Chasing the Rainbow (Part 4)

Passion. Integrity. Perspective. Humility.

Humility

The fact that I am passionate, have integrity, and value perspective means that I go all out in just about everything that I do. Just about because sometimes even I get tired. 

What does it mean to be humble? to have humility?

It means that I realize that I have to remember that everybody has their limitations. It means that each one of us is AMAZING in our own way. 

Two recent conversations are the inspiration for this post.

The first happened about three weeks ago. I was driving with a new-found friend to one of Rio's amazing out-of-the-city beaches. 

Our conversation was bouncing around various topics when we stopped at a redlight and were handed, through the car window, a brochure for a new apartment complex development--this is not uncommon in Rio. The slogan for this particular complex: Pra viver bem e uma arte. (To live well is an art.) Isn't that the truth!! As we continued driving, our conversation regarding "the good life" and "living well" ensued. Both of us talked about the need for God in our daily life, the need for treating ourselves well, our bodies are our temples. However, my friend said something that REALLY hit me. He said, "Sara, if we all just live our lives trying to make the person next to us better, we could all be happy, healthy, successful, living the art."

I was like, HOLY SMOKES! That is SO true. So I tested it. I thought about being in traffic--which I can sincerely say I hate--and letting the person next to me merge even though they were coming from the shoulder not an actual lane. I thought about standing in line at the grocery store with a cart full of items and letting the person behind me with three items go first. I thought about sharing the knowledge of my practice while listening to the faculty, with the frame of mind that I too am learning. 

In ALL situations, the end result is win/win. It's really true. Humility. One has to let go of egocentric desires and the need to be "right" or "first". But if we can manage that, karma seems to kick in, and good things happen! If we all just live our life so that the person next to us is better. So simple, yet so complex.

The second conversation that inspired this post happened just yesterday at lunch. I ate with the music teacher and a Catholic brother. This music teacher is a phenomenal person! Since first joining the faculty at my current school, this man is always positive, always shows gratitude for any help I provide, and is always smiling. Literally! ALWAYS smiling. 

Yesterday, we talked about happiness. We talked about friends we have who are highly successful professionally. Friends who have the expensive house, car, material belongings, yet they are unhappy. 

His bottom line: I know who I am. I am happy with who I am. He quoted a line from the 1968 Peter Seller's film The Party. 

The line he said has stuck with him for a number of years is when one character (sorry I don't know the film) asks Sellers: Who do you think you are? And Peter Seller's character replies: I don't think who I am, I KNOW who I am. 

Humility. The brother went on, referencing The Lion King. That moment in the movie when Simba sees his reflection for the first time in lake and Rafiki appears in the reflection too. Is it his father? Or is it The Father? Brother added the spiritual element to our conversation at lunch (not surprising, he is a man of the church afterall). However, the need to have faith, belief in something bigger than us, belief that we don't own the control but instead are here to do the work of something bigger. This generates humility.

We are human. We screw up. We are constantly evolving and learning and living. To do so with humility and grace is most certainly an art!

Chasing the Rainbow (Part 3)

Passion. Integrity. Perspective. Humility

Perspective.

I have stared at this picture for 15 minutes straight. I see a young woman, looking away. Some people see an elderly lady when they look at this picture. Am I wrong in thinking it’s a young woman? Are others wrong for thinking it’s an old lady? Is it possible that it is both, at the same time?

How many arguments have you had in your life that revolved around perspective? How many hours have you spent of your (insert age) years trying to convince another person to “see it your way”? I know I have spent countless.

In my younger years, I would get frustrated and often angry when I was unsuccessful in getting the other person to see things my way. Then, somewhere along the lines, I grew up a little—only a little because I continue to grow even though I’m pushin 40! What I realize is that it’s ok if another person doesn’t see my same reality or if I don’t understand hers. However, it’s NOT ok if I fail to recognize that the other reality exists, I don’t have to understand or agree with it. That’s where my thoughts about perspective become crucial.

If you combine passion and integrity with perspective, it is imperative to recognize the emotional element, and emotion forces us to respond/react to a situation instead of think about the the parts of the situation. Passion risks emotional drive, yet integrity pulls that emotion back to the bigger picture where perspective plays a part.

Take for example the film I Heart Huckabees.

