Dear Judgment,

You are a feisty determined lil’ thing, aren’t you!? You pop up without any notice, almost at every time of the day. Always overshadowing everyone else. I wish I could say I hate you, but truth is: I like your company. You make me feel powerful. Better than. Strong. Capable. You make me feel my ego, and boy it sometimes feel good….. until it doesn’t. Until the face in front of me - the offended face, the judged face, the shamed face - sighs in sorrow and my heart breaks.
And all I can say is I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.

You, dear Judgment, take the best of me. You own me. Like your bitch. You rule me like I’m your disciple. You devour me. Like I am your cannibalistic feast.
You’re a force of nature, a villainous beast, and I am a mere human in the face of you.
I can mediate all day long, and be all ‘zen’d out’, and you will still surprise me suddenly, without notice- catching me without ay armor.
You must be an essential part of the human condition. The theme of morality, right & wrong, judgment, they are all invaluable themes in the human condition - there’s value to that in our world. There IS value. But see, so often you are misplaced, Judgment. You show up in the wrong time, along with Ego, and you separate me from whoever I could look at without judgment - if you hadn’t shown up.
​
I hate you Judgment, because it feels good to be in your vicinity. Until it feels bad.
I need you, because some of you is needed to function in a society like ours. Some of you is needed in order to make decisions. Some of you is needed in order to follow my morality.
But I hate you nonetheless. Because when I am with you - than I am NOT with the person in front of me. When I am with you - I am only yours and separate from my community.

Unfortunately, often yours,

Me.

She is Jerusalem royalty.
At a time when there is no monarchy in the city of gold. Once there were kings, queens, jesters, commoners, but now society has morphed into a chaos of sorts: the illusion of equality.

She walks the cobblestone streets with her invisible crown, oblivious to the rules that seem to affect everyone else. Such is the way of queens. They can only see down from the height they’re on. And the angle down is painful to her little pasty neck, so she chooses to keep it up high instead of bending down. And from that height: this Jerusalem royalty cannot see anything underneath her. Such is the way of queens: they are blind to what is underneath them. They are blind wrapped up in their illusion of kingdom. Even in a world where the kingdom ceases to exist.
Queens are relentless in their pursuit of blindness. Queens are committed to being royal at all times. Even in times when royalty simply isn’t there. Or maybe it is there - but only to the queens in us.
I know her well, this queen. I am her shadow. I come in more often when it’s sunset, and she gets a bit too sleepy to notice me following her steps, her gaze, her twirls, her laughter, her joy, her pain. I follow like a shadow unseen by my own maker. After all - such is the way of queens: they are blind to what’s behind them. And when I am forward, her head is too up high to see that I exist. That I am like her in so many ways: I have her shape. I have her frown. I have her smile. I have her curves. I have her taste. I have her voice. I have all those, but she cannot see me, because she is royalty and I am a mere shadow. I exist only in the shift of light. And such is the way of queens: they don’t see past their own light. And their light is forever bright, like a beam lighting the way for the commoners. For the people. And for their shadows.
​
She is Jerusalem royalty and I am merely her shadow. Aching for her to one day embrace me, acknowledge me, feel me, sense me, touch me, hold me. So we both will envelope in the illusion of equality together. But royalty and shadow are like oil and water. They don’t mix. Royalty is simply to bright to see any shades beyond its light. Such is the way of shadows: we hide. We lurk. We wait. We suffer. Alone. Like rats in dark alleys. Like prisoners in a noir film. We  only exist as a color and a frame and that is only to the very preceptive of us. The ones who see behind their own light. The one who aren’t royalty. Such is the way of the people: they see. They see what queens don’t.

A friend of mine is addicted to love.

When she is in love - it's euphoria. Fireworks. Roses. Drama. Tenderness. Passion. Life. Flow. It's butterflies and raindrops and jitters in her heart. It's sleepless nights. It's body aches. It's bodily pleasure. It's infatuation. It's deep. It's romantic. It's commitment. It's creation. It's forever. It's surrender.
When she is not - it's heartbreak. Devastation. Loneliness. Withdraws. Obsession. Search. It's anger. It's rage. Brutal lonely rage. It's tears on her pillow. Her one singular pillow. It's begging. Pleading. Confessing. Aching. It's pain. It's pain. It's pain.

