I learned —

as a child:

Do not ask or beg. Behave.

as a kid:

You can be around people and still be alone.

in my teens:

Do not back up the bus. Once you make a decision or resolution: move on. (This might have taken joy and opportunities from me, but I don’t like to “tropezar de nuevo con la misma piedra” — stumble again over the same stone — although I have anyway.)

in college:

You have friends, and you have FRIENDS.

in my 20s:

I have a basket over my head! (Unsure whether to use a ? or a !)

in my 30s:

The world is small.

in my 40s:

I am so young!

in my 50s:

Still in them — and there may be more lessons to best the ones I have already learned =)

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The above list is a scribble from May 2019 that popped onto my desk while I shuffled through paper, as I still contend with giving up all the slips and notes of paper for peace … but I already have peace. I’m surprised I wrote that — is the massive amount of written words so toxic? I can’t fathom it.

Searching online for a photo or image to use in this post, I came across a sign that read: pain makes people change. Don’t quite subscribe to that, although I understand the why of the phrase. Most often, I see that people cling (a choice) to pain and inevitably stay in it, continue the same. Sometimes anger makes people change. But hope, always, brings about change. And people do change, you know — if they want to — regardless of whatever the change may entail. I know those who deny people can change and profess it’s not achievable. But it is.

anything is possible

The photo above made me laugh, and I immediately chose it over more ethereal ones, perhaps more in tune with the post subject, but this one is, in my opinion, even MORE apropos because I learned the meaning of pulling a hamstring by doing that pose (downward facing dog, yuck), which I have not done again, and will neva, ‘eva do again. I learned that in my 40s =)