When I was still young

When I was only 18, I never thought I would be happy. Neither was I aware that you could leave an unhappy home, even though it wasn’t far from then.

Now I know that this is one of the most important things to learn. Leaving, when it is necessary. I’m still struggling when it is time. But I listen. I heard clearly enough „you know what you have to do!“.

When I leave at a point that others think is silly, I know there was still something to learn.

Of course, when you finally understood, you are wondering why it took so long. It seemed obvious.

And doesn’t love solve everything?

When I started listening to the lyrics of music, I wondered why every song was about love. Is there no other topic, was my thought? I became angry. There was so little love to be found in our familiy and that was what it was all about? How should I get there?

When I grew up, love changed. Finding a relationship became important and romantic love was the only thing to get. Not getting the love I needed in my early childhood days, I made some very poor efforts in this field during youth. Listening to the same songs, I became aware that love was their theme, but loss of love was what these songs were about. So I wasn’t alone.

Growing old, I finally realize that we are only talking about the things we didn’t solve during our lives. So I am happy to say I don’t need to talk too much these days. And romantic love is not the one thing to get, but just one way to become aware of what love might do. It changes you from fighting to trusting. And it has been the persons I really trust that gave it in a way, I haven’t forgotten after twenty and more years, and it was always refused by people I was constantly thinking about.

Today, I’m having friends over

It was and still is my pleasure to say, I have dear friends.

Friends that now stayed with me for twenty, thirty years. Friends that where there when my heart couldn’t stand any more. Friends that talked to me when I thought I was lonely because someone would not.

I am happy to have you, I want to say. But I am not doing this too often. The next generation teaches me to be careful and generous with words at the same time. More than once I was astonished how nicely they put their words together to make you feel warm and welcome.

When it was at me to express the same feelings, I had to overcome the feeling it would be wrong to give too much.

Not being wanted. Not wanting to be hurt or rejected? Of course these were the reasons. But when it is the other way around, I always regret people don’t find the courage to do so.

Beauty

It wasn’t enough, GOD, that you said you would always be there. I missed people.

When it was worst and I thought about what I needed most, beauty came to my mind. So I travelled to Rome, where beauty is all around, and found exactly what I needed. Beauty in myself, sometimes even seen by others.

So these other people are there to show us sometimes what we can’t see anymore or won’t accept. Easier to see and accept when others do it. Just your way again to say „I am here“, to send them my way. Thank you.

Consoling

When I saw that little child rocking to and fro and nobody there to comfort it, I was told she did that to comfort herself. Since then, when I see a movie and someone doing exactly this, it is always proved right. A person in a stressful situation, trying to comfort himself.

When I now see a person doing this, I try to be in charge. It doesn’t matter who and why it is. It is just a more beautiful world if we care.

Replay

When my little girl was four, she would ask me for the first time, what was the best thing that happened to you, ever…

And you expect me now to write, it was you, girlie.

She expected me to say something like that big ice cream sundae, my parents bought me on a hot summer day when I was about your age.

But that real best thing that happened to me was the education I could get which led to a life led in independence and some freedom. And I told my girl so.

Three Thirds of a Life

The first Third was only to survive. You sure think, it will never end.

The second Third taught me to live. A longer way, more demanding, more promising than the first.

The third Third now should be for living. The decisions are all mine now.

This might be the main difference. That this first third did not ask me to decide. And did not grant the right. The second one was for errors also, which you cannot prevent when learning to live. My wish now would be that this third is free of errors. But be careful whenever this word appears. Wish.

My kingdom of heaven

My kingdom of heaven started, when I started listening instead of shouting.

My kingdom of heaven is a unique place, the place where GOD tells me what I should do. I am myself in touch with heaven. May other persons proclaim it’s only them.

Because I tried hard. And I became silent. And I started to listen instead of asking for things.

Things to happen, things I wanted, things that GOD should do for me. I started rambling about wishes, and what I wanted to do, and to have, while GOD started to show me what really nourishes me, and I had to admit after a while that GOD was right, not me.

my conversation with GOD

This was, what happended during meditation.

The days that passed since then let me know that. Not by thinking about it, but by repeating it over and over again. Over years, over decades. Repeating meditation was my greatest ambition.

There were times I would return to my hotel room from work at lunch break, just to have the opportunity to be alone for some minutes and try again. Silence of my thoughts. A relief.

Just think about what this would do for your day.

Six months before

Six months before, when I woke up, there seemed to be writing on the wall opposite my bed. There stood „everything is changing from now on“.

I wasn’t afraid. Maybe I should have been. I went to my knees, and everything I had, went. No self-control, no pulling together any more. Myself, flooded in tears I had spared the years before. Now shedding them whenever I was awake and don’t seem to be able to stop.

„Try meditation“, my sister said to me one day on the phone. She might have been tired consoling me and also was right in telling me I had to do something myself.

Become aware of the thoughts in your head. Watch these thoughts without judging. They are only shreds of energy. Let them pass like clouds in the sky.

I didn’t think that would have much effect, but I tried. This was a revelation.

It took three minutes to become happier than ever in my life.