State of the Union

Yesterday, I sat with a group of folks, and admitted that continuing to participate in activities that I’m not 100% invested in (or even 85%) is dishonest. That I was not being honest with my intentions or priorities—and was thereby wasting time. (You finite commodity, you.)

There was a meditation/writing portion of this meeting, and so I wrote a series of questions for myself:

• How is being dishonest with others serving me?
• How is prioritizing others’ needs serving me?
• How is NOT prioritizing my own needs serving me?
• What need am I fulfilling by not prioritizing and owning my needs?
• How is dismissing my desires serving me?
• How is devaluing myself serving me?

 Heavy, huh?

But, for me, that’s what pushing important things off to “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” is. It’s devaluing myself, what I have deemed important to myself.

Because I’ve been hemming and hawing a little on letting those folks know that I can’t come out and play anymore. Even though I am clear that my priorities and intentions have shifted.

So… Yesterday, I committed to those folks that I would make two phone calls. One was to the 25 y.o.

He asked, adorably, if he were in trouble, when I said I wanted to chat when he wasn’t in a café. I said no, but that it was sort of a “State of the Union” conversation, so to give me a call back.

He did. And we did.

I’d been feeling throughout this week that this couple-dom wasn’t on course for relationship-land. It’s a pretty appropriate assessment after a half-dozen dates. We’ve kept it PG-13, so there isn’t any animal-brain “must keep orgasm giver” going on.

But, I have simply felt like I’ve crystallized that I don’t want to date this person long-term. It’s just a feeling, not a fear, not a defense mechanism. Just a fact.

The big however is, I don’t want to stop seeing him. And thus, my hesitation.

I really enjoy spending time with this person, getting to know him, getting to know myself in relation to him. And I thoroughly enjoy our frisky make-out sessions.

So, that’s what I told him. Pretty much all of the above. I don’t see this heading toward relationship track, but I enjoy spending time with him, and I enjoy making out with him.

That the outcomes I saw were we transition to friends, or do that and try to keep with the sexy-time, or do neither. So, he asked me, then, what I wanted? If I knew what I wanted? And I said, no. I didn’t know, but perhaps in talking it out, and hearing his thoughts, we might find some solution.

He admitted and agreed that he was “along for the ride,” but not in a place to invest in a relationship. So that pretty much leaves us two options: continue seeing one another with the frequency we have been, or stop seeing one another.

I replied, honestly, that the idea of seeing him less was unappealing to me.

(And I have to admit here, that part of my hesitation in letting go of this couple-dom is that this person is the first I’ve met who is really in the theater world, has insights, and knowledge, and can point me toward plays and monologues and acting worksheets and websites—which he has—and if I let this go, I won’t have that access anymore.

And that, my dear friends, is scarcity mind. That this is the first person with those bodies of knowledge does not mean that he’s the last person, and to continue a relationship based on a selfish need and fear of loss is the definition of crappy. Doomed. Dishonest.)

So, at the end of this conversation, we agreed to continue to see one another on the semi-regular, as we have been, and that if the ambiguity “gets to” either of us, we can talk about that then.

I did say that I am a person who is wanting a relationship, and that he deserves someone who thinks he’s the sunandmoonandstars, but, for right now, no one is blowing down our doors, so… here we are.

I don’t think it’s “settling for less.” I think it’s being perfectly honest with my desires, honest with my intentions, and my continued task is to show up in the single world and be available.

That might mean a week more of the hot make-out sessions, it might mean a month. I don’t know. It is ambiguous. And we know how I LOVE that. But, I am not willing to let go of this connection yet, because of what it does for me on multiple levels, nor am I willing to let go of my intention to have a true partnership with another human being.

In the meantime, I have that list of questions to answer for and about myself, and some theater websites to explore.

If you glue it, they will come.

At my meditation retreat in January, we made a collage of our “intention” for ourselves for the year, as we do each year.

As I do each year, I tear out probably over 50 images and phrases at the sewing-circle tables, and then walk over to a corner of the floor, plop down, and, in solitude, spread out everything I’ve got for editing and culling.

This year, a few specific messages came out of my collage, all of which are in process of fruition.

