the one story I don’t tell over and over

We all have stories from our day to day lives that we retell over and over until we are sure everyone has heard them and some, who are too nice to say, might hear them more than once. Well, this is not one of those stories.

I wrote my book back in 2001. That was a long time ago. I said in that book and I will repeat it now, that am still learning some of the lessons that I wrote in it. Just in case you were to ever think that I can’t admit I’m not perfect, I’m gonna share about my most recent strays from the path.

I don’t know how everyone else gets off path. I’d guess it’s probably the same way I do. You start to think only about yourself. That’s where I go wrong every time. I guess you are probably starting to think, “stop with the lead in and get to the story.” Okay, I hear ya. I’m just stalling a bit so I can avoid it a little longer.

Here goes. First, I have made a point to tell folks when I don’t like something about them or the way they live their lives many times. Second, my cousin’s former girlfriend sent me the generic “take down this pic because I don’t like it” message on Facebook about a pic of my cousin she used to date. I told her to untag herself in it but just before almost closing Facebook I went back over to the message and said, and I quote, “and fuck no I won’t take it down.” Third, my cousin posted on Facebook that she removed all but status updates of her FB friends from showing on her page. I went straight to the post and said, “I just hide people when I don't want to see their updates.” Fourth and this really should be first, I wrote an unkind email to a author of a book I read and not only that, I also wrote a bad review of it on Amazon. There’s probably a five, a six and a seven, etc. but I can’t think what they are at this exact second. You can’t reel this stuff back in. Once you hurt someone, you can’t unhurt them. I got sick of myself being unkind and I decided I needed to renew my commitment to being a better person.

Why would I tell these most unflattering things about myself? Because, folks I got off track. I started thinking only about me. Days and months ticked off. I blamed the most recent stuff on winter. I started thinking about all this and I began to yearn to read something that would make me have one of those moments that felt like I was peaking behind a curtain to have the secrets of the universe shared with me. I wanted to know something new.

What happened next was that I started reading Wayne Dyer and more Deepak Chopra. And I did kind of have some soul opening thoughts. The thing is, that it was the same stuff I was still learning in 2001. That doesn’t sound very promising does it? There is good news though. I am still learning, I am still growing and even when I blow my own mind about how cruel I can be if I don’t pay attention, I know nothing is ever lost. I could spend hours making excuses for some of my not so thoughtful actions but that wouldn’t solve a thing. I was off the path and now I’m back and trying very hard to stay the course. I know even though I’ve been bad, it made me wake up to the fact I needed to redirect myself and waking up is never a bad thing.

Wow, that was hard to do.