Tag: Self-esteem

With What Time…

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Photo by Ian Lai on Unsplash

And so I break my silence. It’s been more than a year since I posted. In the interim, I have been on a new journey in Japan. I moved to a new city, am trying new things, and learning more about the world in which I live. Life, with all of its many intricacies, is wonderfully fascinating–when we slow ourselves down enough to appreciate the ease and challenge of it all.

まだ静かなりたくないです。声まだがりますだから。命は本当に面白いですね。。。でもよく私たちは気に付きません。毎日働きまして心配して食べすぎる飲みすぎる「これは命です」と言います。そして。。。

Ich wünsche mir, dass wir einen anderen Weg finden können. Jeden Tag versuche ich zu verstehen, was eigentlich der Sinn meines Lebens ist. Ich habe noch keine Antwort. Jedoch bin ich glücklich.

A volte mi chiedo dove dovrei andare. Dove potrei trovare la mia casa, la mia famiglia, me stessa? Dove sarò domani o dopodomani? A volte sembra che qualsiasi cosa facciamo e chiunque siamo o scegliamo di diventare non sia mai abbastanza per gli altri.

Still, I am enjoying the process of it all. As such, I have decided to begin writing again. I am still working on teaching myself Japanese, trying my best to keep Italian and German.

Also, every now and again, I remind myself that my thoughts exist in English, too.

With What Time I Have

let the snowflakes fall,
turn my hair from black to white,
smiling, I drink tea.

Con il tempo che ho a disposizione

I fiocchi di neve cadono, trasformando i miei capelli da neri a bianchi –
sorridendo, bevo il tè.

Mit der Zeit, die ich habe

Schneeflocken fallen und färben mein Haar von schwarz zu weiß –
Lächelnd trinke ich meinen Tee.

この命の時間に

雪が降って、私の髪を黒から白に染める -。
微笑みながら、お茶を飲む。

Sometimes we cannot understand our paths as we walk. Sometimes we are judged, rightly or wrongly, for what we choose. What I have come to understand is that the most important thing that any of us can do is live…and live now.

So, with what time you have, how shall you spend it?

As for me, I am enjoying my tea and watching the seasons and myself change.

Until next time…

Life in Japan| Envy & Other Uncomfortable Emotions

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Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Pexels.com

Hitachinaka, Ibaraki, Japan. It’s been a long day, and I’d like nothing better than to go to bed. However, I want to spend a little time discussing a topic that has been on my mind: envy.

The American Psychological Association defines envy as “a negative emotion of discontent and resentment generated by desire for the possessions, attributes, qualities, or achievements of another.” It can often be confused with jealousy, which requires a third party to be involved. And it can be very challenging when you experience both simultaneously.

There are various reasons why one might feel envious and/or jealous. At the core of these feelings, however, lies insecurity, which brings me to the main point of this post: difficult feelings (negative emotions), like envy, are just an indicator that you need to stabilize your sense of self.

Your foundation, for whatever reason, has become shaky, weakened and in need of repair.

Yesterday, while roaming the streets of Tokyo, I spent time talking with my friend about her experiences with envy and jealousy. It gave me pause for thought about my journey over the recent years. To say that I felt insecure would be an understatement. I lived with a number of uncomfortable emotions, including envy and jealousy.

Photo by Jacob Prose on Pexels.com

Instead of denying these emotions, pulling away because they were undesirable (negative) emotions, I chose to be curious about them. I leaned into them. I wanted to understand why they existed within me. Why did I feel envious? Why did I feel jealous?

Surely, there were external factors and a childhood history that created the perfect breeding ground for such emotions to thrive. Furthermore, I understood my experience of jealousy better than envy because I had encounter this feeling in an early relationship. Being envious of someone was new and, to be quite frank, nonsensical–I had no reason to feel envious. Thinking about it with a rational mind, I could see that there was nothing about which I needed feel envy. Still, I did feel envious…and so I tackled it head on.

Overcoming uncomfortable emotions takes a willingness to self-confront, nonjudgmentally and with grasp on the concept of taking ownership of your feelings. Regardless of what has been outside of your control, you always have the choice to take control of you, of your mind, body, and emotions. By taking control, by understanding that your next step forward is in your hands, your feelings of insecurity can begin diminishing.

