becoming an adult....

Pip in action:
Growth does not reside in a place called comfortable....

Time keeps marching on and i try my hardest to keep up. But honestly, how in the heck did 49 years pass by so quickly? The best we can do is to pack in as much living as possible and savour it to the fullest. Not just the big whopping mind blowing moments, though those tend to stick their necks out most predominantly and become our personal milestones.... but the day to day morning glories too.

This week has been a blur of activity.....from meeting and greeting 200 new students to the College, to sitting down one on one with a few who needed some reassurance during their transition back into the classroom, to kicking off a night course I'm teaching on Crisis Counselling, to organizing my own family and home for the beginning of the school year. There have been trips to the store for school supplies, a meet the teacher night tonight (I'm not impressed let me tell you with the caliber of teachers my son has this year.....but will wait on the final call on that one....) to dealing with incompetent bureaucratic systems to crashing on the couch last night in what was probably the most rivetting and important speech Obama has made since his inauguration. You know you're a tired puppy when you fall asleep sitting up while that guy is speechifying! It has been such a great week!!!

My life is full and i'm very happy. It is frantic at times, but I work best when I'm juggling many things at once. It energizes me and my brain cells. Too much down time and I become a unfocused slug. In the middle of the beautiful melee of living right smack dab in the centre of many fronts, I realized just how content I am. The only word I can use to describe it is "integrated...." That's how I feel. And the only way I managed to get there.... to a place where I'm firing on all cylinders again .... admittedly the first time in years, had all to do with 4 days at a racecourse in Cheltenham when I immersed myself in the Greenbelt festival. The late evening/early morning talks back at the hotel played a huge role in it too.

I knew I needed to get there. I didn't know why. I just knew my "want" had turned into a "need." I knew it was an integral part of whatever journey I am on. There were key "happenings" which I hope to be able to capture in words soon that in all honesty altered my thinking, my feelings.......and placed me on a different axis. A few important decisions were finally made. My outlook now shines from a better angle..... it simply happened after carrying them around for far too long. Enlightening, inspiring, challenging, and fun. It was also difficult. It was in the place of difficult where I grew the most. Not surprising.

Greenbelt was a destination that I thought had a beginning and an end. I was so wrong. The lessons I learned, the reflections I fell into, the moments I stayed right in the long now are a part of who I am and how I am seeing my life and the blur around me. There is a calm.....there is more patience. There is enthusiasm and less fretting. There has been a disconnection from the rubbish I had to endure over the past couple of years.

Pip sometimes asks on his blog..............How old were you when you became an adult? I thought I had already crossed that threshhold. I thought I had passed through the passages while experiencing the big whopping mind blowing moments. It wasn't until I was sitting alone outside of the Performance Cafe on the Saturday night listening to the music inside the tent, that I realized I had become an adult that day. Something clicked when I started to think about where I was physically and spiritually, where I had been, and letting go of where I may end up.

Becoming an adult, I realized was learning to let go of life's control panel, and to find a different kind of comfort in the vulnerable side of difficult. The only way you find that comfort zone is to recognize that letting go..... surrendering ...... can take you to a place where acceptance greets you with a nod. I may have been sitting there all alone, sitting off in the margins thinking about a very special "Greenbelt moment" that I had experienced earlier in the day, watching the Greenbelt world go by...........in fact a group of teens disguised as minstrels strolled by, stopped and then spontaneously sang the most movingly upbeat version of Amazing Grace I had ever heard....... there was a feeling of infinite possibility in the night air.

Today........I turn 49. Today, I think I can confidently state that I'm finally an adult. Better late than never eh? Man, that was a long adolescence!