Knowing Goodbye When It Arrives

“Good work,” my neurologist said, adding, “easy for me to say.” We were discussing my relapsing-remitting cervical myelopathy.

“It’s pretty much a full-time job,” was my response which did not surprise him but did me.

In over 40+ years of chronic auto immune disease, I refused to see it as my full-time anything. Just the opposite, which was rarely to my benefit, as the years passed and the damage to my immune system increased. Why would cervical myelopathy be any different?

Always, it has been the writing, even when I had a day job, and when I became permanently disabled in 2010, writing was my priority. It has always been what I love most, more than relationships and more than my own health.

So that moment in January with my neurologist was the first time I had not referred to writing as my raison d’etre. Or was it? Maybe not. Winter is always the most difficult season for me and this one exceptionally so.

A couple months ago my primary care physician asked, “And where are we with the writing?” Usually, the entire appointment centered around getting more writing time and how we might make that happen.

“I can’t write every day but I’m okay with that.”

Her eyebrows shot up in response but as I said no more neither did she. Even in winter I had maintained a regular if not daily writing routine but this year, no.

It seems my full-time job has changed. And here I am, writing my last post on aimforeven.com.

I am reminded of the wisdom of my five-year-old nephew who told me, “my mom says I don’t always get what I want.” He said it so matter-of-factly and with complete acceptance. From what I know of him as a man, those words align with the way he lives. I can only aspire.

But it’s good to end something when you still love the work, still believe in its worth.

I envisioned this blog as a collection that I would expand into a small book of essays about living life evenly–meeting life as it comes–walking through the door of equanimity every morning–no matter what–and aiming for even.

Not all ideas become books (nor should they).

A blog is a way to explore an idea, if for no other reason than to find out what it isn’t. To Aim for Even isn’t an escape from reality or a false-bottom peace. AFE is engaging in life as it comes, raw and unfiltered. Meeting people as they are–impossible as that may seem–trusting in the “basic goodness” in each of us without being a fool for it.

Might have been a decent book.

AFE is trying on equanimity for the first time each day with no illusions. I live this idea–it is the heart of my life practice–“staying even” means letting my emotions zigzag while I do not. I grab their energy but not their drama. Let them ride the roller coaster. I prefer the ground.

I will continue to post on KMHubersblog.com, now in its eighth year. “Zen with a bite” is how friend August McLaughlin refers to my work. I like that so much I have adopted it as the new tagline for the blog.

Aimforeven.com will stay up for a while, at least until it is time to pay my annual fee and domain renewal. Many of you follow both blogs–thank you for that–for those who don’t, I hope to see you over at KM Huber’s blog.com where my work continues.

I’m not done with writing but I am aware that no thing and no one goes on forever. That said, I continue to revamp a 30-year-old novel and am 180+ pages into an initial draft. I have a good chance of finishing it before I die, which really is the only point of finishing. It is my project for life.

When more of us learn to trust our basic goodness, society will get stronger. This doesn’t mean there won’t be hard times. It doesn’t mean violence, injustice, and poverty will end. It doesn’t mean the polar icecaps won’t melt and the water in the oceans won’t rise.

But it does mean that there will be a lot of resilient people who will never give up on humanity and will always be around to help others.

It does mean that when things get rough, it will bring out the best in people, rather than the worst. If we learn how not to lose heart, we will always find ways to make important contributions to our world.

Excerpted from:

Welcoming the Unwelcome

Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World

by Pema Chödrön, page 56

Thank you, thank you for the past 3 ½ years. I’ve enjoyed our time here.