plans.

we plan day in and day out.
not without reason.
we are surrounded by a million things begging to be fit into our plan.
and at the same time, we ourselves are begging that a million other things be fit into our plan.
as we think towards the future...6 months down the road, 5 years down the road...we drive ourselves into a frustrating wall trying to figure out what it holds for us.
we shape our lives around what might happen next.
we hope for certain people, certain things, certain places.

our need for control.
it's unbelievable.

and until we can loosen the tight grip we have on tomorrow, we will continue to forget the reality of today.
the reality that today is a new day in itself.
that today, we have the chance to love and to be loved.
that today, we can walk in hope.
we can start to figure out who we are.

we can find peace.

mistakes.

you know what they always say...
try and avoid mistakes, but if you can't, at least make sure you learn from them.
i don't know if "they" say that. but i have realized that "they" should.
because as much as we are warned and herded away from certain habits and practices in life, sometimes we just cannot be convinced. 
and i am not sure that is always a bad thing.
yes, sometimes we are way too stubborn and proud.
and i do not doubt that the people who love us the most have some of the best suggestions.
but sometimes, there are things that you simply can't learn until you experience the consequences, good or bad, of your own mistakes.
the good news is most of the time our world doesn't crumble completely when the mistake comes along.
when our most recent way of functioning hits a breaking point.
when 'you know what' hits the fan.
and that is the hope in it all.
wisdom comes in the mistakes.

clothes.

clothes.
take them or leave them.
actually no.  please take them.
but when you take them, please repair them when they get torn.
when you take them, please bring them back when you grow out of them.
when you take them, please treat them like the gift that they are.
or actually treat them like the material things that they are.
all at the same time.
please when faced with the decision of taking or leaving them, realize that most people don't get that decision.
when deciding whether to wear your sequins bedazzled 'fun' top or your pinstripe pants suit, remember it's not that big of a deal anyway.

remember that what really matters is that whoever was sewing those sequins on was well-rested, well-nourished and paid well.

and please know that i spent 3 whole minutes this morning deciding which tights to wear.

a reflection: cough drops.

cough drops.
what a saving grace.
in those moments of panic when your throat won't cooperate with your mind.
or when your throat doesn't seem to note the social ques of a quiet meeting or an important phone call.
and while they aren't normally the tastiest treat you find in a candy dish, they take on a whole new quality when tears are coming to your eyes because of an itch that seems to be dancing around in your upper respiratory system.
funny how a little hard candy full of menthol can bring such immediate relief, yet once dissolved, all hell breaks loose once again.
because while cough drops will save you from the desperate heat of needing to cough in the middle of a dramatic performance of the christmas story, they won't bring any long-term solution.
that seems to be the case for a lot of things in life.

but as we search for the antibiotics and long-term healers of the world, let's not throw the cough drops out the window.

don't run.

why do we find such satisfaction and security in denouncing the tradition of another.
while i am not asking you to buy completely into what others say or believe, i am suggesting that you try to understand it and see the value in it before declaring it as completely worthless.
or actually, what if we didn't declare things as worthless.
It seems like when we write off what someone else is saying or doing as worthless, we take the easy road.
When i run from the challenge of understanding the motivation and mentality of a fellow human being, i lose a chance to learn about who i am as a human being.

Let's try not to run.

gratitude.

it's impossible not to have an extreme sense of gratitude when you regularly interact with someone extraordinary.

with one who sees the extraordinary deeds of life as ordinary.

with one who recognizes the beauty in each person he or she meets and points it out to anyone who can't seem to see it.

with one who recognizes his or her gifts and talents yet refuses to believe that sharing them is worthy of a standing ovation.

with one who pours out generosity refusing to define it with the term.

with one who looks for the extraordinary in each supposedly ordinary person.

maybe one day the extraordinary will be ordinary.

formula.

Operating on formula.

We can only speak for our own personal operating systems.

Mine operates on formula.

Observation of a situation leads to a created formula that applies to all like situations.

Like when you observe a large rat in your unfinished basement after using it to store large amounts of hot chocolate.

Hopefully the clear formula developed would prompt one to never again store ingredients for a delicious wintery drink in a basement where the walls are still mud and the floors flood every time it rains.

Formulas make it so we don't have to completely re-read the 100-page manual every single time we put the pieces together.

Formulas can be incredibly helpful and teach us how to live.

Formulas can also trap us.

When we forget the well-being of the variables within the formula, the formula loses its function.

Yet, as someone reminded me yesterday, the hope is found in the depth of the human mind.

