The Hear and Now

A long, long time ago I read the book "Just Who Will you Be?" by Maria Shriver.
My dad sent it to me during the crisis period when my marriage went wrong.
I found it when painting my house for the first time in 12 years, as I started cleaning the stuff from above my computer.
My dad wrote: "You may choose to use some of her poetry in your own speeches in the future. Or personally, it may help you through this phase of your life, this crisis, and this growth period and help you find out "Just Who You Will Be."

I ran into my psycho-therapist from four years ago, who I went to during that crisis time to try to figure out who I was, what I wanted and how to save myself, my family and my kids. Suddenly life was taking me down another road and I didn't know myself well enough to put myself back on track in the land of comfort and family and love.

Everything was changing. I was changing.
Sometimes, as much as we would like to avoid the change, we just flat out can't.

When I first went to the therapist, I was in the phase where I had to corner my CI surgeon in a room to explain to him my objectives for creating a questionnaire on Pediatricians' knowledge of Newborn Hearing Screening, and that he needed to trust me. I literally closed him in an office upstairs in the hospital and told him I needed five minutes of his time to explain my ideas. At the end of the five minutes, he kind of stuttered and said, "Ok."
 
My last therapy session...was just before I went to speak at the Fimp Congress in Rome before 1,100 pediatricians and he told me to draw an imaginary circle and throw all my fears outside that circle.

I did.

Four years have passed since that Congress in Rome, when I saw him at the supermarket, I stared at him intensely before it finally hit me who he was.
And then, it hit me who I am.
I'm still not sure who I'll be, but I know who I am.
It's been an interesting four years...