Ten Things I Know to be True

Last year, I wrote a post entitled "10 Things," which you can read here.  In this post (which you should go and read), I posted a TED talk by spoken word poet Sarah Kay in which she discusses an exercise where she has students write 2 lists.  The first list is "10 things I know to be true" and the second list is "10 things I should have learned by now." 

I like lists.  Lists and I...we're friends, on many levels.  I write lists for myself: to-do lists, to write lists, books to read lists, goals lists, topics to research lists, research to conduct lists, lists turned into poems...  I write lots of lists at work with clients: lists of problem behaviors, lists of goals, lists of fears, lists of alternative and appropriate behaviors, and recently, a list of all the reasons my teenage client hates coming to see me.  Some lists are more reinforcing than others.

Here, though is part 1 of my updated list.  I'll post part 2 tomorrow.

Ten Things I Know to be True

(1) Working with children with developmental disabilities is the most rewarding and fulfilling job I could possibly have.  My heart is touched, stretched, melted, torn apart, and squeezed on a daily basis.  Having the privilege of working with these children and their families is an honor.  The moment I stop seeing that is the day I need to find something new.

(2) Starting a practice of mindful, daily, gratitude is the best gift I could have given myself.  I have to make myself start again on a daily basis, and some days, I still come up empty.  Those days, however, are increasingly less frequent, and the smaller moments of gratitude have come to mean so much more.

(3) Fresh strawberries taste like god's laughter. 

(4) I am abnormally, deeply, strangely sensitive.  I feel nearly every aspect of life from the core of my body all the way out to my skin.  One day, I hope to be able to (a) harness it and (b) appreciate it.  This is a blessing and not a curse.  It is a strength and not a weakness.  One day, I hope to believe this.

(5) Living is complicated.

(6) Writing is the best way I know how to make sense of life.  I should be writing more often.

(7) All oppression is connected.

(8) We need other people.  We need trust.  We need connection.  We need love.  I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to figure out how to make that work.

(9) Anger can be beautiful.  It's scary, but done right, it's necessary and powerful and righteous.

(10) One day, I will remember that I am worthy of love, without reminders.

What about you?  What is something you know to be true?

 

                                                                 (This truth is # 11)