1. Truth: There are some things I don’t tell you. Even though I’m pretty open, honest on this blog, there are a few things I just don’t write about here. Some are other people’s dis-ease, illness, and addiction, and some are my own. It seems like in the past year I’ve had to be quieter here than before because there’s been more of that going on behind the scenes. Take this vacation for example. Some major things have gone down that I can’t post about. I know that’s right, but part of me longs for the comfort of telling you.

2. Truth: I’m ready to go home, but I’m sad about leaving. We have one week left, and most of the time I feel simultaneously like I never want to leave AND I can’t get back to Colorado fast enough. It’s the strangest thing. I love it here so much — the beach, the ocean, the weather, all the green, the fresh berries and veggies and seafood, the long lazy days, two and a half hour walks every morning, naps, reading books, nowhere I have to be and nothing I have to do, family so close by. But I also love Colorado — the mountains, the river, the parks where we walk two hours every morning, my garden, my tiny little house with my comfortable bed and new bathroom, my friends, my favorite yoga teachers, my meditation cushion, my backyard, my physical therapist, the dogs’ vets, everything I’m used to and need right there. It’s confusing.

3. Truth: Just because something is the right choice doesn’t make it easy. I know it’s right to keep quiet about some things. I know it’s right that Eric and I live in Colorado, so far away from our families. I know that vacations have to end at some point. And just because something is true, inevitable even, doesn’t make it easy. I know that I can’t protect people I love or myself from bad things happening, that we are all going to get sick, lose our minds a little, make bad choices that have consequences, maybe even get old, and eventually die.

One wish: May we all get our version of whatever comfort and strength we need. No matter how bad it gets, may we find a way to keep going. May we find the magic and the medicine.

1. Truth: One of the ways I generate suffering for myself is by taking responsibility … for e v e r y thing. It can be incredibly painful. No matter what happens — someone I love is sick or someone else is in crisis or someone I don’t even know is suffering — my first reaction is I should do something. I feel responsible, think I should help or fix it, and when I can’t or I don’t know what to do, I suffer.

2. Truth: To not take responsibility is equally harmful. Someone I love very much is an addict, but the real issue isn’t so much her drug of choice but rather the ground of her addiction — her inability to take responsibility. It isn’t just that she doesn’t “take the blame” when she does something harmful, she also doesn’t see how she can make choices in her life, have some measure of control over what happens to her, that she can change things if she wants, make things better. She is trapped in the belief that her life happens to her.

3. Truth: There is always a middle way. We don’t have to take responsibility for everything, but it’s good to take some measure — to be accountable, involved, engaged, helpful. We can cultivate wisdom and compassion, have agency and practice the sanity of right action, and ask for forgiveness and make amends when we falter.

One wish: May we have “the serenity to accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”