I remember a time when my dominant thoughts were about movement and accomplishment. Anything started felt heavy with the pressure of completion so that the next thing could begin. Perhaps that’s the mantle of youth… I don’t think it was an affliction that was unique to me… Attaining and obtaining … That was my focus.

I also remember a time where I seemed to have no focus other than surviving… My dad‘s Alzheimer’s, my brother‘s brain injury.… 10 years of their care management, medication management … watchdogging because some care management people are anything but caring… there was little room for anything else

Now I find my focus shifting once again. Everything feels like a doorway to something else. And each doorway feels important and magical in its own unique way.

So many conversations feel sacred now.
So many interactions feel like a gift, an honor…
I’m appreciating the smallest things that suddenly seem like buried treasures.

My mind and memory seem to overflow with the stories that people tell me. Each one is a gift. Each one is something that I feel honor bound to hold, to remember… Even though that’s impossible.

But I’ve started to believe that perhaps my mind and memory were never meant to hold the sacred… That seems to be the job of the heart… I no longer criticize myself for forgetting a story that was entrusted to me. Instead, I look to my heart, knowing that each story that was gifted to me, each tear or hug or wild, crazy laughter that was shared with me doesn’t need to be categorized as individual deposits into a bank. Instead, they can be held with love and light, and they slowly become woven into the tapestry of the sacred…

They become the  lifeline of the honor that is the human journey.