Musings in Providence

I'm sitting in a hotel in Providence, Rhode Island waiting to get tired. This time zone thing is tough.

I wrote a draft of my assessment paper on the plane ride out here. After all the travel I did with little kids over the years it is a complete luxury to sit on a plane and not be the parent entertaining the three year old. I actually got to concentrate and get a lot of the paper done.

And in the end, I don't know what any of this means. Its completely subjective, it's all about observation, projections, my own filters engaged fully as I assess someone else. There are assumptions made and often owned - but more often not. This is the buy in - what we all know going into this process. And yet - something emerges. A congruence that resonates or perhaps a sudden dissonance that catapults the Self into worry and anxiety. I'm not sure.

I think everyone is having different experiences.

For myself, I'm feeling fairly congruent in my self awareness and how I am being seen.

I have a wish though.

I wish that more of my humanity was visible, my "messiness" and my fear. God knows I've walked into so many lios engineered experiences almost terrified and falling apart. I've yelled and screamed and come practically unglued and those around me are still curious about what my shadow is. Someone told me that my contribution to our mock group therapy session was skillful. huh? Skillful implies control - and that wasn't what I was feeling at all.

It's confusing.
The words we use mean different things to each of us.

Ah well.

The thing is that I'm not feeling bad about this - I'm just sitting in the awareness of what sharing my vulnerable self means to me. I know what I've kept stepping into and what others see tell me that my inner struggles often don't show up. Those struggles end up bursting out of me like a broken water main.

This is part of who I am. I don't have a desire to set my caution aside for the whole community. What I do know is that I've moved in to deep relationships that have brought all of me forward. I hold that as possible with many people currently in my life.

Patience is necessary to allow these relationships to unfold and blossom in their own time.

Unfold and blossom. Just like me.