Tag Archives: change your life

May7

Heroin rears it’s ugly head in suburbia

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Dear Friends,

The experience of writing this blog has proven to me that as different as we all may think we are we are all remarkably similar as well. The problems and concerns that hit me in Boston are also having the same effect on someone across the world. Records gathered from police, courts and the medical examiner shatter stereotypes about who gets sucked into this deadly vortex. It’s not all young adults. The median age of overdose victims is 41. And they’re not the dregs of society. They are homemakers, professionals, students and laborers. (Patriot Ledger) . One person every 8 days dies of a heroin/opiate overdose in my area and the numbers keep rising. I am impressed and encouraged by the actions of a small Massachusetts town Police Chief. I encourage you all to share/reblog this story with the hope that the approach will catch on. There may only be small things that anyone can do but sometimes the small ripples create the huge wave of change. Thank you.

https://www.facebook.com/GloucesterPoliceDepartment?fref=nf or http://gloucesterpd.com/blog

Gloucester Police Department (Official)
May 4 at 10:55am · Edited ·
PLEASE READ THIS POST:
On Saturday, May 2, the City held a forum regarding the opiate crisis, and on how Gloucester has many resources for help. We are poised to make revolutionary changes in the way we treat this DISEASE. Your Police Department vowed to take the following measures to assist, beginning June 1, 2015:
– Any addict who walks into the police station with the remainder of their drug equipment (needles, etc) or drugs and asks for help will NOT be charged. Instead we will walk them through the system toward detox and recovery. We will assign them an “angel” who will be their guide through the process. Not in hours or days, but on the spot. Addison Gilbert and Lahey Clinic have committed to helping fast track people that walk into the police department so that they can be assessed quickly and the proper care can be administered quickly.
– Nasal Narcan has just been made available at local pharmacies without a prescription. The police department has entered into an agreement with Conleys and is working on one with CVS that will allow anyone access to the drug at little to no cost regardless of their insurance. The police department will pay the cost of nasal narcan for those without insurance. We will pay for it with money seized from drug dealers during investigations. We will save lives with the money from the pockets of those who would take them. We recognize that nasal narcan is not the answer, but it is saving lives and no one in this City will be denied a life saving drug for this disease just because of a lack of insurance. Conleys has also agreed to assist with insurance requests from those who do not have any.
– I will personally travel to Washington DC, with the support of Mayor Theken, the City Council, Sen. Bruce Tarr, and Rep. Ann-Margaret Ferrante, on May 12 and 13. There I will meet with Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey and Congressman Seth Moulton. I will bring what Gloucester is accomplishing and challenge them to change, at the federal level, how we receive aid, support and assistance. I will bring the idea of how far Gloucester is willing to go to fight this disease and will ask them to hold federal agencies, insurance companies and big business accountable for building a support system that can eradicate opiate addiction and provide long term, sustainable support to reduce recidivism.
I am asking for your help. Like this post, send it to everyone you can think of and ask them to do the same. Speak your comments. Create strength in numbers. I will bring it with me to show how many voters are concerned about this issue. Lives are literally at stake. I have been on both sides of this issue, having spent 7 years as a plainclothes narcotics detective. I have arrested or charged many addicts and dealers. I’ve never arrested a tobacco addict, nor have I ever seen one turned down for help when they develop lung cancer, whether or not they have insurance. The reasons for the difference in care between a tobacco addict and an opiate addict is stigma and money. Petty reasons to lose a life.
Please help us make permanent change here in Gloucester.
Thank you,
Chief Campanello

May7

Detach with Love

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Detach-with-love

Whenever life takes a nasty turn I try to ask myself how did I contribute toward it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m neither a victim nor am I (any longer) the over responsible person who must blame themselves for everything. I just know that in order to change the route you must be aware of the place you came off the road, onto the bumpy dirt path, that led you into the swampy ditch. Then you can drag your muddy ass up out of the hole you find yourself in and never take that road again. This doesn’t happen if you don’t take responsibility for that first (or the second) wrong turn and learn from it.

The question is what do you do when you are watching someone else heading for the ditch and you can tell the hole they will be in might just swallow them up and they have no idea where they got off the road? You might think to jump in, waving your hands and screaming, “Save yourself” or “Watch out ahead.” Maybe you even throw yourself in the ditch a few times so they can step over your back avoiding most of the mud. But then how will they ever learn to change the route?

Sometimes, as painful and dangerous as it feels, the only answer is to let go and detach with love, standing to the side while letting your heart fly from your chest, into the ditch, and hope that somehow all the love you have in it will provide the strength to that lost soul to get back on the road that leads somewhere better.

The three things I cannot change are the past, the truth and you.
Anne LaMott

May17

How’s your Now??

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The thought passing through my mind that I can’t turn off was not as eloquently put as Anne’s, but the point was the same. What if I had postponed my happiness and waited to enjoy my life until that perfect time when everything was in order and everyone else was taken care of and I find out that I’ve waited too long and run out of time?

This concept has been weighing on me and I saw this Anne LaMott quote on my friend, Mimi’s, from http://waitingforthekarmatruck.com/ wall and it made me feel so good to know I’m not the only one having this thought. Well, especially if  Mimi and Anne LaMott were too!

When I was a child and old enough to realize that not every family had a drunken brawl every Saturday night I thought I’d be happy when I moved out and had a family of my own.

And then I did.

When I married and had a family of my own I thought I’d be happy when my divorce was final and he was finally out of the house.

And then he was.

Then I thought I’d be happy when I found love again, and then I did, and I was.

And then it ended

When I was alone with my children in my own home I thought the time would be right to be  happy when it was easier and they were all in school, when the oldest could help by driving, when the older two were in college, when the youngest drove, when the youngest was in college.

