A lady named Ruth

Let's face it, I've been having a hard time. See, there's this lady named Ruth, and try as I might I can't communicate with her. Nah, let's not talk about her. I'm doing this quarterly review thing, and it has come to the forefront of my attention that I'm not in as good a place this year as I was last year. I can blame it all on someone like Ruth, but that's not the truth of it.

I've been reflecting, and I've got a lot to give thanks for. Between a teacher that I used to have when I lived in the country and the teacher I had when I returned to the city, I've grown more in the last few years than in a bunch of others combined. I'm so much stronger in so many ways; I have more confidence in my abilities, more assurance of my strengths than I ever used to, and I can acknowledge it without feeling as if I'm committing some sin of pride.

That being said, I've fallen far behind where I was last year. I was just beginning to become confident enough to do the "coffee on the front steps in the morning" thing, and I felt quite sure that with the work I was doing with my teacher I would achieve my short-term goals. That didn't happen, not simply because my amazing and wonderful teacher was no longer guiding me in my path, but because my teacher's replacement never provided me with anything close to the same kind of guidance. I feel as if I've spent the last ten months or so pulling pills off of an old sweater rather than running laps around a track. Weird analogy, right? Okay, here's a better one: picking nits slowly and carefully off of one hair at a time, when what I want to do is shave it off and get on with the important stuff like running around the track. Yes, it's ultimately helpful to remove all the nits from my head; but at this pace I won't be lice-free for another five years, and in that time five years of my life will have been lost and gone forever. I can't wait to live, I need to do it NOW, and rehashing old emotional shit and picking it apart down to the molecular level does nothing but make me bored, angry, frustrated, and fed up.

On the other hand, maybe I had to waste almost a year with this shit until I got fed up enough to do something about it. So, I'll write a letter to the gang explaining why I feel they've failed me (and I've already got a couple of drafts in my computer; I've been working on this for a while, now) and take the steps to finding myself a new teacher. I don't know if there's any way I can ever find anyone as good as the last one, and I'm sure a large part of my depression last spring was the heartbreak over losing him, but I've got to try. I need to be my own Prince Charming and save my own life, since it's obvious there won't ever be some other who'll do the saving for me.

That's a pretty sweet lesson, I think.

Peace