I can describe your day for you, for it is mine and we are mirrors for each other. You had a disturbing dream last night and the sleep you got was hard-won. When you first woke up, you felt deeply troubled and you knew you had no answer for it.

You ate breakfast and begin to fret about the things in front of you to deal with. Only you didn’t want to deal with them. And you knew that your energy was not where it should be. You had placed it on the good opinion of other people. People just like you. Actors on the human stage. The best actors won, so acting was essential.

You spent time disliking your body, focusing on your hair and how little control you had over it. You rued your lack of muscle tone and had no real desire to do anything but care for it in a very superficial way.

As the day wore on, you begin to medicate yourself with food. Coffee, sugar, fat, crunchy things, chocolate. You knew that dieting would not happen today, although you certainly thought about it.

The people you encountered did not give you what you wanted, but what they wanted. It was altogether unsatisfactory, but you dared not give your act away. So you “made nice” and felt your anxiety increase. You always did your best and no one gave a damn.

In the evening the nightly news shared its horror stories with you in order to get your mechanical attention. Five minutes before they left the air, they showed you a story that made you want to believe in the goodness of humanity. But somehow it didn’t work because you knew yourself too well to be manipulated.

During this very long day on earth, you had glimpses of truth. You remembered a teacher, perhaps, that saw right through you. Who was hard on you. Who gave you blows in order to wake you up. But that teacher was gone now.

Now it is time for me to tell you this. You are that teacher.

Vicki Woodyard