Author: Ryan Klette

  • Thresholds – Week 3: The Dance of Yun

    Thresholds – Week 3: The Dance of Yun

    Holding Both: Receptivity and Action / Trust and Flow

    “Not too tight, not too loose.” — Joseph Goldstein

    “The Tao begot one, One begot two, Two begot three, And three begot the ten thousand things.” — Tao Te Ching, Ch. 42

    “When we really allow Yin to be Yin and Yang to be Yang… we recognise that which is new – that which is being born.” — Ya’Acov & Susannah Darling Khan

    🌗 The Theme

    Joseph Goldstein often says in meditation: “Not too tight, not too loose.”
    It’s a simple line, but it captures an entire way of living. Too tight, and we lose receptivity — we grip, control, and over-effort. Too loose, and we drift — disconnected, unanchored, and unsure.
    The middle ground, the dynamic balance between the two, is where life becomes most alive.

    This week we enter the Temple of Yun — the living dance between opposites.
    Yun is not a balance point, but a relationship: the ongoing movement between Yin and Yang, between stillness and expression, trust and direction.

    It’s the third force that’s born when we allow opposites to meet.
    In Jung’s terms, it’s the transcendent function, holding tension long enough for something new to appear.
    In Steven Kotler’s language, it’s the state of flow, the merging of focus and surrender, when doing becomes being.

    🌬️ The Spirit of Neutrality

    In different traditions, this creative middle space carries many names:

    • In Taoism, it is called Yun — the meeting of Yin and Yang, the movement of creation itself.
    • In the Andean tradition, Yanantin speaks of sacred duality, a space of neutrality that holds open the gate for what has not yet been dreamt.
    • Among the Sapara of the Ecuadorian Amazon, Tsamaraw refers to the spirit of neutrality — alive, unpredictable, and full of eros.
    • In Hebrew mysticism, this is echoed in Tiferet — beauty born of harmony, the heart that reconciles mercy and strength — and in Ruach, spirit, breath, wind, the movement that connects what is above and below.
    • In Buddhism, it is the Middle Way — the path between effort and ease, indulgence and denial, where awakening ripens.
    • In ancient Egyptian wisdom, Ma’at names the principle of balance between chaos and order, the rhythm that keeps the world aligned.

    Neutrality here isn’t numbness or passivity. It’s the fertile space where Yin and Yang are both allowed to be fully themselves. When each pole is honoured, a third force arises — creative, erotic, emergent. That’s the song of Yun.

    💫 Trusting Life

    We don’t always act as if we believe that life is supporting us.
    When we’re in survival states — anxious, guarded, self-protective — it can be hard to sense life’s underlying goodness.
    But as Joseph Campbell reminded us, we can act as if a mythology were true.
    Even when we doubt the story, we can step into it and try it on.

    “The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.”

    — Joseph Campbell

    So, what are the thresholds you’re being asked to cross?
    Where do you feel the quiet call — and where do you resist it?

    What if life is supporting you?
    What if the small impulses, to rest, to reach out, to begin again are life itself calling you forward?

    Many traditions speak of an unbroken self within, an inner current that knows the way.
    It rarely takes us on the easy path, but it’s the one that leads to deeper fulfilment.
    To walk that road is to walk a sacred path.

    We often get caught in the waiting game — waiting for signs, clarity, permission — while life is already happening inside us.
    Yun is the practice of noticing that movement and choosing to join it.

    ⚡ Flow Triggers

    Modern research offers a practical lens for the same mystery.
    According to Steven Kotler, flow is a state of full engagement, when our attention, body, and purpose align completely. It’s the lived experience of Yun: presence that’s both focused and surrendered.

    Below is a fuller map of flow triggers, conditions that make this state more accessible.
    You don’t need all of them. Start by experimenting with a few that help you rebalance the active and receptive in your life.

    Psychological Triggers

    Intense concentration or deep focus.
    Clear goals — knowing what you’re doing and why.
    Immediate feedback — sensing results moment to moment.
    Challenge–skills balance — the edge where ability meets difficulty.
    A sense of control, held lightly.
    Intrinsic motivation — doing it for the joy of doing it.

    Environmental Triggers

    A rich, novel environment that sparks curiosity.
    Deep embodiment — engaging the body and senses.
    Meaningful risk — enough stakes to demand presence.
    Clear boundaries — ritual, time, or structure that holds attention.
    A safe but stimulating space that invites growth.

    Social Triggers

    Mutual focus and deep listening.
    Shared goals and transparent communication.
    Equal participation and psychological safety.
    Trust and familiarity.
    Moments when ego softens and we move as one.

    Creative / Neurobiological Triggers

    Novelty and unpredictability.
    Pattern recognition and insight moments.
    Movement and breath practices that regulate energy.
    Cycles of deep effort and real recovery.
    Meditation and mindfulness.
    Social belonging and empathy — co-regulation and shared resonance.

