Winter

I am in love at last. It has taken 5 long years and another 29 but as the ice melts my love grows.

I am letting my husband in finally, and part of that is the process of letting myself out. I decided to go hog wild. Instead of pursuing a license in Alcohol and Drug counseling I am pursuing my Masters in Counseling with an emphasis in Mental Health. The most important part of the program is the focus on self cultivation. No one wants a therapist more fucked up than the patient. I have spend the last half of this year working on my own self education and despite the seduction of becoming stuck in myself I have actually blossomed and begun to express myself again. It can become tough when you feel trapped in your life to let yourself out. But love feels good, life feels good, my husband feels good.

This self explosion has been 29 years in the making. It's about damn time especially in light of my 3rd decade coming to completion.

A few things had to wane in order for me to grow. I left my fellowship. This was hard. For 10 years I have been teaching religious education to all different age groups and it has been an important focus for me. For the last 4years I have been working specifically with Senior High youth. This was my passion my niche in the fellowship. Mentoring, discussing, bonding, and challenging youth to simply be took far more bucking of the system than I could have imagined in such a liberal faith. But adults are adults no matter what their political and theological leanings and they will never get past that youth are not simply little adults; they are vibrant creative beings at their own level of existence... I really think we give some of that up to take on the illusion of adulthood's massive "responsibilities."

I also took a break from the Tao group and it is proving for its own benefit. The new DRE for the fellowship pursued making the Tao group a more formal meeting within the fellowship. This could be seen as either positive or negative depending on your perspective but what it did was show the true muster of the remaining Tao group participants. The Tao is a mystery that flows endlessly with no beginning and no end. This could be understood as meaning that a monthly Wednesday night meeting decided but governing board of the fellowship as an inflexible offering of the FVUUF is not very Tao like but the reaction to it was. Now called the two-headed Tao group a faction has decided to at least have a second rotating meeting at Harmony Cafe advertised in the Scene newspaper. I give my kudos to the remaining members and will be so happy to join at Harmony Cafe as a random participant instead of an organizer and facilitator. I am not to comfortable with roles of power and others looking to me for direction. I prefer looking into myself and working to be a mirror for others.

I am at peace and working to maintain harmony in my education, family, vocation, and self.