I’m in a phase. I’m noticing a pattern and just trying to make peace with it. All is always well, right? Right.

In the past month, I have attended 8 full days of classes. Pretty intense personal growth classes that to an extent have me reeling. Well, maybe just a little bit of reeling but a whole lot of processing. There are times when I think my head is going to explode as I try to take the stuff I learned and apply it to real life situations. And I seem to have quite a few real life situations. Don’t we all. Isn’t it funny how the older we get, the more life situations we acquire? I sure do miss junior high sometimes…the simple days.

Of course, if I didn’t have Jakob, I wouldn’t have ever started on the path of personal growth. Another reason why I am so lucky to have him. I do cuss him a little, to be honest, when I go through these processing phases, they hurt. Literally. My head hurts.

I spent a week at the Option Institute/Autism Treatment Center of America taking a relationship course called “Never Settle Singles” and a long weekend here in town at the School of Conscious Living studying the Enneagram and Spiral Dynamics. I so love being a student again, I really do. But this is a totally different kind of learning. It’s so much fun to pick myself apart in every which way, let people take a few shots at me and learn exactly what I can and cannot handle. Then figure out how I’m gonna handle the stuff I struggle with. Fascinating. Way better than a week on the beach with a hot cabana boy bringing me frozen mudslides. That’s a totally different kind of personal growth.

A few years ago, I never would have understood the connection between all this stuff and Jakob. I wouldn’t have been able to see that the deeper understanding of self that I have, the deeper understanding of Jakob I’ll have. And if I can take a good hard look at the spiritual side of things, I can find an inner peace that reassures me in times of uncertainty that everything is as exactly it is meant to be. The more I can dig, the more I can grasp, the deeper I can feel it, the better we will both be.

So right now, I’m processing. And integrating. And drinking a glass of wine. White. And when this round of processing is through, I’ll read the new Twilight book and get back to ya…