“Where’re you off to now?” they asked as I breezed into the Breakfast Club at 5:30 to grab coffee for the ride to the airport.
“Houston,” I replied pouring myself a to-go cup.
“Hope you make it.”
I nodded my head. It is 26 in Dallas and 70 in Brownsville. And I’m going to Houston assuming that I make it out of Atlanta. Because the Super Bowl is in Texas I’ve paid more money than I ever have for an airplane ticket in my life. And it is Tuesday.
Nine of us are trying to gather from across the United States to continue work designing a new system of making health care accessible. One of the nine will be calling in from Copenhagen.
The plan is to spend the day working through a plethora of issues to establish a new entity than will franchise the new delivery system that we’ve already built. Forget about Obama Care, this is an efficient system combining the best of old fashion personal treatment, physicians and nurses who actually spend time where you are and the best in new technology.
Fun stuff, huh?
It’s a bumpy ride on the plane and I bounce around as I type. The sky is a muted blue grey from top to bottom outside of my window. Everyone is trying to sleep but their heads jerk around in their seats.
Over the past couple of years, the emotions of my life have been a continuous storm of thunder and lightning. It was unrelenting. A handful of brave souls made their way into the midst of it to make certain that I was alright. A few others managed to express an occasional message hoping that I was OK. Many just stood around watching the storm wondering if I would ever make it through. Most didn’t care one way or the other.
The worst of it has moved off shore now. I can still see the thunder and lightning in the distance but it no longer encompasses me. The ocean is eerily calm and the breeze is lite. I am comfortable with the silence. My life looks like these images right now.
I’ve spent a year now writing every day exploring the things that are me. As a friend put it I’ve chosen to live my spiritual journey publicly. Through this came a new community that I hadn’t known had been there. Old friends and new friends dart in and out of my life now having discussions with me about where they are in relationship to where I am.
I have waited and things have come to me. Ignoring the advice of just about everyone I’ve concentrated on me. Joy has returned to my life and I pray that it stays. My smile has returned. Intensity has been replaced with something softer. I’ve tasted tears that are mine now. “Yesterdays are over my shoulder,” says Jimmy Buffett, and I’m learning that there is “so much to see in front of me.”
Up here looking down, I see all of these things. I feel them. I am changed. I’m an Altered Boy. I understand that there is this sense of expectation about what I’m going to do next. There is anxiousness. There are so many skeptics who doubt that I will ever match the things that I’ve already been a part of. And there are those who root for me to fail because of the past successes that I’ve been a part.
I find myself smiling. And I thank God for the gifts that have given it back to me.
