Responding

BREATHE    IN

(a letter from a new friend far away)

BREATH    OUT

I understand busy. Even those without family and few friends and little holiday involvement find December a busy month. The energy and sudden increase in human interaction is stimulating and sometimes exhausting. End of year tasks reach well beyond holidays too. Looking at my life these days, I wake around 7:00 AM (I live very close to work) and typically am at work between 7:30 and 7:45 AM. I leave between 5:00 and 6:00 PM most days. I play softball three nights a week so I am sometimes out at the fields until past 10:00 PM. I play softball n Saturday afternoons and Sunday most of the day, sometimes on Saturday mornings as well. Somehow I fit in friends outside of work and softball too lol. Some TV and daily writing... I used to get less than 5 hours sleep a night, but I am finding the body does better if I can get 8 hours sleep, so while I don't always achieve that, I have made ore effort to and that leaves little time for anything else, I see I found time to review how I use my time lol.

Write whenever you find time and the mood to write happens, no rush, no requirements, no conditions :)

I hope your end of year festivities have been fun and full of love and your new year is starting off with big smiles all around. Ah, a phrase that is new to me - "out of station" ... I take that to mean what 'away from home' or 'on holiday' or 'out of town' or something like that? Perhaps it has a more specific meaning? This is some of the fun of pen palling, learning phrases used in different countries :)

Wow, I have to tell my ego to sit down and stop strutting about in my head (lam - thanks for liking that) as I read your positive words about my writing. I am not always full of energy and joy and optimistic... I see the horrible aspects of the human condition, how most people live in fear and poverty, and the way world leaders abuse power and that can bring me down and cause me to cry and rant and want to scream STOP!... but I have this hopelessly hopeful child inside of me who whispers in my ear something simple and profound whenever I get too down... something like 'you don't have to be like that' or 'you are alive, enjoy being!' or 'this moment is all there is - don't waste it!' or something like that. I appreciate sadness and even throw myself a pity-party now and then (often, my blogs are full of poor-me pathos or 'the world sucks' rants). Writing the pain and dark thoughts releases doubts and fears and frustrations and anger in a safe way and usually leaves me laughing or at least smiling at the way I care so much it hurts and the futility of tilting at windmills... and that lets me move on with the happy hopeful thoughts and feelings.

I am so happy and appreciative you see (and inspire) my hope that there are people like us who appreciate the good and wonder in this world.

Here in the US there is federal and state and county and city and town and village and "unincorporated county" divisions of government. You may know this. I am sometimes sad that the US teaches so little about the details of the world outside of the US while most people outside of the US seem to learn more about the US in their basic schooling. English, for instance, is known by many in this world while in the US, many do not know any language other than English. We develop a rather isolated, biased, and even elitist perspective of the world here too easily and I am happy to interact with people from other countries because I am reminded that the "American Way" is far from the only way and not always not the best way. I enjoy seeing things from other perspectives :)

I studied Psychology in school and Management and Administration in my career. I've also been an EMT (Paramedic). I've worked in mostly in health care as a Facility Administrator, Program Manager, Risk Manager, Quality Manager, and currently as Safety Officer for the County I live in. I enjoyed school and miss it, but have so little time (and school is very expensive here, hundreds of dollars a credit and more... after the free public schooling we have here until we are 17 or 18, it becomes challenging for people without wealth to advance their education. My sister {a friend who has been close enough to be family so we are siblings in our hearts and minds} owes $70,000 in student loans she took to get her Masters Degree and there are a lot of people who owe a lot more than that... She will be paying that back for many years).

Thank you for the holiday and new years cheers :)

I wish you a belated Christmas, New Years, and whenever it is, Happy Birthday too (Mine is in April but I don't make a big deal out of it and many people who know me don't know when it is... I like celebrating being alive every day so it's odd for me to single out one day for myself... I am told I see things differently than most people, but that's ok because I like the way I see things :)

May today be full of smiles and if you face any challenges, large or small, may even the challenges be a reason to feel good as you work to overcome them. :)

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