The first of the images to note is a pair of immense, daring eyes. Just eyes, some mascara ad surely. But, the single-minded clarity and focus on one thing, this is what I cut that image out for. Whatever this image was meant to convey, to me it spelled, Clarity of Vision—Focus. Which, if you’ve been reading, is something I’ve been aiming toward, especially with my whittling down of my creative endeavors toward theater alone.

Next of note, is an image from an old 1964 Life magazine. It’s a large black-and-white photo of a woman in a tennis outfit mid-air, jumping, with her fists curved tight, elbows up, her face scrunched in emotion—she’d just won Wimbleton, after a bout with a fatal illness. The caption quotes her: “I made it.”

This, for me, does not speak only to my own triumph over cancer, but also the image of someone celebrating their victory. She is unabashedly celebrating herself, and her accomplishment. She is proud of herself, and acknowledging it. How many of us do that, regularly? Not me. It is not an ingrained habit to feel proud over things I’ve done.

And, again, if you’ve been reading, you know that each time I’ve shown up to a theater audition recently, the emotion I feel most afterward is pride. Is a clap-on-the-back feeling of, Damn straight, Molly, you did it. You showed up for yourself. You made it.

Another strong image in the collage I created caused me the most difficulty.

I’d cut out a photo of two people, who happened to be in ski gear walking away from the camera into the snow town, holding hands. With this couple, I’d placed the words, “Let’s Connect.”

I sat the longest with these images. Placing them on, taking them off. Placing them on, Yes, Molly, Let’s Connect. Shit, no, I don’t know if I want to commit to this idea. – Even on a stupid collage.

“Let’s Connect.” I don’t know about this. That sounds hardest of them all. Do I really want this? Do I really want to connect with someone else? Well, yes… But I’m scared.

In the end, I’m pleased (and proud) to say, I took my glue stick and fixed the image of the couple and the intention to connect onto my collage. … In the corner, tucked away. But still, There. And as you have seen, I have been attempting to connect, however inexpertly, with another human being.

Lastly, and this is what prompted me to write this today, the last images I’ll describe to you are of a fancy dinner party. An event. At this event, a man and woman dressed to kill--a couple--are looking at a case housing artful jewelry. The party has soft colored lights, fancy centerpieces--whatever you think of when you think fancy, like Hollywood fancy, dinner party.

I pasted this on, because I want to be a fancy person who does fancy things. That’s how I described it to my peers on the retreat as we all shared our collages and their meanings to us. I have been a little ashamed to say I want fancy things, I want to be a fancy person, I want to wear fancy clothes, because I’ve been afraid that makes me superficial. That others will think this "want fancy things" means I think money buys happiness, but that's not what my meaning is.

Because, another thing you’ve seen me write about here is the ownership of my true self, including the externals. That has meant upgrading my wardrobe, buying gold shoes, having a cleaning company come to help upgrade the aesthetics of my apartment.

I have always been a woman of externals, too. I have an internal landscape that rivals Ansel Adams, and I have a desire to express on the outside how I feel on the inside.

And I would like to feel fancy.

Sure, not all the time—I sit here in cotton pajamas, an Oakland sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, with a well-worn (second hand) Vera Wang knitted robe knotted tight around me.

But I want to not feel ashamed of wanting to be a fancy person. Who does fancy things and goes fancy places. Who needs to have fancy things in my closet, because it is not unheard of that I get invited to fancy events.

THUS. This evening, I am attending a fancy event. A gala. And I will be wearing a fancy dress suitable for the evening.

However, I will be attending the gala for my job--our annual fundraiser--and thus I am not a guest, as much as an employee, put to work, for sure.

So, this morning, I was more specific in my morning pages about my intention to be a fancy person – I would like to be an invited guest to fancy things.

Because, apparently the Universe is listening: all the things I’d pasted on my collage are happening. Therefore, I'd better be intentional with my intentions. 

...And all the men and women merely players

Audition Over. I feel exhausted. I am hoping that some day soon, I can stop reporting my exhaustion to you, because I won’t be.

However, if I get into this play, which I realize is an SF State Production, I think, then there are rehearsals there every evening and weekend for 4 weeks. But, cart, horse, one bite at a time. (And, although that sounds exhausting, I know it’s part of “building a resume” and a body of work; so, worth it.) I won’t talk too much about this play, until I know I’ve gotten into it. To paraphrase my new go-to book, It’s Just a F***ing Audition. So, now, I go back onto Theater Bay Area website, follow-up on another message board the 25 y.o. told me about, and get another audition lined up. And another monologue into my brain.