Of course, it’s easy to write the above. It’s far harder to live it. Still, one has to decide what is more important: living with the burden of these uncomfortable emotions or living freely and comfortably as who you are.

One key tip: it is far easier to stabilize your foundation and heal when you remove/separate yourself from the toxic relationships in which you have chosen to engage. Do that, and a great deal of change is awaiting you.

Life in Japan | Begin Where You Are

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. Weather: Rainy.

I’m sitting in one of the many cafés I consider a second home, watching passersby struggling with or embracing the rain. It’s Sunday morning and early enough that the late night clubgoers are still heading home. I am in awe of the high schoolers heading off to club activities and the salarymen who are likely heading to work some more. An obaachan holds on to her umbrella for dear life, her hands look gnarled yet strong and her bent back has seen its fair share of field labour of potato and rice harvesting, I imagine. That’s right, I am imagining, imagining the lives of the many people who happen by and who will likely remain unaware of my observation. What about my own life?

Recently, I have taken another step, shifting away from simply observing to taking action. A life lived in limbo is a life left on pause. I decided it was time to press my play button and see what happens. It’s a wild yet freeing feeling. I am learning to make peace with who I am and where I am in my life. Beginning where I am as who I am…what a crazy notion, at least for me. And it all began with a simple question: who would I have been if [insert whatever traumatic experience] didn’t happen?

Upon waking, I thank the universe that I have another opportunity to continue on this interesting journey called life. I am grateful for my breathing because I know that I am here. I make my bed with pleasure. I stretch for a moment and then clean my apartment…and then stretch some more. My body still feels heavy because of old experiences and thought patterns. However, I am feeling lighter in my heart and body as each day passes. I make a simple breakfast and lunch–I am practicing letting go of greed. I am letting go of suffering.

Photo by Nandhu Kumar on Pexels.com

Actions taken without worry, without the nagging inner critic or concern for the outer critics. This is the type of life that I am creating…and it is empowering. I am learning how to listen to feedback, whether from self or others, nonjudgmentally, taking from it what I find necessary for self-improvement and letting go of the rest. Freeing myself from the suffering of shame, the feeling of being inherently wrong as a human being, is my work now. I have discovered that my mind left without self-compassion is a dark and seemingly unruly place. I have also discovered that I am not my mind, nor am I my body. I am who I am.

Understanding that I am and am not has been crucial to pressing the play button on my life. I can observe the parts of myself, my mind and my body, with curiosity and then with intention. How shall I shape my mind to think? How shall I shape my body to move? My mind is my canvas, and I am the painter. My body is my clay, and I am the sculptor. In this way, I am choosing to move forward with my life.

Recently, a friend shared with me her knowledge of kintsugi (金継ぎ) or kintsukuroi (金繕い), the Japanese art of mending broken pottery using gold, silver, or platinum. She said to me that she thought that it was a lovely metaphor for when we are feeling broken in our lives and trying to mend ourselves. That is, that we can choose how we mend those places in which we have experienced hurt, to make those places and our overall sense more beautiful and stronger in the process.

So, in letting go of suffering, taking action in our lives through acknowledging ourselves, not just as mind and body, we can begin where we are on our journey and heal those places in which we have experienced hurt. We can begin creating new paths to an authentic self.

Have a beautiful day today and every day.

D.

Fibromyalgia | 15 Years Later…

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Orchid and Droplets

Recently, as in today, I have been listening to the music of Wardruna, a Norwegian band focused on sharing Old Norse traditions, reclaiming it from those who have misappropriated it. Let’s make it quite clear, I am rather ignorant of many aspects of Old Norse traditions.

The closest I came to learning anything about Old Norse tradition was taking a course on Germanic languages (thank you, Professor Robinson) and studying the rune poems to learn about the runic alphabets. That’s it.

Still, I found myself entranced by the voice of Einar Selvik singing the poem “Völuspá,” which tells the Norse creation myth. Certainly, I understood nothing of the words, but the passion of his voice brought tears to my eyes. Such is the power of music.

Völuspá tells not only of the birth of world, but also its death and rebirth.

Fifteen years ago, I realized that something was terribly wrong. I felt tired, sick, and in pain. For two years, I searched for an answer. At various points, I was convinced that I was just psychosomatic, it was all in my head–it didn’t help that my doctor was dismissive of my condition and did little to help. Ultimately, I learned the name of my condition: fibromyalgia.

