Collaborate and listen...

Prepare for a ramble. I'll post some weird, off-topic short nonsense after this, so it balances out the navel-gazing of this post.

I have been fighting this ridiculous notion I have that after my surgery I'm going to "cocoon" for a few months and come out somehow different, changed, better, and in a new world. I mean, will that happen if I just sit there and surf the internet, post drivel on this blog, watch movies, and try to focus enough to read the books I've been waiting to read?

If I just sit there and expect some magical result, and hope that a new, better, different, healed me will chip its way out of the hardened goo at the end of this two month sabbatical, I'll be disappointed. I wouldn't take that approach to a project or to effect change in my professional world, so why would I expect that here and now, in my real life, with factors infinitely more complicated than work?

And can people even change, or is what appears to be "change" really the uncovering (or suppression) of who you really are and always have been, deep down? Maybe you just think someone changes, but really they were just burying their real self all that time and it/they finally came out? (Or vice versa--they seem to change, but actually they are now suppressing their real self.) Either way, why mislead yourself or others? Well, I guess there are a million reasons, and can we even help it?

I do know this: I feel awake. I used to be asleep. I look back at some unspecified time period before August 10th, 2009 (the day the doctor called), and I think of what a dupe I was, never looking at where I was at a given moment, or truly paying attention to what was going on around me. (Have you ever really read the story of Rip Van Winkle? Check it out sometime.)

It wasn't a sudden awakening, and it's not like on August 10th the doctor's call came and then "click" I was awake. It took some time, and I'm not certain when I reached some level of consciousness that was my tipping point. Sometime between then and now, I guess. And I still feel a little metaphorical sleepiness every now and then; backsliding a bit, most likely. But I know I do not want to, and will not ever, go back to that Rip Van Winkle sleep. Don't think I could if I wanted to.

I'm not going to "live life on the edge" or anything crazy like that. I just mean that things seem clearer now that I'm awake. I think I can see where I am right now, and can almost see who I really am, if that makes sense. Sure, I might still do something stereotypically life crisis-ish, like get a small sailboat. No little red sports car, though.

But I know I'll be sleepy (physically only, I hope) for the next 2 months, so I'll do my best to use the time to just 1. rest; 2. heal; 3. play with my kids; and 4. practice focusing on where I am now, regardless of the past or the future. (Yes, that last one is loading a lot into a few words.)

(And oh yeah, one more--5. look for a sailboat!!! A little red one....)