I’ve been quiet here - always a signal to my mom that something is going on with me. Only, I just spent time with her which means she is not wondering what’s going on with me. She knows. Front road seat. Monday night was the last night I spent in Illinois this time around. I snuck into Illinois with no fanfare, no announcement heralding my arrival in advance. Other than my mom, and whomever she may have told, no one in Illinois was aware of my visit. I was tired heading into this trip - mentally. As I climbed into bed Monday night, I thought, “Maybe I can just hide out here a while longer?” An irrational thought dismissed as soon as it arose. Andrea had been managing our pets, which is a lot more challenging for one person than it sounds. On top of this, she’s been managing a big work change that will impact us both. I wanted to make an analogy about how this was a slow blooming plant, taking 4 months to bloom, but couldn’t find such a plant. Rather, I found plants that take years to bloom and that’s probably a more accurate analogy. The Night blooming Cereus begin to bloom flowers after four or five years, and it starts with just two flowers. The blooms of the flower increase as the time passes and the plant grows older. The flowers produce a wonderful scent. This sounds right as I think back to when Andrea left a particular organization and was given the advice to “find and use her voice.” That she did. I’ve been listening to this book, Everything is Figureoutable, by Marie Forleo. I generally believe this to be true but I needed to hear it from someone who took the time to write an entire book on this. Forleo has exercises in the book to figure out what perhaps initially seems unfigureoutable. October is barely on the other side of this weekend - the home stretch of 2019 is ahead of us and 2020 is in view. Figureoutable.