Passion Power

I’m taking a wild guess you don’t have to venture too far in your friend or family mix to find someone who’s in trouble with alcohol.  I’m not talking about sharing a bottle of wine at dinner or having a couple of cocktails after work.  That’s not problem drinking.  I’ve watched most of my friends gradually dial it back from twenty year old drinking to fifty year old drinking.  I think it’s called drinking like a normal person. The problem drinker is a binge drinker or a blackout drinker.  They drink because they are bored or lonely.  Hide their drinking.  They drink to constantly change how they feel.  They drink when they’re upset.  They drink with dinner, before dinner, after dinner, making dinner.   They drink until they throw up, pass out or both.  They drink because they can’t stop.  Unfortunately as family members we enable them.  Don’t want to upset them by calling it out so we tip toe around them instead.  Pretend we don’t notice the obvious.  We accept and love them f

Grief, funerals and loss remind me of the sobering reality that life is precious and short.   Sorrowful times leave us numb.  We recognize there’s a lot of hullabaloo going on out there about nothing.  Atrocities feel like a heavy burden.  We try and find our way back to a peaceful state as a means of survival.  I wish people the right kind of quiet.  The kind of quiet that feels like a warm yellow blanket.  A permission slip that says it’s perfectly reasonable for you to not be feeling okay right now and doesn’t insist we be anything but ourselves.  Where nature becomes a sanctuary and time softens sharp edges.  I’m wishing you the kind of quiet  that hears a gentle rain or a light breeze moving the trees; where thoughts become flowers and strife is replaced with care and understanding. It is the healing kind of quiet that you marinate in, where you are alone but not isolated.  The type of solitude that welcomes encouragement and novelty so it doesn’t become bland.  The k