Living mindfully is still something that feels like a challenge. I’ve spent a lot of my lifetime in my own head trying a lot of strategies and deceits and games with myself to somehow make the things that hurt seem just a little less part of who I am, and it has cluttered up my emotional landscape and complicated my everyday life. I’m trying something different these days, and this blog is actually a piece of that. I’m trying to connect more with people directly, including myself, and less through technology. I’m also learning to savor my experiences in the moment, good and bad, in an effort to make them more profound and meaningful, and maybe free myself from the past. So… no blog post yesterday, because life had my attention in a very real and immediate way, and was certainly worth experiencing in fullness.

Years ago I gave up driving. I had moved to an area with good public transportation, and I was no longer enjoying the experience of driving, so I gave up my car when it died, and gave up driving, too. That was… 1999, I think. So, here it is, 14 years later, and yesterday I got my driver’s license. It was kind of a wow moment, especially because I scored really well and made very few mistakes.  I’m excited to have such a fundamental piece of decision making and freedom of movement back. I spent the afternoon window shopping with one of my partners, and we got an amazing pizza and took it home for dinner. We spent the evening hanging out as a family, and it was definitely the sort of evening that puts the fun in Family Fun Time! Great music, great conversation, more love than words exist to describe.

Right now I’m wrapped in weekend life; doing laundry and housework, catching up on correspondence, hanging out with my loved ones, and just generally enjoying my experience. It’s very nice. It’s … serene. And satisfying. I am, in this moment, right here, right now, very happy. Right now, that’s quite enough to make ‘everything’ seem alright.   This is a very good experience.