I wrote quite a bit about my journey with fibromyalgia between 2011 and 2015. For the past six years, I have remained relatively quiet on the topic and this blog for a variety of reasons. However, I would like to share with you a little about my journey.

Contrast Petals

If I think back to 2008, when I first received my diagnosis, my mind immediately remembers the laundry list of medications I was asked to take just to function. I spent more time at hospitals and clinics than at any other time in my life. I joined a support group that caused me to realize that there was some other way that I wanted to live…

I wanted to find a path to living a life that held meaning to me and not one defined by my illness. I believe I found it.

I became vegan (now pescatarian), started meditating, doing yoga, and taking walks regularly, and began scaling back on the medications I was being asked to take. Ultimately, I went from taking approximately eleven medications to taking three. And for the past four years, I take only one…and it’s not for fibromyalgia. Instead, I go regularly for acupuncture or massage to help with pain management.

Choosing to Do Things Differently

Living with fibromyalgia means living with uncertainty: uncertainty of what one can do, how one will feel, etc. It is understanding that one’s sense of self-efficacy will be shaken if not shattered. There is nothing quite as humbling as waking up to realize that one can neither move because of pain nor remember a particular word (or two) due to brain fog. One’s body can become an enemy as it seems to work against one’s mind. As a result, one’s self-concept may begin to unravel–it certainly did for me.

I’ve spent the past decade redefining myself, constructing a new self with the fragments of self that survived pre-fibromyalgia, filling in the missing parts with who I have become. Certainly, everyone changes over time. However, developing a chronic illness in adulthood, in particular, means having to accept a change in a well-established sense of self-concept as well as deal with the potential fallout of being ill. A long-term battle between who one is and who one used to be can ensue.

Blossoms…Warmth

So, what can you do?

Choose to experience life differently.

For a long time, I was unhappy with my very nomadic life of living for only few years in any one place. However, now, I believe that my nomadism has been beneficial to my understanding my life with fibromyalgia. With each new place I have lived, I have had a chance to experience the world in a new way. Eventually, I came to the thought: why not remain open to experiencing myself differently, not just the world?

The challenge was no longer to hold on to an old concept of self, an old identity–it was to see and embrace a new aspect of self. Who am I now? How have I changed? What have I learned? Where do I want to go now on my journey?

Choose to ask yourself questions that open yourself to a newer you.

I realized that there was nothing to fear in being different from who I was. In the uncertainty of my condition, I found certainty. Having fibromyalgia has taught me (repeatedly) to be mindful of my physical and mental limits. It has confirmed for me certain goals and allowed me to discard others. I have become a kinder person to myself. Also, I am very curious about how my illness will continue influencing my perception of the world around me.

Remember: be who you are, embrace who you will become. In the interim, work on creating a life full of meaning for you. Let it be a life not defined by, but informed by your challenges.

Look forward to your rebirth.

Until Next Time,

Diedre

Today On My Kindle:

Feeling Good About Yourself Shouldn’t Be A Reward

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Ajigaura Beach, Ibaraki, Japan

Rewarding oneself is not particularly uncommon. We reward ourselves for a variety of reasons, usually after accomplishing something considered a goal or an important task. If a quick internet search on the topic of rewarding oneself proves anything, it is that, at its core, people are seeking reasons to feel better about themselves.

How we choose to reward ourselves also varies. However, some examples are going out to eat, shopping, or taking a vacation. Using food, in particular, may tap into childhood experiences, where food may have been used either as a reward or punishment, based upon behavior. Ultimately, how you choose to reward yourself for your achievements is how you choose to reward yourself.

Lately, I have been reading about motivation and engagement, particularly within the workplace. After all, I spend a great deal of my working, and understanding how and why I am working is important to me. Just so you know, I tend to be a more intrinsically motivated person, which has its benefits and drawbacks. Regarding engaging with life, I am finding my flow.

Journeying toward the within is lifelong. When I first started this blog, just over a decade ago, I little knew my direction, only that I was moving towards something or self that was different from what I knew or had come to accept. Ten years later, I have come to realize that…

I have spent a long time thinking that feeling good about myself was a type of reward. It wasn’t something that I was allowed to experience on daily basis. It was a treat, as it were. I could reward myself with feeling good about me and my life after I had accomplished something meaningful, after I became someone useful, etc. Feeling good just because I exist wasn’t a concept I inherently understood.