You know, this memorizing thing is work. It’s amazing to be able to keep so much information in our heads. I remember words from plays I did years ago, when I click into that gear.

And that’s the other thing I realized as I walked out of the audition last night into the Sunset streets: I’ve done this before. I know how to do this, if still gelding-like. But this isn’t as foreign to me as I like to let my brain tell me it is. I've stood in small rooms in front of strangers and performed words to them before. I've conversed awkwardly with auditors, having rehearsed so many lines for them, I forget how to just have a normal conversation. I've filled out audition sheets, and printed headshots, and doctored a resume. I've stood in hallways waiting my turn before. 

I left last night – just as I'd left the CCSF audition last month – thrilled that I showed up. THAT’S the result that is most important to me. I was just so glad that I let myself try. And I did “not bad,” in my own estimation, which is like high, throwing-flowers-at-myself praise in my own scale. “Not bad.” Ha. In fact, really, I think I did well. They’re students, it seems, the auditors, and they gave some feedback that skewed positively.

I remember when my friend Melissa came to see me in The Vagina Monologues at Mills about 2 or 3 years ago, now. She said afterward, and her sister is a director, so she’s seen her share of plays and players—she said, I feel like I’ve finally seen you do what you were born to do.

It was the best compliment I’ve ever received. Because I knew she wasn’t a bullshitter, and because it resonated with me. And because it made my insides do a happy dance. Like, SEE, MOLL! We told you you could do this!!

On Tuesday night, the 25 y.o. came over to help me practice my monologue. He’s a director and an artistic director, so he’s seen his share of actors. So, very nervously, I did my piece for him. And I begged him afterward to be honest with me: if I was wasting my time, and someone just really needed to be honest with me, tell me to move on to something else. I don't want to be like that person on the American Idol audition tapes who no one ever told was horrible because they didn't want to hurt their feelings, and so now all of America laughs at their idiocy. 

He told me, no, he wouldn’t say that at all. But, he also told me that, like the bell-curve, I fall somewhere in the middle of the curve, “if a little to the right of center,” he said.

I could be crushed by that. I could say, well, forget it, if I’m not excellent, f*ck it. But, HELLO, even though I’ve done this somewhat, I’m a TOTAL NEWBIE. And if as an untrained, total newbie, I’m average, then that’s AWESOME!

I mean, come on, man.

My bass teacher said the same thing to me when I was working with him. That noting my incredible lack of training and beginner status, I was much farther along than he’d seen.

I’m good at picking things up. And I haven’t ever put concerted effort behind this acting vision before. So… seems to me… leads me to believe… it follows that… logic says…

I better keep doing it. Because I’ll only get better.

*INSERT CHEESY THIS-IS-AWESOME GRIN*

P.S. The 25 y.o. also told me there’s plenty of work in this town for a start-of-career non-equity actor. And I told him, Tell your friends – I’m happy to be in their crappy plays. ;)

Lumps & Bumps

Show of hands: Those eager to exchange brains with me.

Anyone? Bueler?

Yesterday afternoon, I called my cousin Leah. She’s a doctor, an ally, and a friend. I gave her all the information I’d gathered at Kaiser yesterday, and asked her if I should be concerned or if I should, as all the doctors advised, not be concerned?

What they told me is that, no, it’s not adult acne that a ProActiv commercial would fix; and, yes, this strange lump is indeed a swollen lymph node, another part of our immune system. They told me this likely has nothing to do with cancer, that it’s just something to note, and that it would go away in a few weeks, tops. That swollen glands happen. They told me I likely accidentally cut myself while shaving under my arm, and got a minor infection that’s causing this swelling (“but I didn’t cut myself.” "it would be smaller than you could see. this is normal.").

They told me we could do imaging on it, and then biopsy it if I insisted. And so that remains to be scheduled. But after all of yesterday being told it’s likely nothing, and my insisting that you prove to me it’s actually nothing… I called my cousin.

She said, “Normal life is full of lumps and bumps.” That "someone with your history" is bound to go to the far side of fear, but she was not concerned.

In fact, no one really seemed concerned except me. But then, I'm the one with the history.

If I could dampen or soften the reaches and depths of my emotional swings…

Well, I don’t think I would. I’m not bipolar, I’m just me. Fully feeling, fully emoting.