    Kotler reminds us that flow follows focus. It’s not about intensity but presence, the willingness to give ourselves fully to what’s happening now.
    You might experiment with a few of these triggers this week. Deepen focus, add novelty, take a small risk, or allow full rest.
    Notice how life meets you when you do.

    🌿 Movement Practice

    1. Begin in Yin — stillness, breath, listening.
    2. Awaken Yang — expression, rhythm, direction.
    3. Allow Yun to find you — the spiral between opposites, the moment when movement begins to move you.
    4. Notice: where is that curving line today? Where do stillness and expression meet?

    This is not about getting it right; it’s about letting life move through you in real time.

    💬 Reflection Prompts

    • Where are you holding tension between trust and control?
    • What would it mean to act as if life were supporting you?
    • When do you feel most in flow — not pushing, not waiting, just moving with life?
    • What threshold are you standing at right now?

    🎨 Artist Date

    Inspired by Julia Cameron, take yourself on an Artist Date this week.
    Go alone, without a plan. Visit a garden, market, forest, gallery — anywhere that invites curiosity. Do your favourite thing just for you.
    Leave your phone behind. Move slowly.
    Let life show you something — colour, rhythm, texture, sound.

    🌱 Integration

    “Not too tight, not too loose.”
    Yun is the middle ground between effort and trust.
    Flow is its felt sense — the moment we stop forcing and start participating.
    This week, act as if life is on your side.
    Follow the small movements.
    Let your next step arise from the conversation between you and life.

    “To walk this road is to walk a sacred path.”

    *Artwork taken from School of Movement Medicine (Ya’Acov & Susannah Darling Khan)

  • Doing in Balance

    Doing in Balance

    Finding rest inside action

    The easiest way to check your state is to notice your breathing.

    This week we’re exploring doing energy that’s in balance — not pushing, forcing, or over-exerting. Of course we’ll find ourselves in and out of balance all through the day. There’s no nervous system that’s perfectly steady, and that’s okay.

    One of the biggest obstacles to balanced doing in this modern world is distraction. There’s so much tugging at our attention that we often end up frazzled, scattered, unsure what to do next — or trying to do it all at once. The big delusion of our time is that we get more done through frantic, chaotic energy. But nothing could be further from the truth.

    Cal Newport writes about this in Slow Productivity, where he makes a clear case for doing more with less. If you think about how much more meaningful work you’d do if you were distracted less — that’s not pushing harder; that’s simply removing what pulls you away from what matters.

    It’s all related. I often find myself doing a lot, but with more stress in the doing than is really needed. One story I carry is feeling behind. I’ve spent much of my life feeling like I have to catch up, and that belief colours my actions. Whatever I’m doing, it can feel like it’s never enough — as if I’m working through a backlog that will never end. The task becomes less about its own value and more about clearing the list.

    There are many stories that attach themselves to doing. Another common one is I won’t get it right or it won’t be good enough. Just notice what comes up for you around action, doing, or performing. It’s all good material for your pages.

    There’s nothing wrong with the satisfaction of crossing things off, but what counts more is how I bring myself to those tasks. More often than not, slower is faster. This racing around can feel productive, but when you look closely, much of it is wasted energy disguised as busyness.

    When we strip away distractions and focus on what’s in front of us, we not only get more done but do it in a smoother, more integrated way. In that open, balanced mode, our creative and higher faculties come online. Life starts to feel less like a series of problems to fix and more like a field of movement and response.

    The Stoics had this insight — that obstacles aren’t just part of the path; they are the path. The obstacle is the way. Even small glimpses of this in your day count as progress.

    And how often do we look around for something that was in front of us all along?

    When we move through life in a more balanced way, we tend to find those things sooner — not because they suddenly appear, but because we’re less sympathetically charged. The push itself can become counterproductive. When the body is calm, the field of awareness expands. We’re no longer seeing through the narrow lens of the sympathetic nervous system. It makes all the difference to carry a little of that openness and expansiveness with us as we move through the day.

    So this week, keep writing. Keep noticing where your doing feels balanced — not holding back, not pushing forward. Notice when your writing slips into flow: what does it feel like in your body? How’s your breathing? What are the markers? How do you know when you’re more in that place?

    Try the same outside of writing. Can you notice when your doing carries tension, anxiety, or worry? What story are you telling yourself then?

    One common pattern is that when we hold back too much, it builds up pressure and catapults us into over-doing — that swing between inertia and overdrive. I know it well.

    There’s a story about the boxer Floyd Patterson, who was known to nap in the dressing room right before title fights. Reporters would watch him sleep and later hear him talk about it — his dreams, his calm, his fear. It’s an extreme example, but it beautifully illustrates the point: how deep yin can support strong yang.

