Eye opening

Sometimes it is good to stand back and hear the perspective of someone else. In the last few days I have been trying to do just that, from the dry running paths of San Juan Capistrano to the hills and bike ways of the Santa Clarita Valley. The Pacific Northwest will now always be home, no matter how I try to claim something else.

Because I have spent a lifetime purposely not looking over my shoulder because personal history should remain in ones rear view mirror, at points during this week I have been dragged kicking and screaming to realize that in my wake there may have been things I should have stopped to look at and care too.

I was with some dear friends last night at dinner and one brilliant friend, upon hearing that I am ailing, said that for as long as she has known me I have been in pain, from bike crashes, from indecision and especially from dating damaged and deranged people. As this week has been filled with unintended insight, this was the one that kind of blew me away. It was one of those moments that people hear when they break up with someone and their friends come together and admit they never really liked the recently removed lover. You cAn not hear that your choices in partners has always been filled with the mean and angry and not take a moment to reflect.

My sense is that we fill our lives with stuff and busy times so we do not spend too much time in reflection. At some point in the last month I was talking to a person I once thought could be a long term friend, but whom I had cut lose because she could not stop being self defeating. When we were talking, a catch-up from a long period of silence, she shared with me that she could not really remember why she stopped talking to me. The olive branch did not work, because I remembered why I stopped commnicatig with her but I no longer felt the need to explain.

In a single week I have run and rode, spent time with loving and amazing people, laughed for hours with friends who have been in my life for 30 years and sat and patiently listened while a short time ex explained to me that people can not be discarded like trash. In Seattle, when you stand alone in the rain you still get wet.