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 =)

---

The above list is a scribbling 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 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 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 =)