However, I think the Ship of Emotional Life fell off the edge of the ocean yesterday, and I am tired from that.

I left the hospital, several hours later, parting with my dear and kind friend who spoke of shoes and ships and sealing wax, not to distract me, but just be normal with me. To listen to me say from my plastic hospital waiting room chair, I hate this. I just want you to know I hate this. And for her to say, Yep. That sounds about right.

I left, and I went to the hot tubs. I live near a place that has saunas and hot tubs, and I soaked for a half hour. My head was with me, so it wasn’t “relaxing” per se, but it was nice, sort of. The hospital called to tell me the Radiology department would call to schedule a CT scan to see what this is, if anything.

And on the way home, I called my cousin. Because my poor exhausted brain, my hyperactive adrenals, and my weary fucking heart needed to hear from a doctor who loved me.

She said, she’s not here, she can’t see what’s going on, but if it were her—and she knows my reactions are different—she wouldn’t be worried.

Life is full of lumps and bumps.

I came home, watched about 5 hours of Netflix, and finally said aloud, Alright, that’s enough, got up, made tea, and read through the play for the audition I have tonight. I’m not secure in this monologue, but I’m doing it.

I had a moment of, Remember who you are. Remember what you do. Remember what you can do, and I showed up for an hour for my dream and my vision.

Then I went back to Netflix.

Because, that’s what this process is like for me right now. It’s remembering who and what I am, what I’m capable of, and it’s numbing the fuck out because who I am and what I can do can run me into the ground.

In meditation the other day, my advice to myself (or my “intuitive thought” or “intuition”) reminded me to Rest: “As to your fatigue, my only instruction is to rest,” it said. To rest and play with ease.

The taught high-wire act of my emotional life is not easeful.

So, I need to come back down, touch the ground again, fill up with images of trees and covens and auras and love. And remember who I am can be easeful, too.

Ha. I, Molly Louise, can be an easeful human being! Who can walk with equanimity in this world. I can have highs and lows, and dash myself upon the craggy shores. And, I can bend my head into the silken lap of Divine Calm, and let her stroke my hair for a while as I take a long-forgotten full & present breath.

Life is full of lumps and bumps. Life can be normal. Not devastating. Not harrowing. Life can be okay. Have both trip-lines and benches overlooking a sunset. Life, my life, is going to be okay. 

Welcome To The Jungle--We've Got Fun & Games

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s Head,

Don’t Freak Out.

Dear Suspicious Lump Under My Right Shoulder Blade,

Don’t be an asshole.

Be a mutated muscle, embarrassing adult acne, a rogue tooth stem cell that formed in the wrong place in utero; even be a benign cyst that I have to go through biopsy limbo to confirm. Just don’t be an asshole.

Today, I go to the doctor. I am grateful and lucky to have the community who shows up for me, available at 6:30am-text notice. One of them is coming with me to the doctor visit--though I didn’t ask, I just "wanted to inform someone who isn't my mom and wouldn't freak out," she offered. I wanted to ask, but asking for help... especially help to attend to an amorphous, "Am I just paranoid?" symptom...

Yesterday at work, I spoke with someone who also has intimate experience with things like this. She said, it’s not paranoid. It’s not hypochondriac. We have reasons, and good ones. She said she gets alarmed too. And so, what do we do? We get things checked out.

I was trying to play it cool. Sure, I’ve just been really tired; it’s normal, you’ve seen my lists of activities. It’s nuhhh-thing. And MAYBE IT IS. But you know how I tongue the other side of "maybe."

So, I went to get labs drawn yesterday afternoon. My blood is all normal. Leukemia Negative.

But, this lump. I noticed a few days ago.

Is this too much information? Is this too soon to tell you anything? Is this just me mental-masturbating onto the page to diffuse some of my worry by spewing it onto you?

Maybe.

The same friend who will accompany me today once said, “Don’t Worry Twice.” It’s the best advice I’ve ever been given, and a thousand miles toward following it.

But, I remember it. I try to do that.

I’m as worried as the situation warrants. Which is, hmm, this is suspicious. I am not a doctor, I should get this checked out. The end. It’s why I got my blood tested finally; and glad that I did. It’s why I’ll see a doctor today, who may really seriously in fact tell me, this is just a really bad zit under your skin, Moll. Use some ProActive and get on with your life.