The main character goes to an existential counselor for intervention. In his initial consultation, Lily Tomlin’s character says, “My associate will look at your case from a different angle.” He asks, “What angle?” And Tomlin replies, “He will investigate your perception of reality.”

The film goes on to demonstrate how reality and perception influence our actions, our existence. A couple of the characters end up pretty messed up…check out the film. In the end, it’s what I believe to be essential to our interdependence.

We crave being understood. We seek to understand others and our existence and what it all means. Sometimes we search self-awareness through others, seems oxymoronic in some ways.

The bottom line: if we let go of our egos, believe that those around us do not intentionally do things to hurt us, look for understanding in where the other comes from, discourse and interaction will never go wrong. It doesn’t mean we always agree. It means we give up having to be “right” or finding the "wrong". It means we develop compassion and empathy.

Although I have tried, I still don’t see the old lady. Does that mean she doesn’t exist? No, it means I must remain open to understanding that someone else sees her. That someone else could maybe point her out for me, help me to see something in a new way and grow.

Chasing the Rainbow (Part 2)

Passion. Integrity. Perspective. Humility.

Integrity.

Synonyms for integrity include: honesty, truth, and principle. In my mind reliability and veracity are most similar to integrity. I honor my integrity. Is that redundant? I don’t think so because what it means is that being reliable and veracious are essential. I look for this in others and am conscious of reflecting this in my personal actions.

What does the woman on the street think it means to have integrity?

The right thing is not always the easy thing. In fact, the right thing is almost always the harder of the choices we make. But if we make a pledge to live our life with integrity, then it means making tough calls and hard decisions. Sometimes the right thing is relatively simple (not to be mistaken for easy). For example, when the cashier gives you back too much change at the supermarket. Do you walk away happy for her error? Or, do you correct her and keep only the change owed?

Sometimes the right thing is incredibly complex; like sticking up to the bully on the playground or confronting a friend about his cheating on a test.



Having integrity gets lonely. Two things play into this feeling of loneliness; 1) people love to gossip; stories get scewed and rumors fly because people have varying perspectives (I plan to talk about perspective in the next segment of this series, "Chasing the Rainbow"); and, 2) it’s hard for people to accept when they have made a mistake without getting angry or offended (remember how having integrity is often the hard choice?). I accept that loneliness, however. I want to be able to Look at myself in the mirror. If I am doing what shows integrity, I can face the naysayers and still enjoy my reflection.

Having integrity means helping people. This is pretty much what I was talking about when I wrote Enough in November of 2011 .  Seriously think about the world IF everybody does the right thing, if everybody helps one another, if everybody gives. Give of yourself, your time, your knowledge, your talents, your shoulder, your smile, your company. To think Anne Frank, at 14-years-old has this figured out 70+ years ago is pretty amazing. (*Anne's essay "Give" is in the last tab of this online exhibit. Listen to it. It will make you think.)

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to come across as self-righteous, but I do believe integrity is about righteousness. It’s about doing the right thing and standing up for what is right. Sometimes it means going against the pack or being the odd-man-out.

How about when no one is watching?

Integrity is my word. It's knowing that what I say is what I mean, what I claim is what I believe, what I demonstrate  is what I expect from others.

I want to live a life of integrity.

-Part 3 of this series , Perspective, to come...soon...

Chasing the Rainbow (Part 1)

Passion. Integrity. Perspective. Humility.

The four core elements of who I am. Most of us spend our entire life chasing the proverbial rainbow. Running after romance, dedicating countless hours to earning a degree, peddling uphill after the position of our dreams, sustaining a system for happiness. There are moments when each goal is within our grasp and moments when each is just beyond our fingertips. What helps one to hold on or to climb that final stair depends on what lies in the foundation of each one of us. I am chasing my own rainbow. Right now the pot-of-gold is just beyond my fingertips, and I am digging deep to reach it.

MY life’s journey has led me to this point. I can feel it. I know it. Everything I have done and everything that I am has prepared me for exactly where I am today. The only thing I am surer of is my unwavering love for my daughter, so the fact that the pot-of-gold is so close yet so far has me thinking and reflecting while I am forced to wait.

My friend Diane advised me, "Identify the four things that are your core. The elements you bring with you every day, to every situation you face." It was good advice. I will use this advice to help me process while climbing. Here’s the first of a four part series I’ll call “Chasing the Rainbow”:

PASSION.

