Finding Strength of Will

Had a conversation with my 8-year-old today.  He was angry because--before I go on I need to explain how big of a deal it is when he gets angry.  His face turns down into the most amazing scowl , his forehead wrinkles, his eyes start sparking little bits of flame, and you feel waves of anger rippling from him, as if he was the epicenter of some tremendous earthquake.  To explain further, this is the child that runs through the house enacting full-scale battles in his mind and who finds peace in the intense songs from the “How to Train Your Dragon” soundtrack.  So he was angry.  The type of angry that I just mentioned.  And he was angry because he couldn't play computer.  This may sound a bit childish, which wouldn't be incorrect because he is a child, but for him it’s much more than that.  What it really meant to him is that life was just not going the way he wanted it to.  Period.  And he was ANGRY about it.  In a moment of rare brilliance, here’s what I said to him: Yo

For several weeks now, maybe even a months, something has been bothering me.  I'll admit that I've been in a darker place emotionally, struggling, feeling weighed down and confused because of it.  It was not something I had even been able to formulate into words, like a shadow of a thought.  Visible yet without substance of its own.  And dark. Wrylon and I attended a wedding celebration a few weeks ago of a friend.  Our friend had married her partner in New York and was having the celebration here where home is for them.  Wrylon asked if it would be difficult for me going and seeing them together.  I assured her I would be fine. But it did bother me.  Not because of them, but because of my reaction.  Looking into my friend's eyes, seeing her happiness in finding someone she wants to spend her life with, threw me off guard at how happy I was for her.  She seemed to me to have it all, everything that you could hope for in this would.  She has a family, a daughter, a partn