Teaching Lessons and Lessening the Teachings

For another day, I am sitting alone and waiting for inspiration. It seems like all I do these days is pray for death, and it is getting boring. I feel like I have been through every possible experience that I had hoped for in this lifetime . . . I have been happy as a student, friend, worker, wife, mother, ex-wife, radical thinker and philosopher, societal reject, societal re-entrant, societal critic, poet, essayist, and novelist, (not to mention fabulous bargain shopper and interior designer.) I'm 44 years old, and I can't think of a single blessed thing more that I ever hoped to do with my life. I could take a cue from my grandmother and spend the rest of my life watching TV and doing crossword puzzles, but ugh. Really?

I guess the only thing left to do is pontificate. If I have really "done it all" then I must have learned something along the way, right?

All right. Here is a list of things I have learned:

1. Left is right and right is wrong.
2. Wash your hands often, especially while cooking & after using the toilet.
3. Nobody likes a sore loser. Nobody likes a know-it-all. Nobody likes a loud-mouth. Nobody likes a dish rag. Nobody likes to hear the truth. Nobody likes a liar. Nobody likes a show off. Nobody likes *me* except a guy named Derek . . . but nobody likes him either, except me.
4. Mental illness is a state of mind. Many of the most mentally ill people I know are hell-bent on proving that I am mentally ill. Luckily, I no longer live in that state.
5. Motherhood has nothing to do with creating children that will "make you proud."
6. The concept of true love is incredibly hard to grasp, and yet so incredibly worth grasping that no other pursuit makes any sense.
7. The number 7 is my favorite and worth all the effort to reach.

From now on, I intend to use this forum to expound on stuff that I may (or may not) know something about. A few years ago, I had a website where I took quotes from some of my favorite works of spiritual literature and compared the lessons therein to events in my own life, to see how I stacked up to the teachings. It seems like a good time to try this again, since I have had a few extra life experiences since then & may have a little better perspective. Please look forward to writings which deal more directly with "Life's Lessons." Most people find my "lessons" unpalatable, as I have been told quite frequently that I resemble all that is "unlikable" from item 3 above . . . but if Derek wants to read my stuff, well, I do owe it to *him* anyway.

Until tomorrow, be wild and free. And then, tomorrow, be wild and free with *me.*