How do you define passion? Maybe you define it like the Man on the Street . Maybe sex, like several of the people caught off-guard in this video, comes to mind first when you hear PASSION. Or maybe God is what you think about—The Passion of Christ. Maybe it’s a sport. Living in Brazil, I sure have observed lots of passion for soccer.

Passion is what drives me. I'm not a perfectionist by any definition, but I want to be perfect in what I do. In approach. In effort. In energy I exert. I am passionate. If I cannot give 110% to a task, the task is not mine to perform. It's a great trait for the type A personality, which I am not by any means, because it fosters the need to line up the ducks.

However, Passion, for me, is about caring. About resisting apathy. About understanding that all we do has a result, which creates another situation, which in turn creates a result, and in turn…you get it. It’s what makes this world continue spinning.

Passion implores me to ask, “Why?” It implores me to assess how everything fits together to form the big picture. It pushes me to greatness and perfection. It prevents me from settling on OK and pushes me to Great! Passion pushes. It inspires. It begs to be imitated.

Look what Roger Bannister's passion encouraged him to do:

And what Passion encouraged 37 people to do the year following this race.

I want to be GREAT!

I miss Home Depot

Living abroad, I often say, “This is so much easier in Brazil than in the U.S.” and I often say, “This is so much easier in the U.S. than in Brazil.”

Lately, it’s been the second of those two perspectives that I seem to be voicing more often. It may come from the fact that we are trying to contract a builder to construct the wall/pool/barbeque area, etc. on the lot next to the house.

First estimate: R$15,000 NOT including material.  Just the wall.

Wow! So, I would pay someone else to do it for basically 3 reasons:

1.    It’s hard work and it’s getting hot (well not this week but soon it’ll be summer in this tropical country)

2.    I work a full part-time job and don’t really want to also build something in my off time

3.    I don’t have the faintest idea what to buy or WHERE to buy it (materials) that’s why I need a professional.

Then, the other night my friend Diane says, “Sara, why don’t you fly someone down to do it?”

I was like: HUH?

She continues: “You HAVE to know people in the states, builders, construction people. Those people would not mind a holiday in Rio de Janeiro basically free of charge. It would most likely be done faster and better than with anyone you hire here.”

And I thought: HMMMM, interesting idea.

Then this morning, the second team showed up to give us an estimate. This new father son team will do the wall AND the pool together—and perhaps prepare the barbeque area. They’ll bring the estimate next Tuesday. We made sure to ask them for an estimate with material and an estimate without cost of material. After all, it’s the bottom line that we really need to know. And of course the workmanship, so they told us we can visit some existing sites these two are responsible for to see their end product(s).

Then, this afternoon, after wandering one of the biggest malls in the city (EW!) for 3 hours—I really need the sun to come out. I’m bored with the rain.) Sierra and I went to Etna looking for blinds for her bedroom window.

Her window is 120 cm X 120 cm

In stock: 70 X 140, 170 X 120, and just about everything else in between.

So, I found the nearest store employee to ask, “Do you all have any more blinds in stock?”

Store employee: “No, what we have is out.”

Me: “Do you cut the blinds that are here to fit the customer’s need?”

Store employee: “No.”

Me to self: Man I miss Home Depot. If we were in the states…we would be at the register, paying for our faux wood blinds, and heading home to hang them.

In the end, Joaocemar (the name of the store employee who helped us) asked me for my phone number in order to call me the first part of next week when the next shipment arrives. When he entered my number into his cell phone, I thought, “Hmm, is that your work phone?” He said the blinds arrive and leave the store pretty fast. I said then call me right away. I live here, close, and I’ll come as soon as you call. And again, thought to myself man, I miss Home Depot.

Final thought? If you are a builder or know a builder who would like an all-expense paid vacation to Rio de Janeiro, includes room and board during the project, send me contact information. One criterion: he/she must stop by Home Depot on his/her way to the airport to pick up white, 2 inch faux wood blinds for my daughter’s bedroom.

A única coisa que se muda é o endereço.

Ever been to a rodeo? Cow ropin? Hog tyin? Barrel racin?

Spent any time around Cowboys?

This is a diagram of the traditional course for barrel racing. The video below is a different type of competition. I'm not sure of the name.

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, answer this:

Been to more than one rodeo in different towns? Different states? Different countries?

I won’t say that I “grew up around the rodeo”, but my small town of Isanti, MN hosted one of the largest rodeos in the state every summer. I was no stranger to the weekend excitement every July.

