tuesday 9/29

Dear G,

Thanks for a good day...for getting to see and hear my friends today and tonight. I was talking to someone today and I was struck with the fact that my friend was laughing about something and that I had not just made a joke. I noticed that he had been reading a text (and perhaps not listening to what I was saying???) and I asked what was funny. He then shared some gossip about 2 friends of his. I was bothered by a couple of things but after a minute I realized that I was most bothered by the fact that I was guilty of the same type of behavior (the gossip). Lately I've noticed that I'm more tuned into inappropriate behaviors that I exhibit myself! I wonder do you put these behaviors in front of me so that I might be more conscious of my own character defects? I suspect that is the case. Tonight I didn't judge my friend...well alright I did momentarily...progress not perfection, right?...but what was remarkable was that I practiced restraint (it's true!!) and thought, instead, about why I was uneasy with his behavior. Teeny, tiny baby steps some days...right?

I was talking earlier today with Frank and he told me the roadblocks to Faith...indifference, fancied self-sufficiency, prejudice and defiance. I've been deconstructing fancied self-sufficiency... fancied could mean preferred or fictitious (preferred might be ok but fictitious...hmmmm) and self-sufficient leads to arrogant, closed, conceited, doing one's own thing, egotistic, haughty, independent, individual, on one's own, out for number one, self-confident, self-dependent, self-sufficing, self-supported, self-supporting, self-sustained, self-sustaining, smug....ewwwww....so no bueno! My conclusion on this 'roadblock'..not good...I see the word SELF and that means to me that I've taken you out. And, whenever I've done that in the past I have ended up in a not so good place. The truth is I can't do any of this alone. Nothing! Without you and my family and my friends I'm fucked up! I guess I'll spend some time on indifference and prejudice and defiance later...I'm going to hit the sack...

Thanks for loving me so much...and for the lessons I got to learn today!

love you

M