Wicked

It's a tragic story really...

A troubled teen wildly overreacts to the empty threats of an elderly neighbor and runs away from home.  No mention is ever made of her parents contacting the local authorities or making any attempt to locate their missing child so we are left to assume she was unwanted to begin with.  She encounters some catastrophic weather and loses conciousness for an unknown period of time when she hits her head during the storm.  Upon waking, she discovers that she has unknowkingly committed a homicide during her blackout.

She is pursued by the grieving relative of the deceased and receives a tip from a local charlatan about a man that can help her get out of town quickly.  Walking the dizzying streets of this unfamiliar city, she is serenaded by some suckers singing about a world made of doughnut holes, attacked in the woods and ultimately duped into joining a gang of hoodlums who it turns out are victims of organ trafficking and psychological warfare.  They too are directed towards this local ring leader who might know how to procure them some replacement organs.

After several encounters with dangerous wildlife and an opium trip that lasts for an undetermined amount of time, the teen and her gang locate the residence of the man they seek.  The plan to flee the city undetected nearly fails when he is exposed as an imposter and turns out to be a completely incompetent imbecile that tries to distract the teen from his deception by suggesting she ruin a perfectly good pair of shoes by bashing the heels together and destroying the red glitter.

Then she wakes up and it turns out it was all a dream.  Or a bad trip.  The truth is perfectly unclear.

Things are not always what they seem.  Are they Dorothy?

Wicked right?

Falling

There's something amazing about letting go of the outcome and learning how to be better at the Now.  The Here.  The During.

Falling takes you from one place to another place.

Whether it was an accident or a planned departure, a leap of faith or a calculated exit, a jump in with both feet or a heel slip over the edge.  Falling takes you somewhere.

Falling makes me feel isolated.  I'm all alone in this.  How did I get here?  When will it be over?  I don't always know what to look for when I'm trying to stop falling.  I  see people standing next to me in line, or sitting across the table from me and they look so still.  So grounded.  They don't even realize, that on the inside, I'm crashing right in front of them.

I tend to hold it all in.  I think I'm trying to protect people.  To preserve their joy.  And I absolutely am not helped by the, "It will all work out.  You'll be fine.  You'll get through this." comments.  I don't want people to feel bad for me.  That.  Does.  Not.  Help. 

I have started to write about falling.  That seems easier.  For me.  It's still isolated because I get to roll it all out at my own pace and it's less messy.  It took awhile for me to be ready to write about struggling because I was afraid of the half-hearted commentary again.  I shouldn't have been afraid.

The posts that I've written that have received the most comments are the ones about falls and struggles.  But readers didn't say, "You're strong, you'll be fine.  This will pass.  It will all work out."  They didn't say that.  They said, "Thank you for sharing.  I've been there.  I'm there now." 

And it helps.  But not for the reasons I expected.  It's quite amazing really. 

Sometimes, it seems to me, the help you find at the end of your own arm isn't there because you cried out for someone to save you.  More often the hand is there because that person was falling right along beside you.  They know how it feels.  They are there too and they simply extended their hand.  I'm down.  You're down.  But we're not out yet.  It's not over yet.

There's something amazing about letting go of the outcome and learning how to be better at the Now.

Leader

I lead...lots of things actually, but specifically, I lead a meeting every week.  A meeting that I used to attend, but now I lead it.  I stand up in front of them and say, "Come along.  This is the way."

A big part of the way I lead is to try and meet people where they are, before inviting them to come along.  You can't give good directions from way out in front.  You've got to get close to people.  It's quite frightening actually.  For me.  Close means honest.  Close means truth.  Close means real.  And close, in a small town, means no hiding.

Sometimes they ask me, "How do you do it?  How have you been successful?"

I don't always know how to answer.  Should I start with the big picture or the small picture?  The main idea or the details?

Leading someone somewhere is different from giving them a set of directions to follow.  When you're leading you've got to go along with them.  Out ahead of them, but not too far, or they'll lose sight of you and get lost.  Out ahead of them falling in the holes and tripping over the bumps but then having the knowledge to call back and say, "Watch out!  Don't do what I just did."

Leading someone somewhere means you get there first.  Sometimes just by an instant, but still first.



For me.  For this journey...I have arrived.  And now I lead others toward this place where they want to be.  It's hard and sometimes they quit.  But the honest thing I tell them when they ask me those hard questions is,

People don't quit because it's hard, they quit because they don't realize it's worth it.