Another year is ending, another year, Hmm, that means a lot to me. Right now I’m working on year 66, or maybe year 3. I’m not sure which. As I think about it, I’m definitely working on year 3.
I really like this time of year. What a great time for looking back on the year that is ending and also looking forward to another year. Looking back, looking forward. I am doing that. But mainly I am looking back, I’m not sure why that is. For me, the future is so uncertain. Looking back is easier. And looking back shows me what I have to build on. The foundation of the past seems more secure than the unknown of the future.
I have been thinking about the last three years. And it occurs to me that two things have been paramount to my recovery. Learning to build things, and learning to write things. They have been the catalyst for my recovery.
For the support group I attend there was an assignment to make a vision board. So I did it. It is hanging on the wall in my office. I was told to have 10 items on my vision board, pictures to represent what my “vision” was. Big items, little items, short-term goals, long-term goals it didn’t matter but they wanted me to have 10. I failed at that. I have two pictures. The top of the vision board is the plan I designed (the bridge through the trees) and the bottom of the vision board is a picture of two chairs (Chairs on the Porch, my blog). And I am not sure it is actually a vision board. Because, as you have read in the intro, I had been looking back, not looking forward. But my “vision” is to get back what I have lost. My career and my use of language.
So here it is. On the top I wrote:
Year one, learning to double click, and starting to draft again, Year two, starting to re-design a bridge through the trees. Year three, I am actually starting to build a walkway to the trees. Looking ahead for year four.
Below that is part of a plan for the bridge through the trees. I can’t overstate how important this project has become in my recovery. Starting with learning the basics, things like double clicking the mouse. Relearning to draft, having to talk to people, estimating material, ordering things, and actually working again, this project at camp has been a big part of my recovery. Without that project I don’t know where I would be. The project at camp and the people there, rocked my world. I am wearing a sweatshirt which says, camp changes everything. How true that has become in my life. Not in the ways you might expect.
The idea behind the phrase, camp changes everything, is embodied in the vision statement of Mile High Pines which is: Providing opportunities for life changing encounters with God. That is the “changing” we want. To encounter God. I’m not sure if learning how to double click counts as a life changing encounter with God. But I’m thinking maybe it is. And I am so very grateful for what camp has become in my recovery.
Below the plan, I wrote this:
Year one, at the beginning I couldn’t write at all and at the end of year one I started to write simple sentences. Year two, I started a blog. Year three, I’m working on a book. Looking ahead to year four.
What will come of year four? I don’t know, but I like the trajectory I’m seeing.
After writing that, I attached a picture from a magazine of two chairs. “Chairs on the Porch” is the name of my blog.
I can’t believe I actually started a blog. From writing simple sentences with a noun and a verb, to starting a blog. What a step that was for me. “Chairs on the porch” has been key to my recovery.
I realized early on something was going on in my life, and I wanted to write about it. So I tried. It was the first time I had tried to write after my stroke, sitting there on my computer, looking at a blank page. After a long time of trying to figure out the words, this is what came out:
The chair
They are to two chairs are the porch. So they are his own mine.
Come by for me.
Surrender
And that was when I realized I couldn’t write at all. Four sentences, nope, not sentences, just words, words in nonsensical ways, man, as I think about it, there was a lot of meat in these words, in my mind anyways, but it didn’t come through, not at all. And I gave up. It was half a year later, when I tried again. I was working with a therapist, and I was working on writing a simple sentence. The sentence was – The skupler design the statue! Not much better, but something. And eventually I composed a post on facebook with tons of mistakes. By the end of my first year of recovery, I had posted 3 things.
Despite all this, somehow, I decided to start a blog. I tried to write something every day and I tried to post something every 2 weeks for the next year. Now I am working on year three. And I’m still blogging, not day by day, not even week by week, but month by month, and I’m working on a book. I don’t know what might have happened if I was content to let it go and say I just can’t write, I can’t write at all.
I have one other thing on my vision board, it is a comment someone said for one of my posts on facebook. Thank you Victor Thayer for reading my mind. You nailed it. “Well done, part contractor, part poet.” That is my goal. I want to build things, I want to write things. If I can get there, I will be content. You know, I will also be content even if I can’t get there as well. But it is my goal, part contractor, part poet. That would be a great epitaph.
So is a vision board? Is my vision too little? I don’t know. But that is where I’m at. Looking back, looking ahead. Getting back what was lost, that is my goal, that is my vision.
