The more I write, the rawer it becomes. I think that is a good thing. January sort of primes the pump for self-honesty. The chocolates have been eaten, the mess has been put away and now I am left with who I really am.

My voice took a hit back in November and has not fully recovered. I am hating the cold weather and am postponing trivial things on my to-do list. All I can do is mark time right now.

The paperwork for waking up has not been turned in. That sentence made me smile. Those that claim to have them are not enlightened but in full-on delusion.

If you wonder what I mean by paperwork, I mean what the interviewers read before introducing their awakened guest of the week. That is the part where I begin to nod off, for no one is their paperwork.

I have never gotten through an entire hour of someone interviewing an awakened human being. I am pretty sure that is because they did not live up to the hype, often written by themselves originally and requoted. That is how you learn to cut off the ends of a pot roast before cooking it. (If you don’t get this reference, see me after class.)

Vernon Howard told us more than once that not a single one of us had gotten it. That is why I have never turned in my paperwork.

Sometimes I teeter on the brink but somehow the brink always wins. Vernon knew that.

Vicki Woodyard