This, of course, may seem rather strange, considering my background as a therapist. Being a therapist doesn’t mean, however, that you have your own psychology completed sorted. After all, therapists need therapists, too. It may be far easier to see the problems of others and understand how to effect positive change than to see and make changes in one’s own life.

I am certain that I am not alone in this thinking pattern of feeling good as a reward. It is telltale of a life defined by expected perfection and overachievement. It can mean a life of never feeling quite good enough and of rarely, if ever, acknowledging what one has done…because there is always some way that one can improve or that something more that should be done. An accomplishment becomes a brief signal that for a moment you can feel good about your existence.

Such a difficult way to live life…

Kashima Shrine Gate, Japan

Feeling good about yourself can be an everyday experience. It comes with acknowledging your existence as being meaningful–that as you are, you are worthy. Worthy of what? Worthy of self-love, self-care, self-regard, self-trust, etc. The life you have built up until now is yours to do with as you will. It isn’t a race that you either win or lose. It is simply a life, one that can be lived positively (if not always happily).

So, where do we go from here? Well, I have a couple of recommendations:

  1. Start simple – Think/write about how you have been viewing you and your life up until now.
  2. Inform yourself – Learn about ways you can improve enjoying who you are in your everyday life.
  3. Step back – Take time to yourself, just for yourself, to do something/experience good.

I enjoy reading. Here are some books that I have been using to help my journey:

Feeling good about yourself, if it is unfamiliar to you, may be likened to forming a new habit. Let’s be real, it will take time, consistency, and a patience. There are various theories and approaches to how one can form a habit. My recommendation is to keep it simple and focus on the moment you are in and how you are feeling.

You may not always feel great about your thoughts and your actions. However, you can always feel good about who you are and your existence.

Check out this interesting article on rewards by Gretchin Rubin (PsychologyToday.com): “Why We Shouldn’t Reward Ourselves for Good A Habits…With One Exception.”

Until Next Time,

Diedre

This morning I woke up

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Thomas Scott, Unsplash

This morning I woke up. The sounds of the day seeped through my rain-streaked windows. My body, chilled by perimenopausal night sweats, ached. I am used to discomfort.

This morning I woke up. And a thought came while I was busying myself, making my bed, shelving books and listening to the ding of my phone:

what if this is it?

If we make it through arduous task of materializing our existence and passing through the narrow canal of our mothers, we say to this world,

“I am here.”

For some who come to meet us, our arrival is enough. That we are here. That we made the journey safely is enough.

“You are here.”

I woke up this morning, you see. I glanced at social media, which tries to inform me that my life should be valued by percentages of views.

Your views are up 5% from yesterday. Your views are down -17% from last week.

I wonder when it begins, this messaging that what you do and…

You are not enough.

Is it the silent thought burning in hearts and minds of some of those who come to greet us on our first day in this world?

Is it in comparisons heard at home and school as we move through childhood?

Is it now at work?

It’s still morning. And, as I wrote, I woke up, perhaps again. I wondered, what if this life that I have lived and am living were my entirety.

Is it enough?

It is. And it isn’t.

There is much that I would still like to do while I am here. Still, I am done with having to prove my value. I have arrived at this point, without uncertainty:

I am here. I am enough.

Self-Care| Letting Go of Promises & Finding Peace of Mind

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Untitled. D. Blake, 2017

It’s a grey day, I’m at Starbucks, eating a strawberry cheesecake scone and drinking iced tea, and I feel a little tired. I started my morning by taking a long walk, looking at flowers, and listening to The Tao of Fully Feeling by Pete Walker. Yesterday, I finished Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving. On a daily basis, I consume books, articles and videos on childhood and adult trauma, self-care, fibromyalgia, personality disorders, and how to keep it together when you’re broken and involved. It’s a healthy diet of I’m ready to change.

This year marks a decade since I received my diagnosis of fibromyalgia. However, it’s been a life marked by a host of diagnoses: depression, SAD, OCD, PCOS, IBS, Raynaud’s syndrome, overweight, underweight, high blood pressure, etc.; and I was a walking pharmacy–there always seemed to be some new and improved medication to fix whatever was broken inside me.

