Highlights: Started the day off strong – early rise to gradual light and spa music is the best way to wake up. Navigated the am routines; my own, the dogs, and then a quick shower, shave and interesting audiobook accompaniment. A few points resonated: The concept that you can't just ready book after book after book and gain something without applying the content and living the lessons. The other was that people inherently find diversions from change or conflict by 'finding' problems to be upset about. Instead of rolling with the change or conflict head on. It's due to anxiety about the unknown, even if and when that unknown change is good and needed. That hit home. As much has I want to spend a good deal of time reading I'd rather focus on a few key ideas and apply them while "getting busy living" and moving forward with my own agendas for change. I took Lucky into the back yard tonight this evening after spending a good chunk of time getting some garage clutter restructured and thinned. As I stood in the cool air it struck me how I'd lived there before, stood their before, looked into the same house before, in completely different circumstances. And there I was back in the same position, only watching Jen doing dishes through the window. The entire experience of being back here is vastly different, in great part because of our dynamic but also, because of the experiences of the past year. It's changed me significantly, and my perspective is nothing like it once was. This all feeds into wondering where I might be in 5 years time, and what I might be regretting or seeing with more insight than before at that point. I've gone back and looked at photos from the past year recently. Of the kids and their mom, and it's difficult enough to do that it makes me all the more aware of the importance of doing so. I have clutter to restructure and thin in my own psyche garage too. While driving home w/Jen this evening after a quick errand, as I turned the corner and saw our house, I thought about Tommy's current presence there, and how, as much as I might be frustrated by the dynamic that exists between us, when he does eventually move out and I drive down the street to a home he'll not be in nightly, It'll be something I'll struggle with. As I do not seeing Lauren daily too. I love them both, I'm glad they're on their respective paths, I am anxious to follow my own more freely as well, but it remains a loss of a contact that's important to me.
