In preparation to write this month’s post, I reread my first one. It’s funny how prophetic I can be sometimes. In there I cited the need to be aware and consistently lean into my direction, least I risk losing sight of what’s important to me. Rather, least I risk having misdirected goals.

On the night of my 27th birthday a man blessed me. Technically, it was the early morning the day after, in the cerebral twilight that I walk though sometimes. I was at a 4am bar, the kind of place where you can spill a drink, dance, or do anything else and no one notices.

So in this bastion of warm shoulders, I am offered to bless me as the bar closes. I bow my head, he places his on it and proceeds to stammer on with sagely advice. He’s repeats himself, stammers, he’s drunk. Like everyone else there. Despite that, he connected when he said, “are you rise into manhood, don’t let anyone or anything sway you from your clear headed priorities”. Or something like that.

I wonder what his Halloween custom is?

I bring him up because as the sheen of this adventure wears, I fear that I’ve lost sight of both of my transitional values. I’ve hesitated more, been more careless, and I’m not satisfied with my work product.

Today, we had a stimulating, difficult, long discussion on privilege and race. One salient proverb reminded me that feeling bad isn’t going to make anything better. Being ashamed of privilege isn’t going to put food in hungry people’s bellies. Moving forward I want lean back my driving motivators and meet my expectations.

No horses were harmed in the writing of this blog post.