All the while, I was doing the arduous work of unpacking my childhood, being therapized and therapizing myself, while codependently trying to fix everyone else’s problems, whether they wanted me to or not. I was without clear boundaries in my personal life, struggling with a compulsion to solve sadness, my own and others.

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Places to go. D. Blake, 2017.

Letting Go of Promises

You see, I made two promises a long time ago–not to myself, but to my family. I can’t recall my exact age, but I remember the moment with clarity. An incredible argument took place between one of my older siblings and my parents. Without going into the details, that moment represented the totality of my family’s dynamics: unbounded dysfunction.

Nothing was ever a discussion, always a war zone…and the children were used as  landmines against each other and seen as acceptable collateral damage. I made a promise aloud to my mother on that day. I told her that I would 1) become a therapist and 2) fix my family.

I had forgotten about those promises for two decades. Unearthing them again in a therapy session, back in December 2014, shook my world. I had to face the fact that I had been unconsciously living a life based on these promises…

In 2006, I became an art therapist and mental health counselor. I spent years, prior to and thereafter, confronting my parents on their unacceptable behaviors towards my siblings and me. I tried to create dialogue. I tried to be a bridge. I tried…until I realized, in 2016, that I couldn’t do that anymore.

I can’t keep these promises that my younger self made. I can’t undo what was done to my siblings and me. I can’t fix my parents, nor do I wish to anymore.

Still, I was raised to cater to others. I was raised to take the blame for others. I was raised to disregard myself and defer to others. It’s no simple task living within and for myself.

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Self-portrait, D. Blake, 2017

Peace of Mind

So, I’ve been reading, watching, confronting and comforting myself. I take daily walks, I remind myself that change is a moment by moment act of meeting yourself wherever you are. I can’t walk back my childhood nor the harrowing moments of my adulthood. However, I can walk toward the type of future I would like to have and the future self I would like to be.

In the past, fixating on the emotions of others and even myself, and trying to control the outcome of everything was what brought me a sense of fragile peace–as long as I knew what someone was going to do or what was going to happen next, then everything was okay.

Now, it’s the simple things that give me peace of mind: flowers, stones, water, changes in the weather, the sound of laughter, singing, and dancing–flowing with what is rather than what I would like to be.

Change seems to happen with the smallest and simplest of actions…at least, this is what trying to live within myself has been showing me lately.  If you’re on a similar journey, then I hope it’s the same for you.

Until Next Time,
D

Free Write| Owning myself.

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free-speech-346x336She’s looking at me again. I don’t know what she’s thinking, nor do I want to know. It’s too early in morning, and I’ve already got a laundry list of stuff I need to take care of–she’s not on that list.

I never look at her long enough to feel her fatigue, just enough to know that she’s not going to break…yet. She doesn’t deserve my empathy or compassion–at least, not now.

I know she won’t say anything. That’s the way she is. She just stares. Maybe later, if I bother to ask, she might say that she “feels tired,” and “wishes that this could all stop.” She complains a lot. That’s why I never ask.

I meet my partner, and we talk about how difficult things are between us. They always are. We complain that we’re tired and that we wish that this could all stop between us. We complain a lot. That’s why I decided to ask her.

I get home. I look at her. She’s still staring at me. I can tell she’s breaking now. She’s been broken so many times–I’m not sure how I’ll fix her this time. I’m starting to think that it’s too late now. That’s why I decided to ask her about her thoughts, her feelings, her needs, and her wants. She says…

“There’s nothing to fix. Just recognize me. Be with me. Own me. I am you. You are me. How long will you deny your fragility?”

Indeed.

Until Next Time, 

D.

 

Reflection | From up high…

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View from Keisoku Mountain, Japan, March 2018

Many things seem so small, especially problems.

Every couple of months, I find myself standing on top of a mountain somewhere in Japan. Each step upwards feels like torture…and an accomplishment.  I look toward my fellow climbers in awe, at their speed and the seeming ease with which they climb. Of course, I don’t know what their experiences are–they could be suffering as much as I am. The climbing could be a testimony for each one of us that we are alive and still trying.

Recently, I’ve been reflecting on the past decade of my life. At this moment in 2008, I was planning a wedding and preparing for a future that certainly isn’t the one I’m living now. By this time in 2009, I was dreaming of living in the house that I would eventually call home before the year’s end. In 2010, I had lost 80 pounds, was trying to save my dying marriage, and by Thanksgiving, was mourning the death of my beloved pet.