I won’t say that I “grew up around horses”, but, by the time I turned 12, I was an experienced rider. (Oh how I wanted my own horse when I was kid.)

I won’t say that I “grew up on a farm”, but my father did and as a child we grew or raised (or my father hunted) pretty much everything my family ate on the 12.5 acres we called home.

All of that must be why, while visiting my friend Francesca this past weekend—whose daughter recently became a proud horse owner, I was in no way put off by the prospect of watching some barrel racing in Macae,RJ, Brasil.

What I did not know, was how much I would recognize. For example:

Cowboys love country music and God (listen to the song in the background and notice as this young rider makes the sign of the cross after her run)

Skewered meat/barbeque goes hand-in-hand with ranchin’ (and cold beer).

Farms are dirty.

That my father and my uncles have Brazilian twins.

This man, from behind, looked so much like my Uncle Bob I wanted to give him a hug. There was another man competing who resembled my father; Sierra pointed him out but not in time to snap his foto.

It was such a fun experience to be around generous, kind-hearted, fun-loving people who literally spent 12+ hours on the ranch, racin and having a great time that day--in the hot Brazilian sun might I add. While we were all exhausted, drove back the 30 minutes to Francesca's oceanfront apartment, took hot showers, put on clean clothes, not covered in dust and smelling like horse, ate pasta, and crashed. The Cowboys and Cowgirls, on the other hand, finished their day of fun with a heel tappin, yee-hawin barn dance 'til dawn.

For a minute, I wished I had a horse and was a Cowgirl too.

I guess some things are the same no matter where you go.

The only thing that changes is the address.

On being CatholicI have been thinking about my religion a lot lately. If someone asks, I always answer, "I'm Catholic." However, I, like many other Catholics around the world, cannot name the last time I attended mass. I, unlike many other Catholics around the world, don't really feel guilty for this.
I am not sure whether or not I should feel guilty for it. I don't know if it makes me a bad Catholic because I don't feel guilty, but I don't.
Despite the fact that I don't regularly attend mass, I am very spiritual and very faith filled. Most people don't know that I pray daily. Most people don't know that I put great weight in Divine Power and Divine Intervention and Divine Direction. Most people don't know that I often turn my eyes toward the sky and say, "What is it you want me to learn Lord? I'm trying to listen, I really am, but I just am not hearing you."
My faith not something I openly share. It's not for sharing. It's personal. It's mine--my faith, my belief, my conversations with God. I don't want to share them necessarily or need to.
So why am I writing about being Catholic and having faith and talking to God on my public blog you might ask.
Because today something so incredible happened, I want to share it. I want to voice it for fear that it will disappear if I don't. I want others to hear it because maybe others have had the same experience and think they are alone.
When I woke up this morning, everything was different. The smell in the air was different. The green in the trees outside my bedroom window was different. The pink across the sky as the sun rose was different. The kindness of the other commuters on the road was different. The reflection of the  mountains on the ocean was different. As I made my way to work, I caught myself looking at the same scenery I see everyday as if I was seeing it for the first time. And I caught myself smiling for no apparent reason. I found myself saying, "Thank You Lord" outloud.
I felt this overwhelming sense of peace. I felt this overwhelming sense of direction (which was incredible to feel since of late I have felt VERY lost/without direction). I felt such a presence of God.
It reminded me of a song a friend shared with me about 10 years ago. A song that had struck a chord the first time I heard it and struck a chord again today. It explains what was happening to my view of the world this morning.
Instead of looking for miracles and not seeing any, I was looking for where there wasn't one. Seeing miracles all around me, I smiled. I think I am starting to truly believe...

when we feel the most discomfort, we learn the most;
when we feel the most out of place, we are truest to our needs;
when we feel that we are wandering alone, He is there;

If we trust...
If we listen...
If we see...
If we believe.

I believe.

Enough?

This picture is enough for me.

What is enough?

Time with my loved ones. Time to myself. Hours in the day. Money in the bank. This isn’t a new question for me. It’s one I revisit from time to time. It’s one I like to pause and think about. It was the recent loss of Steve Jobs that inspired the reflection this time. This man not only changed the way we communicate; he changed the way we think, the way we think about the way we think and communicate. His death led to an array of inspirational Facebook status updates, reminding us all to be creative, try, never give up, don’t let failure stop us, be true to our heart’s song, and think outside the box. The world mourned the loss of a great man. I have to admit, I didn’t know his name before he died. I Googled him.  It’s true. The first posting about his death I read on Facebook led me straight to Google. I clicked on that first Wikipedia link and thought, “Oh! That’s who that is. How sad.”