    When Floyd stepped into the ring, his being came from deep rest. He could switch in a moment into full fight mode — but the difference was that he had preserved his energy. Nothing wasted in unnecessary tension. All his resources gathered, ready to give everything to the task at hand — to give his best fight.

    This week, make some space to find that still point before action — to rest inside the doing. That’s the essence of balanced yang.

    And maybe noticing, too, that sometimes what we’re afraid of isn’t failing, but actually arriving — finishing, succeeding, being seen.

    This week, let this question from Gary Keller’s The One Thing be a kind of guiding light — a way of bringing yourself more fully to the task at hand.

    “What’s the one thing I can do right now such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?”

    That question can become a kind of internal compass — a way of dropping out of scattered effort and into the one movement that really matters. It might lead you to the dishes, to a work task, or to the gym — nothing is too trivial. The point isn’t what you do, but whether it’s the right action for you in this moment.

    And it’s an experiment — learn, adjust, and try again. Let it include a sense of playfulness. It doesn’t need to feel like the most serious thing in the world.

    You might also try a simple breath practice to help regulate your doing energy —
    inhaling through the nose for five seconds, exhaling through the nose for five seconds.
    Do this a few times a day, even just for a few minutes. It’s a small reset that reminds the body how to return to balance.

    I’ll end with one of my favourite ideas from Suleika Jaouad:

    “Let your survival be a creative act.”

  • 🌿 Yin Practice: Listening, slowing down to speed up

    🌿 Yin Practice: Listening, slowing down to speed up

    Society values the push — the doing, the achieving, the forward motion.
    But this week, we’re turning our attention toward being.

    Thresholds and the Parts That Resist

    As we bring awareness to thresholds, it’s normal to feel some fear or anxiety.
    Like Leeane shared about Monja — at the end of the sweat lodge she said she could do more than she thought. She surprised herself: “Look at that — I got through.”
    It leaves you with that quiet sense of wonder: I wonder what else I can do?

    If you think back to the thresholds you’ve already crossed, they often carry that same feeling of strength — each time something in us breaks open: an old idea, a fear, a long-held family belief.

    This week, notice your relationship to thresholds — the ones you’ve crossed and the ones still waiting.
    They show up in our everyday lives as much as in the big cycles.

    As we move through these inevitable challenges, we also meet the parts of us that say, “Hell no, I don’t want to go.”
    Get curious about the small (and maybe big) things you hold back from.

    A small example: I know I need to get myself exercising, but something in me doesn’t want to.
    If you gave that voice space, what would it say?

    Maybe: “Rest is important right now.”
    That might be valid.
    Or maybe: “I can’t let myself be seen like this — unfit, not worthy.”

    We can listen with curiosity to these stories. They often lead back to earlier experiences when not going felt like the only way to stay safe.

    A Story from My Own Pages

    I remember one of my earliest experiences of not going was to karate camp.
    I was seven, and there was an older kid who bullied me. I went, but I bunked most of the weekend, and shortly after, I quit karate altogether.

    It became a threshold I didn’t cross again — the one that taught me to avoid physical difficulty.
    Over the years, I’ve learned to help that young part of me — to put down the burden of feeling like it was his fault for not getting through.
    He really did the best he could with what he had.

    And I helped him find new thresholds to cross — but this time, we looked for mentors, people who had gone before and could show us how.
    What a difference that made to a boy who had few men taking an interest in him.
    He loved that idea. Deep down, he knew he couldn’t do it alone.

    This Week’s Invitation

    As we explore thresholds, check in with your parts:
    What do they need to cross?
    What gives them strength?
    What will help them?

    These are very different questions from what society teaches: Push harder. Be stronger.

    This week we’re inviting more being — the yin quality.
    Slowing down, even for a few minutes, and listening.

    It may look like:

    • Reaching for your phone less
    • Giving yourself a few moments each day that are non-directional
    • Letting yourself walk with less of a need to get somewhere
    • Letting play arise — not to get anywhere, just to be.

    If you find this hard, no problem.
    Just notice it — and put it in your pages.

  • 🌿 Morning Pages: A Practice in Clearing

    🌿 Morning Pages: A Practice in Clearing

    Writing as a way of listening — a gentle daily practice for clearing the noise and meeting yourself on the page.

    The Mind Is Noisy

    The mind is noisy. Morning Pages are a way to clear that noise — three pages, first thing, before the day begins.

    What Are Morning Pages?

    Morning Pages, developed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, are a daily writing exercise designed to unblock creativity and foster self-awareness.
    They’re a stream of consciousness on paper — three longhand pages written before the day starts.