The thought that occurred to me this morning, waking up and deciding to get this zit-in-sheep's-clothing checked out, was “Rule 62.” Don’t Take Yourself So Damned Seriously.

A thousand thoughts go through one’s head when….

No.

One thought went through my head when, yesterday morning, I wrote my blog to you, got ready for work, and broke down crying in my closet. I’m so tired of being brave.

The thought that follows that is: I won’t go through this again.

The thought that follows that is: Of course I will.

Because tired of it or not, bone-weary or not, to gain a year of hell, perhaps five years of health, perhaps one perhaps twenty, I would do it.

I hate that I would. I hate that I love this all so much. I hate that I have such a burning, singeing ambition to do more. I hate that I want to have my own life story to hand to someone to type. To have someone record and note my life, my legacy, my experience of living a full and long life.

I hate that I love myself and most especially you and all of this so damned fucking much, that I would do whatever it took to stay.

And then, of course, I don’t take myself so damned seriously, I eat my daily eggs, and I don’t worry twice.

Dear Blog-Reading Community & The Inside of Molly’s Head,

Don’t freak out. 

Reach out. Follow up. And get back to the business of being awesome. No.Matter.What.

P.S. It is a nice change from the 25 y.o.- should I/shouldn't I argument. So there's that. #SilverLining

Heeding the Cautionary Tale

When I was sick, I contacted the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. They were great, and recommended this Peer-to-Peer program, where they connected current patients by phone with survivors of similar age, background, and treatment.

I asked to speak with someone who’d chosen only chemo, as I was doing, instead of chemo + bone marrow transplant, which was standard (and recommended) protocol.

I spoke on the phone once to a woman who was a few years older than me, who’d also had the cancer come out of nowhere, and who'd also chosen “only chemo.” She went into remission, and when she was done with treatment, she began training for marathons.

I can’t remember if she’d been a runner before she got sick, but she told me she went at it with abandon. Not “fun runs,” not 5ks, but the long New York City Marathon-style kind of marathons.

Her doctors advised her to “take it easy,” to go slow, but she, like me, felt that she had time to make up for, and also like me, wanted to prove that her body was her own, and not a foreign infectious parasite. She wanted to prove that she could be above, beyond, and more than her cancer. She wanted to tell it, Fuck you.

Within a year of remission, healthier than she’d ever been, this woman’s cancer returned. Leukemia. Again.

So she finally went into the recommended bone marrow transplant treatment, the year of absolute hell (with two small children at home), and was now 5 years out from that relapse.

Tell me if you don’t get where I’m going with this story.

This is part of the reason I need to slow down. To focus my energies.

I got a bill from Stanford Hospital yesterday, only for a $10 co-pay, the actual cost of my meeting with the bone marrow expert much higher. I’d gone twice to see them when making my decision. Once with a friend, and once, gratefully, with my mom. Because we really all just need our mom sometimes, and I'm lucky mine is around.

The Stanford folks explained the harrowing treatment process, and took some blood to type-test against my brother to see if he’d be a bone marrow match—and he is, should I ever need the assist.

There’s a family at work, a congregant’s family, where the sister of the couple I know just is going through the phase of integrating her brother’s marrow with her own, and apparently the grafting is going well.

I’m typing up a “life story” for an older woman not inclined to typing. In it, she recounts the tale of her friend, diagnosed with one cancer, gone into remission, and then relapsed with Leukemia, and dies.

Cautionary Tales, I think is the word for these stories.

To be cognizant with my body, my efforts, my love of self and others. To be compassionate to my own twitching reaction to the above stories, too.

In the first few months of returning to work last Spring, a congregant I’d known only in passing told me he was 15 years out from Lymphoma, and if I ever wanted to talk, he was available. I took him up on that offer a few times. He’s the one who told me the Damacles’ Sword story.

I asked him when the vicious paranoia stops? When every cold, fatigue, sore throat doesn’t send your mind reeling to the far end of doomed? He said, Five Years.

He said, he knows it’s just a magic marking in time that the doctors put on us, but they do. Five years in remission is the marker they use to say, “Okay, you’ve made it this far, so you’re pretty much as healthy as any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Good on ya.”

He said that even though it’s a nearly arbitrary mile-marker, that’s when he felt able to breathe for the first time in years.