Not long after, I saw this:

I didn’t need to Google anyone to understand.

Then  I saw this:

At first, I was offended by this one, but I wasn’t sure why. I thought about it. I realized, it was because I felt it was disrespectful to Steve Jobs’ survivors.  Then I thought, maybe I’m offended because I feel guilty, and I began to wonder. Is it possible to get so lost on our own individual path that we forget to look around us? Have I forgotten to look around me? Do we get carried away with wanting more and forget to see how much we have? Have I become selfish? Are we really successfully living in a world where international news is literally a nanosecond click away, thanks to the man on the left, yet we ignore the reality in the photo on the right? (There’s something ironic in that, isn’t there?) What do I know about the world today? At times, I think I am choosing to live in the neatly enclosed bubble I created.

I am blessed. I am privileged. Regardless of the number of times I get caught up and think I need more, I am among the rich of this world.  Seriously, what are my daily concerns?

Will I oversleep and be late to work?

Will the pool be installed by the time the weather turns hot?

Will there be enough hours in my work week to get done what I am responsible for?

Is there gas in my car?

Is there coffee?

Do I have clean underwear? (ok, not really a legitimate thought, but it’s about the caliber of concern listed here, so it fits.)

What if. What if I had to worry about where my child will sleep at night? What if I had to worry about medical care for myself or my loved ones? What if I had to live in constant fear for my safety? What if I was illiterate?

Enough wealth? Measured in what way? Evaluated by whom? Do you have enough? Could you give more? Could you live more simply?

Trying to be productive…

This will be short. I am in month 3 of a new job, new house, new schedule, new everything. I keep using the excuse that I am adjusting for the times when I feel less productive. What is the statute of limitation on adjusting time? I now struggle with the battle of self-destruction. I should be adjusted by now. I should have accomplished more today. I should…blah blah blah.

Enough of the should have. I am DOING.

So although I am hungry for another inspiration to post about, I am going to keep this short and scrub the verandah floor so I can see the fruit of my productivity concretely.

When she looks back, what will she say?

When I was 7 months pregnant with Sierra, I closed on my first house. I swore to never make my baby live in an apartment. Never is a dangerous word. We need to be careful when we use this word.

I brought my darling daughter home to a house; it wasn’t exactly a home though. We lived there two years before I decided I want a bigger house. What I know now is that I was running away from what I had created, and I thought more space was the answer. Needless to say, I bought, we moved in to, and I sold the second house of my daughter’s life in under a year. (Details of the chain of events which led to that omitted purposefully.)

I found myself, almost 30, a single mother, and moving back home, with my parents…pretty much every independent American’s worst nightmare. It wasn’t a nightmare though; it was wonderful—thank God. The year and a half Sierra and I lived with my parents afforded her a relationship with her grandparents she would not have otherwise had if life had dealt us a different hand. It was also a time in my adult life that, like it or not, I needed Mom and Dad, and I am extremely thankful that they had the means to be there for me during that time. I am luckier than many because they were, and it afforded me a relationship with my parents I would not have otherwise had.

After a year and half, I was able to buy my third house. It was a townhouse, but it was the last unit. We had a yard and space for a barbeque, and it was all ours. We lived there for almost three years, and I liquidated every last item (minus four boxes and three suitcases worth) when I decided to pick up and move my daughter to another country—to what kind of living arrangement you ask;  an APARTMENT. Remember that never phrase I mentioned, well, never is a dangerous word.

We enjoyed five years in our 10^th floor Rio apartment, overlooking the Lagoa, Rocinha, and a distant view of the ocean. More than a dozen kids for Sierra to play with and never leave the apartment complex. We had two pools, a gym, a large play area, 24 hour security, friendly doormen, and a home.

And I just traded that in. I lived in that apartment longer than any other place in the 20 years since first leaving my parents home. BUT…We are back in a house, and it is a HOME. It’s comfortable, warm, welcoming, peaceful. It feels good here. But…

You knew there would be a but, right?