The end of March 2011 found me preparing for my third visit to Rome, trying to figure out how to live life as a single and mostly jobless person. I was still dreaming–this time, of living in Rome. By 2012, I was a full-time undergraduate, living, studying and working in Rome. The following 4 years were marked by a series of avoidable and unavoidable events, all of which left me pretty broken but with a good deal of insight.

By the end of March 2016, I had been living in the U.S. full-time for 6 months. I had gained back half the weight that I’d lost, was in the throes of a serious depression, and living in a highly psychologically toxic environment. Something had to give–I had fallen to my lowest point.

When you’re at the bottom, seeing or even imagining the top can be difficult.

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Keisoku Mountain, Japan, March 2018

 

 

I couldn’t see up or even imagine what life could be like beyond what I was experiencing at that time. However, I knew that there had to be some other kind of life for me.

Where I was, how I was, who I was, and what I was doing…was not my final destination.

I didn’t know if I could ever be happy. I didn’t know where I could go or even what I would be capable of doing. I just knew that I no longer wanted to be a participant in prolonging my circumstances.

I had to take a step forward and upward, even the smallest one. And so I did.

On Friday, March 17, 2017, I began a new journey. I boarded a flight to Japan, a country I’d never been to before. I didn’t speak the language and knew very little about the culture. Still, I knew that I had to take the chance, to give myself the opportunity to change, to begin climbing out of the deepest hole that I’d ever stumbled into.

When you’re climbing a mountain, you have to use both your hands and feet. 

Now, it’s Friday, March 30, 2018, and I’m sitting in a Starbucks somewhere north of Tokyo. My partner is working on her laptop, and I’m listening to The War on Drug’s “Pain.”  I haven’t reached the top of my mountain. Still, I am no longer at the very bottom. It’s a start, and that’s always the hardest part when you’re climbing–at least, for me. There are times when it feels like I can’t catch my breath, like my feet won’t take another step, like my hands won’t support me as I reach upwards. Still, I try.

That’s what I’ve learned over the past decade. All you can do is try and never give up. Every problem is a mountain. Tackling each one means getting to the top. Getting there, however, means looking ahead, taking each step carefully, being prepared to use whatever means necessary to secure yourself…and definitely having those who care about you by your side.

Until Next Time,

D.

 

On silence, healing fibromyalgia, dealing with narcissism, and learning a whole heck of a lot about myself

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First, thank you to my followers, both new and old, for continuing to bless me with your support.  I have not been around much, nor have I posted much of anything personal. Still, you continue to stick with me. Thank you!

 

—

“If you have nothing [nice] to say…”

Over the past year and a half, my life has changed dramatically. Some of those changes were good, others were not so good. Still, I try my best to take changes as they come, learn from them what I can and keep taking steps towards achieving my goals. In my opinion, that’s the most effective approach to living my life.

Part of the process of accepting change is observing change. And I truly believe that observation is a silent process. It’s hard to observe and act at the same time–at least it is to me.

So, I’ve been in observation mode, mostly observing myself and my reactions and actions in dealing with myself in my environment, as well as just the environment itself. I’ve spent a lot of time in my head and subsequently in my body, i.e. I’ve been sorting through my mental blocks (negative self-talk/thinking) and how they impact my health and prevent me from quickly reaching my most important goals.

On the subject of health: I’m glad to state that my health has been truly awesome, and that my fibromyalgia symptoms have diminished significantly. I’ve had fewer flares, fibrofog moments and have been getting enough normal/restful sleep (between 7-9 hours). Also, I’ve been walking for about 1 hour almost daily and have recently started the BeachBody On-Demand 30-Day Free Trial that has a great deal of exercise programs for people of all levels.  If you have fibromyalgia and are interested in starting or improving an exercise program, I would say check it out because it allows for you to select programs by type: cardio, muscle building, less than 30 minutes, slim and tone, dance, low impact, and yoga. Personally, I am sticking with less than 30 minutes, low impact, dance and yoga.

I think my greatest challenge is that I consume news and, as a person of colour, it stresses me out…then again, who isn’t stressed when watching the news. Still, it’s important to stay informed, and I try to do so without being inundated.

So, what have I learned during my silence? A whole heck of a lot. Here is a list:

So, that’s it. It’s good to be writing again.

Until Next Time,

D.