Glimpse 12 - Contrast and Compare

I grew up in Minnesota. My families roots have been here for several generations. My 88 year old parents still live on their own, happily, within a one mile radius of where I was raised. A town they are well known in for their service, contribution and vision. When it became my turn to be an adult, I married, too young, for love that went terribly awry rather quickly. Marriage moved me out of Minnesota and in to the wilds and way backs of Central Louisiana as an Air Force wife. For a girl who had grown up in "Pleasantville", those first 18 months of life as..an adult..were full of life lessons and personal tragedies and the related strategies to extract myself to safety and a better life. What I learned then, as well as what I learned along my life journey has taught me much about myself and what I want for my life, the risks I'm willing to calculate, fall or rise from. I found I'm made of pretty strong stuff for a girl from "Pleasantville."

Today I get the pleasure, truly, of spending an hour or so with other graduates from my high school class - we call ourselves the Lunch Bunch. Moving home to MN after being on that road that has taken me through four well established careers and yet another marriage and divorce, surviving a rare form of cancer, the birth and womanhood of my only daughter and the physical and emotional embraces of thousands of good people and places. And I can tell you, it's been all good, some was just better.

As I contemplate meeting up with all those cronies from 1974 I find myself always 'preparing' to be amongst them, much like I've heard other people 'prepare' to be with their family during the holidays. In coaching, there is a term we teach coachee's about - it's called, "Contrast and Compare." And it is within those three words I find myself, each time I walk in to this group of fabulous, intelligent, fun loving, well lived life old friends and acquaintances. It takes me back to when I stood, cap and gown, blue and gold, the draft was ending, life seemed huge and the road before me now brings merit to "if I only knew now, what I knew then" as a truth in my own life.

I contrast and compare myself to the woman I was then, to the one I am now. In performing this step, in this case, my contrast today shows me, I had an intention for my life all along yet wasn't fully conscious or uncovering or utilizing it up until about 12 years ago. I also note that when I compare myself to the woman I was at 17 to the one who sits here this morning at 53, I do literally laugh out loud. The 17 or 53 year old me, remains, pretty much the same at the core. My innane sense of curiosity was born out of being scared to death of being seen as stupid and while much of that remains, I focus my curiosity now on pursuits that life me, attract me, that I want to learn or know about. My ability to sit on the phone for hours at a time as a young girl, listening, cajoleing or advising or coaching my male or female peers about whatever it was that was so damn difficult about life back then, remains and is now something I'm actually professionally trained, adept and quite good at doing - now, I get paid for it with money, as well as with the love and regard I once received as being part of their getting unstuck and moving forward.

Still, the other core value of mine (besides curiosity) that shows up today is one of connection. In this Lunch Bunch group, we all had a known place at one point - a place when we try to put the current round whole person into their old square peg, they just don't seem to fit as well. The quiet ones now have stories they tell, the loud ones seem to listen more, the jokesters are no longer cruel or indifferent to someone's feelings, the super intelligent ones still spend more time observing and are usually done eating first, most all have children, most all have dealt with tragedy, everyone defines success differently and shows up in or on their way to their version, talk of grandchildren and even retirement comes out of the mouths of people that just yesterday were 17, like me.

To me, it is so evident, we are all connected, no matter what we've done, or where we've gone, we all remain connected to some high school experience we sprung off and up and out from into the world - to only choose to return to a monthly lunch bunch, this many years later, even some of us as strangers to one another - because of the basis of a connection from Rosemount Senior High School, Class of 74, 73, 72, 75, 76. How powerful a connection is that? To want to break bread, re-learn and know, laugh with and touch the lives of people who used to wander the halls, pass notes, deal with the broken hearts, the bad grades, the winning of awards or athletics, family issues - who unknowingly but with bravery stood and stared out at life, took off and made of it what any of us has.

In contrast, I lived blindly for a lot of years, out of touch with who I showed up as versus just was - who I wanted to be and doing things I thought would lead me to something I thought I wanted to only figure out it wasn't "it". I'm still doing it, to a lesser degree than I was, but I'm still reacting to life more than responding to it in a lot of ways I'll figure out yet.

So what about it... This Lunch Bunch thing grounds me. It reminds me to continue to contrast and compare me, with me. It calls forward a gap in which I can constructively take some actions to support the difference I desire. It also supports me in connections with people who had a shared life experience with me in being planted, fertilized and blooming in to something quite as fabulous as we all truly are. I see them, in their beauty; having weathered their own storms, droughts, plagues and blights and I see the strength, the resilience, the compassion their 70's indominatable spirits built a life around. In knowing and receiving our past for how well it served us, perfectly, we savor our present. And, I need to savor my present far more consciously and often to have the life I desire.

My request for you today is that you too join me in contrasting and comparing your self/life to a point in time which stands out for you clearly. Compare who you were and what you wanted to today's version of you. What's in the gap of time that shows up as important to you? What feeds your soul? Puts gas in your engine? Compells you to continue to show up each and every day of your life? Now contrast. Go back to that same point and time and see what is different about you. And note how you gained those skills, strengths, weaknesses along the way. Is it what you wanted more of? If not, what do you want more of standing in the contrast of it all? What can you do, who can you connect with to inform and invite to play a new or slightly modified way with you, the way you consciously want to grow? Do let me know.

Until the next time, I'll finish up a few things here and then be off to lunch.