It’s FAR. It’s far from Sierra’s school. It’s far from my work. It’s far from most of her friends. It’s far from most of my friends. It’s far from the beach. Distance-wise, it’s only 20 kilometers (12.43 miles). It’s actually closer to my work than my mom’s and dad’s house was when we lived with them 10 years ago. But we live in a mega-tropolis, and traffic makes even a few kilometers (or miles) long sometimes.

We average an hour to go to school in the mornings and an hour and a half to come home. 2-3 days a week Sierra is riding public transportation to get to and from school, and the time this consumes in her day can be one hour to three hours depending on…traffic, the weather, the attitude of the drivers, the position of the moon in relation to the Earth…you name it, it’s unpredictable in the end.

With that said, I recently find myself thinking: What is she going to say when she’s an adult and she looks back on this time in her life. Will she have fond memories of our beautiful, peaceful, welcoming home? Or, will she tell her friends, partner, colleagues what a chore it was to be so far away after five years of being in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world? Will she resent me for the choices I made and forced her to live? Or, will she thank me for the opportunities I provided her?

I hope it’s the latter.

Memory Loss?I received an email once, you know, the mass forwarded email with a message that says you'll have eternal good luck if you forward it on to eight people. I don't remember exactly what the email said, but it had something to do with friends and the kind of friend they are. Something about how people come into your life for a reason, to complete a purpose. If you have friends for a short time or a lifetime, they are equally as important because the reason for that person entering your life is significant and perhaps something you don't know or won't ever know for that matter.
This is so true. I think I'm losing my memory. I seem to have a hard time remembering details. I vaguely remember having been somewhere or seen something or a weekend trip. Then something happens to jog my memory and it comes back--usually. Or someone retells the whole story and in the end I say, "OOOOHHH! I remember!"
George Michael's "I Want Your Sex" was on the radio this morning as I drove to the beach. I could sing along word for word, and I did. I don't think I've actually heard that song in 20 years, but I turned up the volume and sang along, not missing a beat (Bira looked at me strangely a couple of times during the song). As the song was coming to an end, I found myself smiling (not because the song is ridiculously perverted). I found myself smiling because I was 17 again, in Hibbing, MN at the Holiday Basketball Tournament with Dee Tousignant, in our hotel room, decorating the last of the door signs for the guys on the basketball team, eating Wheat Thins with peanut butter covered in chocolate, and screaming our lungs out to George Michael. Yet I can't remember what I did last Sunday.
Living in a foreign country messes with my memory too. I think it's because I still don't think in Portuguese all the time, and being an expatriate means people come and go--a lot. You make new friends and you say good-by--a lot. It's hard at first, especially if you aren't used to the transient life. But a person adjusts, and it ends up being kinda cool in the end when you can say things like: my friends in Abu Dabi, or this friend of mine in Mexico...and things like Skype and Facebook make keeping in touch with people living internationally easier and the loneliness or saudades manageable.
I met one of those friends this week for breakfast. She lives in Luanda. She's here until January because she's pregnant with her first baby and Luanda doesn't have adequate health care facilities to provide the pre-natal, delivery, post natal care she wants/needs/deserves. We met for breakfast at 7:45; I left her house to go to work at noon! There was barely a moment of silence between us as we caught one another up on what life has been like in the two plus a few months since she and her husband left Rio. And we barely scratched the surface. It was great to see her, spend time with her, know that she is healthy and happy and growing (literally at the moment since she's pregnant). But more importantly, I left thinking about that email. The one I received, about friends coming in and out, for a lifetime or for a moment. My visit with my friend who lives in Luanda left me reminiscing about the first couple of years I lived here in Rio. Memories of afternoons on the beach, my first trip to Ilha Grande, my first Escola de Samba enseio, The Black Eyed Peas on Ipanema Beach for New Year's Eve...memories I had thought I had forgotten. 
Sometimes we think we have control of our own lives and then something happens, and we are reminded that we in fact are not the ones guiding this passage. We make decisions or leaps of faith in a moment or over time. We share our joys, and our pains, with others. We strive to be successful, to do the right thing. We congratulate our friends on a job well done or a promotion, and we say good-bye.
I'm starting to believe that perhaps my quase-amnesia (so I have self-diagnosed anyway) is all part of this grander scheme. Maybe I'm not supposed to remember everything all the time. Maybe forgetting for a little while makes the moment when I remember that much sweeter...and it's meant to be that way.