So, what did you learn?

Most vacation recaps center around, “What did you do?”  Where did you go, What did you eat, What did you bring me back;)  But I am infinitely more inspired by the question: What did I learn?

I can divide my reflections from the past 5 weeks into two categories: what was confirmed, and what was new.

Confirmed Info about Molly:

• Good coffee is the key to a good day.
• Compression socks are a godsend.
• Journal and meditation (with above-mentioned coffee) are a daily imperative.
• Spending a week with my mom is challenging.
• Spending time with my mom is fun.

New Info about Molly:

• I am an “arranger.”  I will adjust my surroundings to suit my needs, literally.  Need the armchair at the indie bookstore to be by the window? Move it.  Need a hot water kettle for your coffee? Buy one.  Want to sit on the dorm patio to watch the vivacious, vicious thunderstorm?  Roll in a chair from a vacant dorm room.  —  I hadn’t realized this was a habit, or quality, of myself until another teacher in my month-long PD in Amherst pointed it out as I poured hot water over a travel cone of local coffee into a newly purchased giant mug.  He reflected that I do this: I arrange things how I need them.  Cool!
• I am susceptible to the black-hole vacuum of others’ needs.  I have tools to ground myself (going for walks, to meetings, envisioning a tree), but my marrow setting is to allow my attention, my whole interior monologue, to be consumed and overwritten by your moment-to-moment needs.  This is not entirely new information, but it shed brighter light on my relationship patterns and gave me compassionate perspective on how I grew up and how these patterns formed.  Which will in turn, one hopes, help me repair that gulf between me and myself in challenging circumstances.
• I love where I live so much it brought tears when I finally sat this morning with my (giant) mug at my kitchen table and no pants.  (Privacy, you are a gift!!)  All here is “arranged” as I need, and I am beyond grateful for a warm place to call home in a neighborhood that provides what I need just a walk away.

There will be more to learn and grow from as I readjust to my life here (the least of which is the time zone!).  But as I settle in, I know that what I’ve learned of myself is one of the truest gifts of my travel.

Welcome back, readers.