Things I've Discovered.

Originally published October 29 on my old site.

In the last twenty-four hours I have discovered:

1) I am loved more than I realize. I don't think I knew, or even know, how many people love me. This isn't ego, this is sheer wonderment and bemusement; from my vantage point on the inside, I seem like a shithead. I don't seem lovable. It astonishes me, still, that people care about me. That's my stuff, I know, but it's still perpetually a surprise.

2) I have touched more lives than I have realized. People remember me. I feel terrible sometimes that I have to think about where I know someone from. I have memory issues that have gotten worse over the last few years (I wonder if that's guava-flavored?) that mean I sometimes have to really work to know where someone comes from or where I know someone from or who this person is who's talking to me. I feel bad about that.

3) I have an interesting cross-section of friends and family. I have a retired Christian fundamentalist college professor in South Carolina, a Episcobuddhist retail store manager and wine geek in Texas, a Druid priestess in Utah, a motherly Jew on a farm in the Midwest, and a whole passel o' eclectic Pagans praying for me, as well as a couple of atheists who are hoping things go well. That's not even counting any of my relatives.

4) I have discovered that it is better to be good to people. I am not always a good person. But I have tried to treat people in a decent manner; to reflect the Divine I see in them, to treat them how I want to be treated. I have not always succeeded, but that has been my goal. And now I see that when I do that, people respond. People value being treated in a good manner -- not all, but the ones who are good themselves, and those are the people I want in my life anyway. If I learn nothing else from the Age Of The Guava, I will learn this.