.

If you figure this out.

If you understand.

If you wait long enough…

How to get where you’re going?

You go to school to learn. You stand in line. Because you’ve stood in line before, you know who’s smart/makes good grades; who’s smart/popular. But how does that get you… where you want to go?

From early on, I could detect the different strategies my four children used.

Nika at age 3 was asking about God. In fourth grade, her teacher shared with me her observation: it seemed as if Nika was just staring out the window. But then, out of nowhere, she would come up with the solution to the math problem in a totally different way than had been described in class. Deep thinking her way forward.

Hunter did her homework. Good student. But what Hunter could do better than others was help. From when she was a very small child, she was helping me take care of Ariella: 18 months younger. Hunter would sense when her younger sister was sad and sit on Ariella’s chair smooshed next to her at the dinner table. Hunter knew when someone needed comfort and how to give it. From the moment she started school, she befriended those who needed her loving kindness.

Ariella was eager from the get-go. I’m READY! to learn it all, try anything: swing me around, let me go to daycare, pre-kindergarten, dance class, soccer, “Am I learning enough in public school?” she transferred to Winsor in Grade 5, off to an ever-widening world.

And dear Samsun was accused early on of plagiarism: what fourth grader would know those words? In high school, he aced the SATs and didn’t bother to go to boring classes. Colleges looked at SAT scores, right?

In my journey with Lyme, I’ve felt particularly challenged in terms of figuring out the best way forward. How to find my way. Obviously, ask the smart doctor whose done lots of school. But hospital tests turned up nothing and my repeated visits earned me the reputation of hypochondriac. Pain and then fear of pain seemed to incur more pain and more fear.

The best advice I got was the nurse practitioner who told me that I needed to seek alternative medicine. It was like searching in the dark. At some point, someone suggested I had Lyme. I lucked out and got a session with Sue, an amazingly knowledgeable herbalist. After the rough ride of killing off a lot of the Lyme, I added in another method. And then another. I’m now starting homeopathic medicine. Because it took so long to diagnose, my Lyme had morphed into co-infections so I’ve needed to add more potent tools beyond the herbs.

I work with some amazing people and the message I get more than any other is: trust yourself. YOU know. You KNOW.

Peaches knows.