I think of myself as a bit of a
sociologist. It goes deeper than just people watching for me; I find
human interaction fascinating. I think this voyeurism, and I use this
term in the most platonic fashion, began when I was a child and
realized my family was a world apart from the families of my
classmates. Until kindergarten I thought my parents were the coolest
people in the whole world. My dad had a thick head of permed hair,
wore turquoise jewelry, and drove an El Camino. My mom wore halter
tops and bell bottoms and was always listening to classic rock. To
this day Fleetwood Macs' Rumours is still one of my favorite albums.
My mom was twenty when I entered school and my dad wasn't much older
so they seemed incredibly hip to all the other kids; this was the
first time I noticed my family was different. Noyes School, and the
friends I made there, are what I attribute my “success” in life
to, along with the fact that no matter how much we moved around my
parents made sure they kept us in good schools. My husband likes to
boil everything down to numbers and he informed me that by the time I
moved out of my parents house we had moved, on average, every year
and a half. If you got a glimpse of my W-2 you might dispute my
“success”, but I use a different gauge for success. I have always
told Jayne, as John Lennon's mother told him, the key to life is
happiness. I believe that a happy life is a successful life.
Obviously, nobody escapes life unscathed by troubles and I have had
my fair share, but even when “life” as I like to refer to it
arises, I still feel an underylying sense of well being even in the
midst of trouble.
I'm not sure how I achieved this
state of contentment, but I know it's a gift. I think it's probably
a plethora of circumstances...yoga, meditation, a little intuition, a
lot of therapy, a few lucky breaks perhaps, and my childhood friends
who showed me a different way, namely college. I have tenaciously
held onto my friends from Missouri; even when they were busy with
their own lives and didn't respond, I hung in there. I recently came
back from a visit with these friends, a few I have known for over
forty years, and I realized that they were my tethers to this life
that I now have. I believe everything happens for a reason,
sometimes it takes a while to figure it out, but if you wait long
enough it will become clear. I can see now that the reason these
women entered my life was to tether me to a better life, a different
way of being in the world, and I'm insanely grateful to them. My
journey has taken me far from Missouri, yet I know this is where my
story began and I feel indebted to my parents for all the lessons
they taught me. I have found a supportive, loving, and nurturing
partner to share my life with and I surround myself with positive
relationships that honor who I am without expectations of what I can
do for them. I learned this from my childhood freinds. I thought
long and hard on my way home from Kansas City about the way my life
has unfolded and I am filled with gratitude. We are all sociologists
in our own way, modeling behaviors of those around us, and my hope is
that I have shown Jayne how to tether herself to people who will help
her meet her full potential as well. My family is like my own
personal sociological experiment these days, so the queston of the
week has been, “Who will you tether yourself to? Who is going to
help bring out your highest and greatest self?” I can firmly answer
Becky, Alison, Eve, and Anne. Thanks Ladies, I love and appreciate
you more than you could ever know.
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