Today is Day 4 of a positve Covid test. I am not angry about the fact that we now have another virus we must educate ourselves about, but I am angry that I once again allowed my laziness to place me in this situation of having to miss parties with old colleagues because I did not take getting a booster more seriously… I listened to others and not myself… I know better and yet in order to feel accepted I did not listen to myself.

The thoughts that came to mind this morning as I cried into my cup of tea were:

We need to believe people and we need to trust ourselves more than we trust ANYONE else… more than the people we believe are smarter than us, more than the people we have committed to “honor and respect til death do we part…”

One of the most horrific stories in my timeline grew worse and worse year after year because no one believed me and unfortunately it took the same thing happening to my nieces for anyone to believe me. The odd thing is… deep down they still do not believe me, they just felt bad that it happened to others. I still need to hear just one person to say to me, “I believe you.”

We need to believe people until something happens to prove they were not honest and then we need to ask why they felt the need to be dishonest, not blackball them because they lied to us and hurt us… obviously they are the one that is hurting, they are the one that needs support and they chose us to say what they needed to say because they trusted us to listen but at the time the untruth came out they did not feel safe enough to speak the truth. Trust that they want to be part of your circle… most people want to belong.

Two things my research taught me… care and respect enable people to thrive beyond even their own expectations.

We should care for others … other people, other cultures, other creatures.

We should repect others … other people, other cultures, other beliefs.

I am not endorsing acceptance if you do not believe as another believes, but I am saying we need to see that we do not grow and evolve if we say that one way is the only way… there is no text that was not written by man which states that there is only one way. This belief is manmade.

We have gotten as far as we have as a race, the human race, because we evolve whether we choose to or not… someone figured out how to use fire to cook and warm our bodies in the cold as opposed to dying off before we could get to the 21st century. Each day brings us new and exciting opportunities to be better than we were the day before… not just because of medicine when we are sick, but because if we care for and respect others we have the opportunity to offer forgiveness and enable ourselves and others to learn from past mistakes.

All I ask while I recover at home and miss out on parties with old colleagues is that we forgive each other from past mistakes, believe others when they choose to share with us, and learn something new every day.