And on the third day....

It is Tuesday....a little overcast, more than a little chilly....November. I am waiting for a subpoena to arrive that may or may not result in my spending the afternoon in court. The attorney called yesterday to let me know I may be called. She is not my client's attorney but represents someone who is fighting with him about things that are very painful for him. I tried to explain that going to court and saying the things that I would have to say there might not be the best for my therapeutic relationship with him. My sense was that she didn't care so much. And I guess that it's her job....to care more for her client than for mine....to fight for her client's "side" in the courtroom...just as I advocate for the mental health of mine, and the chance that we might get to still work together towards that. I hope if I have to testify he understands that I am not a volunteer.

Gratitude....yep, some days it's a stretch. To be grateful that I do not find myself in some of the life predicaments of others seems, to say the least....a bit unfeeling...and yet, to be perfectly honest....I am. "There but for the grace of God," I do think sometimes. The mistakes, the missteps that get people in some of the most horrible messes....they are sometimes really not that egregious.... but rather simply thoughtless, human. A lapse in judgement, a loss of awareness, a start down the wrong path....and one thing leads to another. And it seems that some people start out in the wrong spot before they ever begin. I am constantly amazed by the vast amounts of simple things that people don't know, don't understand. Not facts necessarily, but knowledge and understanding about the way people function, cope and manage the "how to's" of life at some pretty basic levels. So I'm grateful that while I didn't have the greatest of beginnings, I got the basics. And for whatever reason, I was fortunate enough to have people and events come into my life to provide the advanced course when I was ready. And while I make my share and more of mistakes, blunder along and mess things up along the way in the usual ways, I think I can safely predict at this point that I won't be doing any jail time, having any OFPs against me, or seeing my name in the paper for a DUI or a disorderly conduct charge. Perhaps it's a strange thing to be grateful for, but that's where my head is today.

Just a little update....and a gratitude: I don't have to testify....they settled! Thanks be to God for people who can find it in their hearts to do whatever they did...compromise, forgive, let go. We all need to do that a little bit somehow, somewhere, everyday. A good reminder....for them it was a big thing, in my life usually it's little bits and pieces....but I'm just as attached to them. My prayer for today is to help me to be grateful for all that I have been given and at the same time to hold it all very lightly, remembering how truly little there is that is really worth fighting over.