Sink or swim

I did it.  I took 3 weeks and spent most of them solid with my parents in their world.  Church, cedar point, breakfasts lunches, dinners, company, grocery shopping.  Some of the time, if I am honest, only some of the time, have I been conscious enough to witness my reactions and feelings surrounding it all.  And judgment....well.  I have dealt with plenty of judgment.   From myself about my family and place of origin, towards my family.....

  I can tell that I will be processing this for a while to come.  Its been a large dose of strong medicine.   I am not sure how graceful it's been.    With my friends too I have had shifts.    My relationship to how I hear them and how I receive their influence feels less reactive.  Just a little.   I felt little shifts of seeing them differently as we interacted. 
I feel that much of what we go on for relationships is based on dead past.  We have months and years of stories and memories stacked up on top of the people we have relationship with.   Are we afraid to look honestly at the whole person we love? Are we unable to?  I found that in moments that I saw something in someone I had never seen before that I found my mind comparing myself to that thing.  Which sometimes created a sense of separation  and pain. 
   In my parents I find a different thing.   I am trying to peel them away from the stacks of memories and old known habits and encourage new choices..... like I'm counseling addicts....like I need them to change in a certain way which feels healthy to me.  Probably so I don't have to look at the dark parts of my own journey that I am working with.  If I heal me, maybe I can heal them, or if I heal them, maybe I can heal me. 

  The pain and the shadows here are my most difficult body of work.  I don't want to shy away, to back down, to run off and hide. 
             This must also be the place of deepest healing and truth.