I tell my friend - if you feel so high, you can soon feel so low.
Such is the cycle of life, like a seesaw we go up and down, up and down, and again... and again...
But addiction doesn't get healed with words.
Not words from a friend. And definitely not from a friend who doesn't believe in love. Or more so - that love doesn't believe in her.

I tell my friend to be grateful.
For when love appears, or when love chooses to disappear.
​Because not all of us have the capacity to feel. To get lost. To surrender. The ways she does.
To fall so low, one falls nowhere else but to a sickness, a disorder, an addiction.

So to all the love addicts out there: consider yourselves LUCKY. Consider yourselves BRAVE. Consider yourselves - LOVED.​

We struggle
To find words 
That would sum up 
A life taken too soon.
We struggle because
It is against our nature
To mourn a child.
It is beyond our comprehension
To bury the young.
It is our biggest collective sin 
To normalize children's death.
'America the great.'
You call yourself. 
And you greatly wrap yourself in armor
And in your beloved AR-15. 
You talk of equality 
But you segregate.
You talk of woman's rights
But you abort their choices.
You talk of freedom
But you fill your prisons. 
All for financial gain.
All for financial gain.
All for financial gain.
And while you gain -
We the people lose. 
We the people lose. 
We the people LOSE.

'It's All Invented.'

Let me repeat: IT'S ALL INVENTED.
All the world's a stage and you and I are mere players.

This is probably my most trusted mantra to remind myself of in times of need. It instantly gives me a sense of relief and an opportunity to create change and reclaim my story. Own the moment. So, life got you down and heavy? Tell yourself 'it's all invented' and see how a whimsical playful smile shows up on your face. Because is something is invented, and is a PLAY, then you can change the act your play is on at this very moment. You are the actor, director, stage manager and writer of this life play of yours. You don't like something about your life? CHANGE IT. 
*I realize this is one of those 'easy to say hard to do' life tips. Well, to that I say: (and quote from the book 'Untamed' by Glennon Doyle) WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!

DR. LOOST:
My name is Dr. Loost. 
Dr. Cathleen Loost. Cathleen Maureen Loost. My friends call me Cathy. My mother used to call me Mauri. My father called me 'champ.' My husband calls me 'Doc.' Or darlin', once in a blue moon when he's being romantic. My sister calls me... twice a week. My son calls me never. I am sixty five years old. sixty five young. Or sixty five old. Depending on the day. 
I've been a physician for as long as I've been married: thirty two years. My work life is as auto pilot as my love life at this time in my life. But I love what I do. Most days. And I love my husband. Some days. 
I am sixty five years old, which some would say is retirement age. 
My three best friends are all retired. They travel around the world. Go to the opera. The ballet. They take pottery class or learn a new language, and one of them even got her own private gigolo. A thirty years old tennis instructor named Philippe. 
I am sixty five years old but I have the work drive of a thirty year old. The thought of retiring is as crippling as the thought of going to a night club after ten pm on a week day. 
I love what I do. The patients, the challenges, the stakes, even the medical jargon that turns me on. I love it all. I love it so much I cannot imagine waking up in the morning without the sound of my alarm clock urging me to get up on my feet, wear my scrubs and schlep my physician kit out the door. But alas, my eyes are getting tired, and my three best friends are urging me to join their escapades and maybe even sexcapades around the world.
My husband is as neutral about this as Switzerland, and my son thinks I should work until the hospital tells me I must stop. But mainly because he blew out all of his cash on bitcoin so he's counting on me to make him rich.
So in the meantime, I wait.
I wait for a sign to tell me 'it's time'. I wait for Switzerland to rise up to the occasion, and I wait for work to show me that there's more to life other than work. So far I have not seen that. So I wait. I wait and I work. I work, and I wait... 

