1. Probably my finest hour was rescuing my parents when my mother had a stroke and my father was hit by a bus ON THE SAME DAY. It's important that I mention it since the other principals are oblivious to my heroism. My mother doesn't remember the stroke or the aftermath, and my father was delirious.
2. Probably my most ignominious moments were those I spent blubbering on the streets of San Francisco during that same rescue mission. A typical example: I was trudging back from Whole Foods in the rain with two enormous paper bags filled with groceries, and my cell phone rang. I put down my bags to answer my phone, and when I picked them up again, the bottoms of the bags fell out. It was the last straw (but not the LAST last straw).
3. I'm proud to say that I have begun volunteering on a hotline providing telephone support for women with breast cancer. Finally I can use my experience to help others.
4. I'm embarrassed to say that I'm not particularly good at it. One day a woman called and said that the word cancer petrified her. I tried to comfort her by saying that it was just a word and that many people lived with life-threatening diseases that simply had less frightening names: diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus. Turns out she had those too. What was I thinking?
5. I survived the reduction-in-force that halved my department.
6. I was too scared to volunteer for the severance package that was offered during the RIF, because I didn't have a plan. Now I am 30 years older than anyone else in my department, and I suspect that everyone wishes I had just gone away like the other senior members. No one wants to hang with the gray-haired lady.
7. I've given good counsel to my daughter when she has faced traumatic events. I've resisted the urge to say cruel things ...
8. ... Except when I have succumbed to the urge.
9. In an overabundance of ambition, I committed indiscretions in yoga and hurt my back. Now I am scared to resume my practice, and it feels as if the bottom has fallen out of my life.
10. I have begun figuring out how to resume my practice safely, according to the underlying principles of yoga (to focus on the path and ignore the destination), and use my injuries to learn a new way of doing yoga—which might possibly translate into teaching others with similar limitations, perhaps in time for the next RIF.
2 comments:
Well, all I can say is: bravo.
You are a warrior goddess.
Takes one to know one ...
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