He also said it sounded like I have done and am doing a lot more concerted work around my disease, my process, and my healing that he was not able to do until some years later.

My cousin told me the other week that I talk(ed) so much about the nuance and subtlety of being sick. The multi-faceted nature of health and wellness and life.

I get to have my experience of being scared, I get to have my experience of processing the fear, and I get to have the experience of saying, Hey you, Fear: Go bother someone else.

So I am slowing down, I am pulling the e-brake on my spinning world. Because I listened when that marathoner told me about her relapse into Leukemia. And I am more scared of going through that than I am of telling people, I’m sorry, I can’t participate in that thing right now. 

Sword of Awareness.

Yesterday morning, I was on the phone with a mentor of mine, talking about how busy I am, and how bone-weary I am as a result. Sure, busy with good things. That’s what I tell people at the “How was your weekend?” congenial Monday-morning chat. "It was busy, but busy with good things." So that, of course, makes it okay.

My mentor asked me why I thought I was so busy – and I know, and have known, the answer: TIME.

Damacles’ sword. The tale of the king(?) who had a sword suspended over his throne, he sat and ruled from under the constant threat of annihilation, never knowing if it ever would indeed fall.

How do you live from that place? Certainly, we all are living under that sword. Some of us are more aware of it than others.

Sometimes I hear people talk about things they’ll do when they’re old, or older. Things like travel, or tell their grandkids, or when they retire. All of these future plans, all under an assumption of life. All under a naïve assumption that life will be there when they get there.

Ignorance sure is bliss. Because when I listen to them say this, my heart steels and in my head I say, “Maybe.” By which I know I mean, loathe though I am to admit it to you, “Maybe, or you could be dead.”

So, TIME. I am so very busy, because I don’t believe there is enough time for me to be The Great And Powerful Molly that I want to be. This wasn’t a cancer-causation. I felt this way long before cancer, that I have missed the bus on things, or that I just know there are so many things I want to do, I lament how to do them all – while I’m alive.

Cancer just rubbed rock salt into the wound. Brought my attention to a pin-prick of the value of life. And cancer has made me a little sour on others' assumptions that it will be there.

Hence, my goal to prioritize. What is important now? What can’t wait? What feeds me the most, brings me the most joy, is a 5 on a joy-scale of 1 - 5?

That’s what my friends and I spoke about yesterday morning, after I got off the phone with my mentor. As I’d said, I wanted to get help with how to prioritize the bevy of interests I have. And, we did. We talked about a lot. I cried a little. I got to see how fear, rather than joy, is motivating many of my projects.

And they told me it was okay. I'm allowed to feel frightened and desperate if that's what I'm feeling. I'm allowed to feel sorrow over the uncertainty of it all. I'm allowed to feel a sour-green envy of those not aware of the sword, and I'm allowed to feel self-righteous over them, too. But, I'm allowed to not feel this way also.

They charged me with the task of focusing on one interest, if only for one week. We created a “time plan,” sort of like the kind of money spending plan I have each month. It’s a goal, it’s an allotment of values. Everything is a choice, even paying rent. If I’m willing to accept the consequences of not paying rent, sure I could not pay it. But I’m not!

Performance, acting, right now, came up as a higher priority than anything I’m currently involved in. Though painting was the only thing that earned a 5 (though, I imagine, mostly because I’m not engaged in it at all right now).

This value judgment will have consequences. It means the reduction and phasing out of other things I’m involved in. AND, it’s only a guide, this new time plan. That’s the important thing for me to remember. It can change. And if I have more time for rest and centering, there may be more ease to do other things.

When we plugged in “Acting Activities” (e.g. researching roles, practicing monologues, etc.) as the only creative activity this week, I could feel my hackles rise: “But what about painting??” My two friends encouraged me to just try this, just for one week, just to see how it feels.

If my goal is to “Focus, Prioritize, and Follow-through,” this is their suggestion. It’s just a trial. How does it feel to commit to one thing fully --- oh my G-D – COMMIT?????

Oh Lord, grant me strength to focus… to (gulp) commit. (shiver)

Because though the sword be there for all of us, for me, I have learned that racing to it all is wasting my time. I’m not getting better at any of my interests, because I’m not spending …committed… time on them.

It is an imperative in my life to use my time efficiently. And this is an avenue I’ve never tried before. 

Results: TBD.