To start off my newest blog category,
​here's a random and possibly off list of things I am not good at:

*Riding a bicycle. Yup, for real. Don't tell ME 'it's just like riding a bike' and expect me to follow along. lol. 
*Baking Challah bread. This one is surprising, as I am pretty good at braiding... but the mystery of baking combined with making Challah bread's braids even and esthetic is not my strong suit. Must improve this one. Oy vey!
*Apologizing. I am one of those that can't just 'apologize and shut up.' I can apologize - I am willing to admit when I'm wrong - but I usually find myself excusing, explaining or justifying along with my apology... Gotta work on that. Ugh.
*Blow Drying my hair. I'm a curly girl, alright??? And it's really hard to blow dry one's own hair. I am honestly in awe of people who can blow dry their hair at home as if they just went to a salon. Major skills that I DON'T have. 
*Small Talk. Okay... okay... this one I can actually do quite well. But I HATE it so much so I just DON'T small talk. I like to talk BIG. Like - for real. Talk in depth. GO there and not just talk about the weather. 
*Not interrupt while someone is talking. Maybe it's a cultural thing... or fighting to be able to speak my voice... but I have a hard time stopping myself from the horribly rude habit of interrupting when someone speaks. Is it that I'm having too much coffee!? Or that I just can't wait to blurt out my opinion!? Or is it out of fear that I won't be heard!? Who knows. I just know I gotta get better at this. I GOTTA.
*Daily meditating. I used to be pretty consistent at this beautiful act of self love, but I fell off the wagon and must. get. back. to. this. soon!
*Making new friends. Is anyone good at this??? I can make acquaintances. But friends? Real friends are hard to come by.  They take time and a whole lot of trust, and the older I get - the more introverted I become. 
​*Keeping my closet & car tidy. My car is a dusty messy disaster and my closet is over-flooded with unfolded clothes. I'm not sure where and how and why I picked up those habits in just these two areas of my life but BOY it's weird. 

More confessions to come...!

Thoughts? 
I have ONE:
Schools should carry books, not GUNS.
Prayers?
I have NONE.
Not until major change will finally get DONE.
​***

If I could only
Do it all over again
I'd choose a world without 
'I told you so'
And the cycle of violence. 
I'd choose a world that has no feuds
No wars no hate no despair
In this chosen world, 
Parents send their kids to school
And no gunman awaits them
No news story again
That breaks our hearts.
In this chosen world,
No child goes unloved
No child goes wounded 
Just to wound others like him
In this chosen world,
There'd be no weapons
And most importantly: 
NO NEED for weapons.
In this chosen world,
​The words 'Active Shooter'
Wouldn't mean a thing.

If I could only
Do it all over again.

We all have childhood wounds.
Some are darker than others, but wounds are wounds and they leave scars.
We all have different ways to tend to those wounds or heal those scars. Those are called 'coping mechanisms.'
Sometimes we have blind spots around what our coping mechanisms may be. Makes sense, really.
We've used these coping mechanisms for so long, they became part of our identities. They're 'how we protect ourselves in the world.' 'How we survived our family dynamic become how we survive any relationship moving forward.' But looking into them can help stop the cycle we seem to find ourselves in again and again.
So how do we see when we have blind spots??
Looking at our greatest needs - can help fill the gap and identify those coping mechanisms. 
What are your greatest needs? 
Don't know? Okay. We can try this another way:
What are important qualities for you in a partner or a friend? 
Shy, are we? 
Okay, I'll start.
For me, very important qualities in a partner are reliability, honesty and trust worthiness. There are other qualities I'm always on the hunt for, of course, but these point to a certain need. The need I have to feel safe (a universal need we all have) and what I consider 'safety' in a relationship which is reliability, honesty and trust worthiness. These needs to feel safe point to what made me feel unsafe to begin with: danger/unreliability, deception, and disloyalty. When I was a child, I can point to specific events or situations that made me feel unsafe in those specific ways. Do you see how the wounds show up behind our needs? 
Of course - identifying our needs and then wounds are only a starting point.
A starting point in the journey of healing. Of self awareness. Of release. Of breaking the cycle. Of having a clear view and not operating from a state of a blind spots.
We all have wounds, and therefore needs. When we identify them, only then can we actually look into them. Maybe we'll find better ways to fulfill those needs.
Maybe our relationships will deepen in understanding.
​Maybe WE will deepen our understanding on ourselves. 
​And... time is up. 
​Until next week...