Like Bailey's in My Coffee

"What will I blog about today?" were my closing thoughts of my three handwritten pages of morning thoughts. I can't remember what I thought at the end of that page. That was 2 hours and 12 minutes ago. 

Since that time, I've dipped my toes into my bookkeeping work day, balanced my credit card record books, paid a bill, wistfully wondered how I am spending my hard-earned pay cheques, listened to Glennon Doyle's "We Can Do Hard Things" podcast (accompanied by Glennon's sister, Amanda and her wife, Abby Wambach) ... (if you are interested, you can listen to it here: We Can Do Hard Things - My Hardest Thing).

I wish I could sit down in person with Glennon and simply listen. Listen, because only she holds her own answers. Listen, because that is what we most need - the need to be heard, when we are ready to put words to our thoughts. Listen, because that is where support is rooted. In the listening.

If Glennon was silent and looking towards me for input, I would guide her back to herself. I would say, "When I don't know where to turn I have, more often than not, found my answers in my own writing." Life has a way of repeating itself. In rereading one's own experience at a distance, one can feel the familiarity of someone you trust, who has been there. That someone is yourself.

Taking a step back and listening to your own words is the greatest gift of writing down your thoughts in the middle of the messy middle. It gives you the opportunity to pat yourself on the shoulder and say to yourself, "There, there my love. You've been here before. You've found your way through a similar fate. Take what you can from the lessons you've learned from the past. I know, I know ... it IS hard. It IS different. It IS easier to say than to do. But when you can, if you can, reread your words. Your answer is within, even if that answer is to look outside for the assistance you need to wade through and beyond the middle of the hard part."

I have not walked the walk another is going through. As much as I try, I cannot know what it feels like to be in someone else's shoes. 

Glennon has written, spoken and lived her way through some of her life experience. She has parented three children. In my imagination, I think of Glennon as being a valuable role model, teacher and a strong support to each of her children. One of her children (Tish) wrote the song "We Can Do Hard Things" which is played at the end of every Tuesday morning podcast. As I listened to Tish's song at the end of today's podcast, her words, the melody, the message of Glennon's teachings all wrapped up in four minutes and eighteen seconds broke my heart wide open. It felt like a soothing balm on an open wound.

Thank you, Glennon for your masterful artistry of putting words together to form sentences, paragraphs, pages, chapters and books for us to read, absorb and instill in our lives.

Yes, we are the only ones who hold our own answers. But opening yourself up and finding those "I'm not the only one?" and "Me too!" moments within the world around you feels like a warm hug on a cold day (or "Like Bailey's in my coffee on a cool camping morning", a phrase stolen and badly paraphrased from a conversation I just heard).

P.S. It was only after I posted this, that I realized I couldn't have chose a more inappropriate title to a post that is honoring a recovering addict. Sorry, Glennon.

P.P.S. Also, please note that much of what I have written in today's post has been written and spoken of by Glennon herself. Glennon often puts words to a way I already think but is so easy to steal once a vocabulary on the topic has been formed. I discovered Glennon on March 23, 2013 (I wrote about it here - Climbing the Mountain of Life) as "proof" that I did have deep thoughts before I met Glennon through the interwebs)