Focus

Job: If my job annoys me, I am truly in trouble. I volunteer for organizations I am passionate about, alongside people I respect, admire, love. That’s not to say personalities don’t get in the way, but it is rare, and I find myself truly enjoying my job 359 days each year.

Relationship:

If I am honest, the relationship most often
not working
in my life is
my role as daughter.

I often

hear failure

in words

said to the daughter-in-me. I often find myself playing a child’s game of telephone with a couple of metal cans and a string.
An intended good job, here is an idea for doing better becomes
a jumbled garbage, there is no reason to try any longer. I cling
to my garbled hurt like a 3-year-old clutching her woobie. Change comes when I release imagined expectations and aphonic blame, when I put down the cans-n-string phone of childhood.

Friends: Limitless levels of friendship flow across my lifetime.

my mentors as friends

the friends I sometimes mentor

friends I want to spend more time with

fading friends with whom I find little in common

rekindled opportunities held in friendships softly faded

people who call themselves friends yet seem to insist
on playing prove you love me games

people who whine a competitive friendship challenge
with invitations to coffee and camaraderie

if only I will call them

those who will read this and elect to stand apart from me

clinging to the jumbled words and garbled hurt
of my flawed humanity
building self-imposed barriers to our friendship

In a quick list of 15 friends, I find people in all categories. Change comes as I sift the broad inclusive group called friends and focus on people I want to spend more time with – my friends.

Rw

Movie: Mr. Mom
Cans photo

Fault and Change by Carlos Miceli
I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Think of all the things that are not working in your life. That job you don’t like, that relationship that’s not working, those friends that annoy you. Now turn them all on you. Imagine that everything that’s not working in your life, is your fault. How would you approach it? What would you work on to change your life to the state that you want it to be? CM