New formulas are constantly being created.

control.

when the ground is crumbling underneath you, you start to hold on tight.
really tight.
to whatever makes sense.

you hold tight to as many pieces as you can.
you grab your glue and your staple gun and you start keeping as much together as you can while trying to remain upright and balanced.
and if the glue doesn't work, you go buy a different kind of glue.
and if that glue doesn't work, you go buy some velcro or tape.
but it's ridiculous how many fragments you will hold together before calling the floor-man.
because to call the floor-man would mean letting go.
of all the little pieces of tile and concrete you have been holding onto.
calling the floorman could lead to some serious costs.
calling the floorman would mean change.
calling the floorman could mean a whole new floor.
one you have never seen before.

the slow realization that one cannot control everything.

change.

interesting how sometimes parking garage machines will give change for a twenty in all gold coin dollars.
just about every five to fourteen year old loves something as valuable as a gold dollar.
but as you become what some call a 'grown-up,' somehow that gold dollar seems to lose its shine.
what was once a prized possession saved for special purchases eventually becomes a frustrating weight that strangely seems to bring embarrassment upon its use.
when we look back it tends to be weird how much we as humans change in such short amounts of time.
ways of thinking, ways of living, ways of trusting are constantly changing.
we are constantly making the choice to change or not change.
without even knowing it.
if we aren't willing to face the fact that we are changing beings, then it will be hard to change for good.
may we walk forward knowing that life will change us.
that the situations we put ourselves in and the situations we find ourselves stuck in today can and will impact the way we live tomorrow.
the hope in it all?
we always have change waiting for us.
gold coins or not.

dominoes.

farms are one of the best things in life.
while i could never single-handedly keep one alive and running, i am amazed by the value of lots of beautiful land producing food.  or just a big pasture housing monstrosities we like to call cows that walk around like they own the place.
so take a farm and add dominoes.
compared to a farm, dominoes seem like tiny tiny pieces of an overly complicated game.
but then put those dominoes in the hands of a bunch of recovering addicts who were at the mercy of crack, heroin or vicodin just months before.
as their laughter fills up the fresh air of a farm, those little white blocks with colored dots gain more and more significance.
the simplicity of a game of matching up 5 dots with 5 dots and 2 dots with 2 brings a whole new level of hope to a place already full of serenity and peace.
its the domino effect.
or is it?

difference.

does our difference separate or unite?
in our separations we find comfort, yet in our unity we find comfort.
is one better than the other?
in moments of sameness, we find comfort in knowing and being known.
yet in moments of difference, we can find comfort in not knowing and not being known.

maybe we just need to figure out the difference between comfort and being comfortable.
maybe the problem comes when we don't want to be the same as anyone but we also don't want to be considered different from anyone.

find sameness in the difference. find difference in the sameness.

rash.

sometimes rashes appear.
sometimes its actually a little thing we like to call scabies.
and once the word scabies is mentioned, everyone in the room starts itching.
when you have a rash that turns out to be scabies, you see the true colors of those around you.
while some may step four feet back, some may lend you their lysol.
and while some may help you haul your mattress to the dumpster, some may look up microscopic pictures of the little mites burrowing in your skin.
some may give you a hug while some plan to quarantine your entire house.
reactions will happen.
and they will change the way we know others.
the beauty of it is how someone else reacts doesn't have to control what we do.
rash or not.

it's funny

it's funny how easily we forget.
like today i forgot that i had dropped a sweetart in the vicinity of my printer. of course ten minutes later i remembered it when my printer started making a hacking sound and then stopped all together.
after realizing it certainly didn't add any sweetness to the documents attempting to push through the machine, i worked to remove it. i shook it. and i hit it. until i had lost all hope.
then redemption came in the form of a secret plastic door.
who knew there was a secret plastic door on the back of a printer.
it's funny how easily we ignore.
it's funny how when we ignore, we start to forget.
and when we start to forget, we start to lose hope.
it all sounds so sobering.

but let's not forget the hope in it all.

that secret plastic door isn't going anywhere.

insanity

life is insane sometimes.
and while that may seem dramatic, when you work in a long-term recovery program, you find that defining insanity will often keep you more sane.
as i have watched residents voluntarily give up before completion and walk out of our program (where they have food, shelter, work, and a family that loves them) with no where to go, no one to go to, no food in their backpack, no change in their pocket, and no plan, i can't help but find comfort in the word insanity.
knowing that my brothers in recovery did not walk out that door because they were thinking straight.
just like when they were given a mixed drink at the age of 6, they had no way of knowing the fire they were walking into.
the fire that would eventually lead them to do whatever they had to for the next bottle or hit of crack.
so if you ask me about the disease of addiction, that is what i will tell you.
and just like my insanities do not define who i am, the insanities of an addict do not define who he or she is.
and isn't that the hope in it all?

our insanities are not what define us.