A Waken: Happy 4th Anniversary PeerRxMed!

“Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen …. Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world.”  Brene Brown (The Gifts of Imperfection). 

This week marks the 4th Anniversary of the launch of the PeerRxMed process and 14 years since the vision for PeerRx was first planted in me.   For each of the over 200 times I’ve shared a blog since then, I still feel that same vulnerability I felt when I first hit the “make public” button on the PeerRxMed website and the program was officially “out there.”

In that first blog, I wrote the following, “Those of you who know me well will likely be surprised as to how hard it was for me to do this.  The vulnerability I have been feeling at the prospect of sharing this dream more widely has at times been stifling … as I was allowing my fears that it wouldn’t be ‘perfect’ or some might think it was ‘soft’ or ‘trite’ and the potential criticism that may arise to prevent me from moving ahead.  It’s the same reason that in the past I have shared the poetry I write with so few people, even though I consider it to be a vital expression of who I am.” 

I went on to write; “It is my suspicion that many of us don’t allow wonderful, deeply important parts of ourselves to be “seen” due to our fear as to how those parts will be received.   And in the process, we don’t really bring our “authentic selves” to the world.  If that is true for you, what are some of those parts of you and what prevents you from sharing more?”

As I reflected this week on the incredible journey that the PeerRx process has taken since that time, I had a realization regarding that first blog.  Though I have shared the works of other poets on the blog, I have never shared any of my own poetry that I consider to be “a vital expression of who I am.”

So on the “4th Anniversary” of PeerRxMed, I share with you (below) a poem that in many ways has come to serve as an expression of my “essence.”  It is my hope that it might speak to you something “essential” in you as well. 

A Waken

The colors

    that made up the living portrait that was tonight’s sunset ...

           where did they come from ... where did the idea for them come from!?

  I could give them names ... cloudly pink ... endless sky orange ... deep thought gray ....

                                                       ... wistful blue ...

            I could...

                                        but instead I have named them ... “Wow!” ...

  As I paint the living portrait of my Soul,

this Life,

it is from the sunset palette that I

   want to choose my colors ...

  Breathless is the only punctuation mark

worthy of ending this moment

   called today ...

 ............................................................................

                      There will be

                                            a next

                                                          ... perhaps ...

                                                                                  and a last ...

                                                                                                      sunset ...

                                                          ... also ...

smile

dance touch

                          kiss     song laugh

                                                 tear hug  

  goodbye

                                                      and Now is both

                                                         never again ...  

                                                      and only, always ....         

                                                   May it too ... often end

                                                                                        with

                                                                                                    Breathless ….