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The shape of the soul...
Apr. 24th, 2008 08:07 pmI actually had something interesting to post about today, but I have been blindsided by another friend who's pregnant. Seriously. I guess I should be surprised we all waited as long as we did, considering most of us were fertile by 15; but I gotta tell you there is something totally surreal about being older than most the people in the room who have kids.
It's also a reminder of the long-term repurcussions of the life choices I've made in the past five years or so. I hate to admit that I frequently view people in terms of 'intiated' vs 'uninitiated,' which is to say some people have been through some serious crap; and others still have it coming. How we deal with it separates the goats from the lambs.
There was a psychiatrist I heard interviewed today who dropped out of Harvard to work with developmentally disabled adults. His description of how he found his work really resonated with me; as did one of his comments about how agency is one of the most powerful treatments for depression. It's powerful medicine for a person to feel like they have some measure of control over his/her life; that the choices of the individual matter.
I've certainly experienced this in my life; at the same time that it has been necessary to make those choices with a fluidity I lacked before. I used to hammer my life with a force of will. Scrape away at my soul until there was no fertile soil left. Learning to let things breathe and grow, to stop hammering my life into a brittle shape it wasn't meant to be, and to wait have all been extremely difficult lessons for me.
It's also a reminder of the long-term repurcussions of the life choices I've made in the past five years or so. I hate to admit that I frequently view people in terms of 'intiated' vs 'uninitiated,' which is to say some people have been through some serious crap; and others still have it coming. How we deal with it separates the goats from the lambs.
There was a psychiatrist I heard interviewed today who dropped out of Harvard to work with developmentally disabled adults. His description of how he found his work really resonated with me; as did one of his comments about how agency is one of the most powerful treatments for depression. It's powerful medicine for a person to feel like they have some measure of control over his/her life; that the choices of the individual matter.
I've certainly experienced this in my life; at the same time that it has been necessary to make those choices with a fluidity I lacked before. I used to hammer my life with a force of will. Scrape away at my soul until there was no fertile soil left. Learning to let things breathe and grow, to stop hammering my life into a brittle shape it wasn't meant to be, and to wait have all been extremely difficult lessons for me.