And then they all were

And I looked around and saw how much time had passed and asked myself why I didn’t enjoy the trip instead of focusing on the destination.

It’s something about turning 50 I think. Each day I remind myself that this very moment is the most important moment in my life. I may still have many years to do all that I want to do but I have only this instant to enjoy what is already in front of me.

Take inventory of all of the wonderful things you have to be grateful for and celebrate right now. It’s all you really have.

Learn from the past, set vivid, detailed goals for the future, and live in the only moment of time over which you have any control: now.
Denis Waitley

 

May9

Flight of Faith

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 If you could fly… …where would you fly ?

I imagine that I’d fly straight up into the sky and then back down to the ground as quickly as possible stopping at the last moment to pull up into flight again just because I could.

 Where would you fly ….if you could fly?

“The reason birds can fly and we can’t is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.” ― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

Jul7

The Moment of Truth or Holy Crap What Have I done?

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“Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.”  ~Aldous Huxley

I started this blog on a whim. This is absolutely untrue, of course, because I have been  writing, throwing my writing away, and dreaming of writing, since I was able to hold a pencil. Why do I want to pretend it’s just a silly thing I’ve given very little thought?

A whim by Dictionary.com definition is:

1.A sudden desire or change of mind, esp. one that is unusual or unexplained.

2.A windlass for raising ore or water from a mine.

So the need to write is most definitely not sudden, a change of mind or unexplained. Judging by how many others are writing, the desire is not all that unusual either.

It does feel a little like raising ore from a mine. You know that it’s in there but sweet mother it’s not that easy to get it out is it?

So now all I need to do is to find a psychological windlass that will dredge my soul of all of the homeless characters and the sadistic need to tell a story so that it is out of the mine, much like the monster in Alien, and on to this screen.

As proof that my sadistic tendencies run deep I currently have 27 days to produce a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 pages fit to present to ten others in addition to a published author at week long class I am taking at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts.

Now, I signed up for this sucker on a whim, I can promise you that!!

The moment of truth has arrived. It’s now or never. Shit or get off the pot, as my dear mother was fond of saying.

The countdown begins. Any and all encouragement is appreciated and needed.

I never dreamed of being Shakespeare or Goethe, and I never expected to hold the great mirror of truth up before the world; I dreamed only of being a little pocket mirror, the sort that a woman can carry in her purse; one that reflects small blemishes, and some great beauties, when held close enough to the heart.  ~Peter Altenberg
Jun11

Take that chance…go ahead, I dare you!

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Necessity is the mother of taking chances.

Mark Twain

It’s true. You can’t go home again. I tried and it didn’t work. I am not the same person and the house didn’t fit me anymore. I actually wonder what contortions of personality I had subjected myself to in order to make it fit the first time. Well, I obviously didn’t like it or I wouldn’t have left in the first place, right? 

Have you ever romanticized your past? Thought longingly that, given the chance, you’d do it all so differently. You’d be kinder, patient, more appreciative with the known and familiar.

Think again, my friends. The unknown, as scary as it might seem, is ripe with possibility. The past, while comfortable, lacks potential. That well-worn path leads you in the same direction each time you follow it.

To the house that didn’t fit, that you discarded, or that discarded you.

Forge a new path. Build a new home. Be brave. Take a chance.

Take chances, make mistakes. That’s how you grow. Pain nourishes your courage. You have to fail in order to practice being brave.

Mary Tyler Moore

 

Jun9

And the lesson is never give up…

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When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

Well hello! I’ve missed you all. I know; I disappeared. It was a temporary hiatus, but I always knew I was coming back. I started to read what I was writing and I found I was bored with myself. There was too much talking and not enough doing. So I’ve been doing. Clearing my mind, getting the business REALLY off the ground and reconnecting with friends and most importantly not giving up. I’ve learned from watching others with much heavier burdens than my own.

So many lesson in the last six months too.

Here in Boston the world came apart briefly in April and I watched as people rose to meet the horror and fought back with love for each other. It was pretty amazing.

I’ve watched two wonderful, inspirational people fight their own battles with cancer and they are kicking it’s ass every day.

I’ve watched from afar while another incredibly inspirational person reinvented herself and is now doing her best to spread joy in the world. Her latest feat is raising money for cancer research; the terrorist that took her husband.

She is kicking some ass there too. Excuse my French (why do people say that?).

So it seemed like a good time to resurface and pass on a little encouragement for my friend Jacque. Fight the good fight, my friend. She doesn’t believe in giving up.

If you’d like to check her out and perhaps donate: http://www.joyfulonpurpose.com/giving/

Jul16

The Value of Time

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Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.

M.Scott Peck

How much is your time worth? Having been a consultant that charged by the hour, a project worker who has charged by the job completed, a teacher who was paid by the school year regardless of hours worked, and a waitress paid by the satisfaction of the customer, I know it can’t be measured in terms of the clock or financial compensation

We can measure it in terms of achievements or projects completed. Maybe we measure it in terms of time wasted or opportunities lost?

I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately and how much I have left. I’ve realized how much I want to do and also that if I live to be 150 I’d never have a chance to do it all. Therefore, I need to get busy loving, seeing, doing and experiencing.

For me, the true measure of the value of time will be  how much joy was packed into every moment. How about you?

Time is an equal opportunity employer.  Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day.  Rich people can’t buy more hours.  Scientists can’t invent new minutes.  And you can’t save time to spend it on another day.  Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving.  No matter how much time you’ve wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.  ~Denis Waitely

Jun6

Feast on Your Life

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Love After Love

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott