One of my wise nieces...

One of my nieces sent me one of those little questionnaire deals not unlike the one I posted a few days back. I asked her if she found out a lot of stuff about the people she sent it to that she didn’t already know. She said not really, that this had come up in conversation with her friends, her cousins and her other aunts and me. And we talked about what questions do you really need answers to, from someone before you know them.

Do you love yourself?
Yes.

How old were you when you started loving yourself?
About 24, when I got sober.

What makes you happy?
Being in the moment, without listening to the voices in my head that used to comment on everything that I did without mercy, and worrying about every damn thing all the time.

What makes you angry?
Mean people, people who hurt people who are smaller or weaker or too kind to fight back. Deliberate cruelty as well as inadvertent cruelty.

What are you most proud of?
20 years, 11 months, 21 days of sobriety.
Changing my life again at 40.


Do you believe in God?
After many years of being a fairly hard core Catholic with all the baggage that entails (17 funfilled action packed years of Catholic school), I’m now a practicing Buddhist and the notion of a creationist God is not germane to the compassion with which I conduct myself. So the questions to me, are do you believe that there is divine in every one you encounter, even the fools driving in the fast lane at 45 mph? Can you allow everyone you encounter to be your teacher? If only to learn yet another lesson about compassion.


And yeah, my favorite curse words are still variations on fuck. But now, I have to throw blessings after them.