Wow! It's been sometime since I last blogged. I couldn't begin to tell you all that's been going on since August. It would take too long. I would love to make a better attempt to blog a bit more regularly in the coming year but in order to do that I need to try and allow the natural course of feelings to find there way into my writing. Ya know, without too much editing and poetic analogies and such. OK, well maybe a few here there. After all writing is a creative expression of our thoughts and what better way to allow that to happen than writing something that has your true self imbedded into it's content.
Anyway, the last few months have been busy. To begin with I started a diet back in August because I was getting tired of the way I looked and felt. I was finally able to get on a track with both eating and working out and it started to show results. Once the results were becoming more and more evident I wanted it more and more. I got involved with a weight loss program called "A Better Weigh". It was very hard to do and I'm not kidding when I tell you there were times I had to just lay down and sleep because I couldn't stand the feeling of wanting to eat and not being able to do so. But with some determination and the support of the folks on the staff I was able to come up with ways of getting through the urges. It's a very restricting diet and one that many would disagree with but I got the results I was looking for and now I have to try and make some permanent changes from 50 years of bad eating habits. Not easy!! By the weigh ;-) I lost a total of 35 lbs.
I continued with school this fall although I only took one class, Philosophy 101. I only took the one class because I was very uncertain about my involvement with music and other interests. Of course there is the other time sucker which is my full time job. I'm glad I made this choice because it really allowed me some wiggle room when my schedule got heavy. The class was great as was the teacher. Professor Brown is an attorney who works out of DC and was formally a Wall Street finance guy. He has a real passion for philosophy and gave very cool and energy packed lectures on all the topics we covered. I like to say that I put one hundred percent into this class but the reality is I did what I had to do to get by. The one thing I can say is that I was truly engaged in the class time and enjoyed participating in the conversations. I was amazed at the intellectual level of some of my classmates who, might I remind you, were only 18 or 19 years old. We covered everything from the Origins of Philosophy to Existentialism to Marxism and more. It had a profound impact on my thinking and helped me to confirm that it's OK for me to feel some of the things I do and that the quest for the truth can be often painful but enlightening.
My job at Father Martin's Ashley has been and continues to be a gift that I can only express as divine in my life. I have never once, in the time I have been working there, felt like I didn't want to go to work. And if for some reason I did feel that way, for a second, it was because I had to get up and move from point A to point B. It never had anything to do with the actual work. In fact I don't even see it as work at all. I look forward to arriving to one of the worlds truly amazing institutions every day I'm scheduled to be there. The chance to help people to get through such difficult times in their life is really, in my opinion, being engaged in God's work. And even though I work a schedule that is a little bit isolating from what we know as normal I still love the work and the chance to be there for the next suffering person at the end of their rope. It has helped me to stay focused in my own recovery and realize the gift that I was given about 3-1/2 years ago.
OK, I'm going on too long here and I've only covered three areas of my busy schedule over the past few months. Trust me when I tell you that everything else is also going well. It hasn't come without some tough days or a bit of soul searching but the journey is good and I am looking forward to Christmas and the holiday season. I will be at work on these days this year helping the folks who are in treatment to find some peace and gratitude for being exactly where they are at this moment in time. So if you think of it, toss up a prayer for the still sick and suffering throughout the world and from me to you have a wonderful holiday experience with your family and friends.
With Love,
Rob
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