Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Epiphanies Come Slowly

Good thing that in my 40s, I'm figuring out how slow I am. How my mental process works. How when I hear something that is disagreeable or revelatory, I need to ruminate a while. Then, I need to communicate this revelation and hear how it is processed by another. When the outcome is poor and doesn't ring with the right pitch, it takes me another couple of days to figure out where I went wrong and what I really meant all along, or how the source of my disappointment is rarely in someone else. Almost always, always, given enough time, with a patient friend, the cause comes back to me, and I see clearly how the confusion, the discontent, and the power to correct, was within me the whole time.

When that comes, ah, what a surprise, a relief, and a gift to myself. The question is, will my patient friends still be there when I'm finished blaming them? The beauty is that I traveled the road that led to the epiphany, and if I had not trusted enough to share, I would not have listened to how it all sounded coming back at me. It's humbling and enlightening at the same time.

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