also get bored rather quickly. You can be something of a scatterbrain, for you tend to have so many ideas and irons in the fire that it is hard to keep track of them all. You need and crave variety, change, mental stimulation, and an active social life.

Then yesterday I had a weird encounter with my landlady brought on by my hater neighbor about the whereabouts of my dog. “It’s not my dog” I said in Pink Panther voice. And it’s not. But the doubt and confusion over whether I was harboring a dog here “illegally” and then the subsequent realization that I hadn’t paid my rent, when I thought I did, caused me to feel as if my rambling life was messy and odd.

This morning I received an email from a friend here who had opened her inspirational quote of the day to find it applied to me and bingo, did it apply – it basically said ye of little faith think that it’s not all going to work out, but it is, cause it will, and you need to believe that and enjoy the day.

These mere coincidences might mean nothing more than random events overlapping, but for me, a seeker of meaning in a world that is wild and messy in its best of times, I hope to believe that synchronicity happens for a reason and that is to show up now and then to help me carry the load.

I dreamed last night that I cut Tin’s arm off and handed him over to friends in another room who called me because he was bleeding everywhere and then he came out of the room but couldn’t walk straight because he was off balance and I picked him up and tried to caress him and kept apologizing over and over again.

Since there was a thunderstorm rampaging through the city when I woke, I lay in bed thunderstruck and nearly nauseous just thinking about the nightmare. It took telling a friend who called me and snapped me out of my torpor to actually look up what this dream could possibly mean.

Well it turns out many things – since it was his left arm it meant that I was at a loss to nurture him, which could be because he was at Tatjana’s and not here with me. Or it could also be that we both saw a three-legged dog this weekend and it triggered a deeper memory in me because when my mother was in her 40s she unexpectedly got pregnant and then had a miscarriage. She replaced that lost baby with a white and brown puppy named Max and she began to pamper that dog as if he was better than human.

Then one day I had Max in the car with me and he jumped out of the window while I was driving and he injured his leg and it shook like a tremor but the vet said that we had the option to amputate or let it shake. And so we let it shake, but my mother was so sad and I felt so horrible for allowing this to happen.

Later, after my sister and I had left home, my mother came in search of us, leaving stealthily in the van with Max in tow and drove from Atlanta to New Orleans where we had returned to – she put Max up at her mother’s house in the country, and one day he got run over by a car.

I’m not sure if that was the factor that made her return to my dad or a contributing one. But back she went to Atlanta and there Max was, forever lodged in my psyche as proof that humans fuck up and often.

The rest of the day was spent in front of my computer, in my pajamas till the landlady came to check on reports that I have a dog, when I’m not allowed to have one. She really didn’t believe me even though she was standing in the apartment with full view of all the inhabitants.

She left wanting the rent check that I had thought I had sent, which then left my checking account worse for the wear. I guess the second $110 ticket I got on the same damn street with the same damn hidden camera will just have to get in line. Five miles over the speed limit and $220 in debt.

St. Peter don’t you call me because I can’t go, I owe my soul to the … .

A friend was telling me a story about how she had gained her self-confidence. It happened at a conference she goes to where there are a lot of celebrities and one day, she had taken a photo with one, and when she saw the photo she had this realization that the celebrity should have been happy to take the photo with HER, not the opposite. And she realized that she had been selling herself short and had given into this artificial world that grants status or beauty to others so cavalierly.

Similarly, last night it occurred to me what I have feared most is that the future will look like the past, quite the opposite of what you would think would invoke fear. Generally, fear issues out of uncertainty or the great unknown, but actually what is waiting for us could be fabulous, miraculous, boundless. Better, best, and even better.

As a source told me the other day, “We are going to reorganize the company. Whatever we do it will be different from what we have done before.” Yeah! Go for it.

I’ve seen companies holding onto their past objectives, relationships holding onto their past dynamics, friendships holding onto their past meaning, people holding onto their past identity – I’ve witnessed it up close and personal – and everyone is afraid to let go of who or what they were to accept who or what they are. Fear of letting go of the familiar, is truly fear that the familiar is all there is.

Long, long ago, in a land far far away (Metairie), my first husband told me that I was a seeker. He did not mean this in a kind way; no, he meant that I was looking for something, was restless, not content. Three husbands later, I kept hearing the same refrain.

I’ve been told to stop searching, to stop turning over stones, to leave well enough alone and yet, try as I might, I can’t. Call me curious. I am learning to accept that there are forces other than me that are creating my destiny – I do believe that – but I also am infinitely curious as to what they have in mind for me. And for others.

I spent the weekend at the lake discussing my desire to tackle one of the biggest issues I know – racism. Why at almost 54 years old am I being an idealist (again). I spent today discussing how to know when to push and when to pull from the universe. I’m curious about these matters. I don’t have answers nor do I believe I will wake up tomorrow having them.

But I do believe I’m indeed a seeker and my three husbands weren’t wrong about me in that regard – but it’s not from some deep rooted unhappiness, no, I’m a relatively happy seeker – my journey is into self-actualization, a trip inside that is measured by what I’m doing on the outside.

However, this time around the bend, I’m seeking others like myself who are traveling the same way.