“Good for you!”

I’m sitting in the waiting area waiting to get on the plane headed to Anchorage for a BBBS Board Meeting. It’s interesting to hear people nearby sharing their travel plans and in the case of a vacation, the dominating response has been, “good for you!”

Why is it that it’s Good For Me to not be at work, to take time off? If  it’s so good for me, why do we spend so many hours and days and weeks and months and years throwing our time at this thing that it’s Good fFor Us to be away from?

I think that largely, people don’t want to have a job. People want to expand their horizons and to explore their surroundings. They want to suck the marrow out of the bones of life and to become more and more connected to the world around them. And on the topic of connection, why is it that we spend so much time seeking connection, and yet fleeing from the truth about ourselves and others? It seems that only the rare individual really works to know the “me of me”, as Buscaglia puts it.

Had a conversation last night with Alex. It turns out that she’s still carrying the burden of a past pain. She is clinging to the concept that she could have changed the outcome by saying, “no.” While that may or may not be the case, it’s up to us to let go of the past and work on the present. It’s not our fault, and even if it were, what purpose does it serve?

Anyhow, off to Anchorage.

Today I got together with Bill and Sharon and went to a lecture thing at the downtown library. Some guy talked about the research involved with writing his book, some 20 years of reading prepared him. The book was someone’s journal for the 18 months before the declaration of independence or something like that was signed. It was pretty interesting. He read a few exerpts from teh book which made it a whole lot more intriguing. Afterwards I worked at Bill’s shop, Sam’s Auto Body for an hour and a half, scuffing a bumper to be painted later. I then had spagetti for dinner & read a little, up to 99 pages now, but I gotta go – it’s past my bedtime. —