On Monday morning at 2:06am the moon turned New again, ending last month’s focus of Weather. In that last post, I was describing surviving some of life’s stormier moments and talked about how we navigate the natural changes in our lives when they’re distorted, and often amplified by, a past that won’t be ignored.
In that post, I asserted that it was all Weather, and that we needed the challenges we’re presented with in order to grow. The past cycle also included the tenth anniversary of Life of Pi Day, and I commented how I am not the person I was ten years ago. I realize now that I’m not even the person I was 10 months ago. Frankly, I’m not living the life that I thought I was living ten weeks ago.
I had a vision or a dream a couple months back where I saw myself as a soft and pliable creature — but I had metal rods woven through me, forming a kind of skeleton. I realized in that moment that I was literally embodying control — so I visualized removing the rods and forging a hammer from them — reasoning that it was better to wield or exercise control, than to have it be my all-consuming state.
Throughout my life, I’ve tried to shelter the people I care about — and myself — from everything. Assuming control of things I had no control over, or any right to control, I had woven those metal rods over a long period of time. Part of the sheltering was building compartments where all of the facets of my life could live undisturbed by — and unaware of — any other facets of my life. It took an incredible amount of energy to maintain those silos — but just like the rods, it was second nature to me — it was who I was.
I wanted to be free of it all though. I wanted to live one whole life — not dozens of lesser lives. Ten years ago, I realized I could never have a birthday party because no two groups would get along — and I was all about everyone at least pretending to get along. Over this past decade — and mostly since 2019 — I had dismantled a lot of walls. I really thought that I had been doing better.
Unraveling the control rods though… that blew the firewalls out of any remaining compartments. Firewalls that, in many cases, I had become oblivious to. I was the architect — I had the drawings — it was up to me to keep everything up to code and to keep everyone safe.
I failed.
The only way to move on from failure is to learn the Lessons it teaches you — so the theme for this cycle is Lessons. I thought about it being ‘control’ or ‘failure’ — but I want to learn from all of it. I want to keep striving to do and be better. To quote this cycle’s song — “I’m just another fallen angel, trying to get through the night.”
So what have I learned? First, architectural drawings shouldn’t be secrets. There should always be public hearings and as comprehensive a communications strategy as possible. You’d think with a degree in communications, I would know this. Second, listen to people — and if you don’t understand what they’re asking — get clarification. If you don’t understand questions and warnings, do the work and figure it out. To quote my favorite West Wing episode, “You listen to everybody and then you call the play.” Third, assume nothing. It’s really true — if you assume it makes an ass of u and me. If you can’t point to how you know — then you simply don’t know what you think you know.
The future can’t be the same as the past — and it shouldn’t be — that defeats the purpose. That doesn’t mean that we can’t learn Lessons from the past to build a brighter future though. I still have Lessons to learn, damage to clean up, and amends to make — but I want to do the righter things. Or, to quote Frozen 2 — “do the next right thing.”
The tag line from the focus song for the cycle says it best though — “All I want from tomorrow, is to get it better than today….”