Go Get Yourself

My father and I met regularly throughout my youth, to right my wrongs, work on my attitude, sometimes just for a good ol’ scolding - along with the spanks, it’s probably the reason I stayed alive. My mother describes me as a sort of stoic caricature with a blank stare, mouth slightly opened for unbearable chunks of time…and my dad, a handsome professor of life, determined to have me behave, sketching me over and over, until little tears in the sketch pad prevented further renderings. Despite my effort to be completely deaf to instruction, the stuff got in; maybe his words, the ink, spilled into my slightly opened mouth, leaving deep stains. I quote him often and will today, on the first day of this new year.

One time it was about the meaning of drunkenness—as if it was written on the back of a Budweiser can he simply stated, “It’s life abandonment. Mikala, you just set your life aside and walk away. Anything can happen.” That meeting happened before I was all that interested in fine wines, probably a good 30 years too early, but here I am today thinking about it. What I’m noticing is this life abandonment thing is weaving itself into my coaching sessions as it occurred to me just how intoxicated we all are. We’ve left ourselves unattended, susceptible to just about everything. I’ve encountered more people drunk on food, sugar, shopping, therapies, success, even physical and emotional pain…face down in the toilet sort of wasted. Hung over by a life they aren’t present for. It’s our normal.

So, go get yourself! Bring yourself home and commit to staying with you. Like me, aching for January to enjoy 31 days of thriving, anticipating February with half-dread, crawling through the year with disappointment, missing the point. We were made to live this way every day.

31 days. Strike it.