    You write whatever comes to mind, without censoring or editing.
    Even if it’s “I don’t know what to write; this feels pointless,” — that’s what you write.
    The process is as simple, and as profound, as that.

    Why Morning Pages Matter

    Each time we return to the page, something small reveals itself. Patterns emerge. Clarity deepens.
    The practice builds trust — not in having all the answers, but in your ability to meet yourself honestly.

    Morning Pages help us stay with what’s unfinished. They create space for what we’ve been carrying to shift into something more life-giving.
    There’s no end goal — only the slow work of becoming clearer about what’s true.

    And sometimes, when we can finally say something clearly enough, we find we’re no longer holding on to it quite so tightly.

    How to Do Morning Pages

    1️⃣ Write first thing in the morning.
    Before checking messages or engaging with the world, give yourself this space to meet your own mind before it becomes crowded.

    2️⃣ Write three pages by hand.
    Julia Cameron insists on longhand for a reason:

    “Velocity is the enemy. It takes longer to write by hand, and this slowness connects us to our emotional life.”
    The slower rhythm invites the deeper voice beneath the surface chatter.

    3️⃣ Don’t worry about grammar or structure.
    Let it be messy. This is about honesty, not performance.

    4️⃣ Don’t aim for art.
    Morning Pages are not “art.” They are a clearing — a space to empty what’s been stored inside so that something new can move through.

    5️⃣ Keep them private.
    They’re for your eyes only. This privacy makes honesty possible.

    6️⃣ Be consistent.
    The magic happens over time. Some days will feel alive, others dull — both matter.
    It’s the act of returning that builds trust.

    7️⃣ Use them to explore or vent.
    Write about what’s on your mind — your worries, hopes, lists, dreams. Over time, clarity deepens.

    8️⃣ Don’t overthink it.
    If you’re stuck, write about being stuck. Keep the pen moving. That’s the only rule.

    Writing as a Way of Listening

    In Parts on Paper, we call this writing as a way of listening.
    The focus isn’t perfection — it’s hearing what’s actually there beneath the noise.

    You might write something simple, like I take you as you were, Dad.
    At first, they’re just words. But when you stay with them — day after day — something shifts.
    Meaning unfolds, and what began as clutter becomes clarity.

    This is the work — not forcing clarity, but allowing it to emerge through repetition and return.
    What begins as scattered thoughts gradually becomes something you can see more clearly.
    And in that seeing, something releases.
    Clarity becomes its own reward.

    Permission to Be Honest

    Byron Katie says, “Judge your neighbour.”
    It sounds strange, but it’s a permission slip for truth-telling.

    Let yourself write the judgments you normally suppress — the person who irritates you, the friend who let you down, the family member who drives you mad.
    Brené Brown calls this the SFD (Shitty First Draft) — and that’s exactly what Morning Pages are for.

    When we write our judgments down, we can see them clearly instead of acting them out unconsciously.
    Sometimes they’re valid; sometimes they turn around and reveal something about us.
    Either way, they move from the shadows to the page — where they can breathe.

    A Note on Community

    Though Morning Pages are private, sharing the experience of the practice can be powerful.
    In our Parts on Paper groups, each person writes alone — but reflecting together on what the practice brings up reminds us we’re not alone on the journey of self-discovery.

    Final Thought

    Let yourself watch the words pour out of your pen.
    The more you do, the more you’ll see — you’re not really doing the writing.

    Writing, like breathing, just happens.
    You catch the current and let it flow.

    What a strange and beautiful thing — to witness life pouring itself through you. 🌿

  • How I Carry My Father

    How I Carry My Father

    The things our fathers couldn’t finish become the things we must learn to stay with.

    My father used to say, “You gotta wanna.”

    He wrote it on scraps of wood and old boxes.

    Sometimes he’d sit with us while we absorbed those words, not really knowing what he meant by them at nine years old.

    That was his gospel, the belief that everything depended on will.

    He was right, in a way. But he left out the other half of the story:

    what happens when you don’t want to and life still asks you to stay?

    The Sander

    When I was a boy, he once brought home a manual sander, the kind with permanent sandpaper. But he never brought any wood.

    It sat unused for years, a monument to all the things that could have been made.

    He was always dreaming big, reaching for the next idea. The future seemed to call to him more strongly than the present. There were always possibilities on the horizon, but not always the small, patient steps needed to bring them into being.

    When I think about that sander now, what I feel is sadness.

    The potential was there. The tool was there. I was there.

    We could have built something together.

    Not because the table mattered, but because of what it would have meant. A father imagining something into existence with his son. Starting with a rough piece of wood and staying with it until it became something real.

    The older I get, the more I realise that children don’t just inherit what their parents build. They inherit what their parents believe is possible. Somehow that imagination never quite arrived between us. There were ideas, possibilities, beginnings. But not often the slow movement from start to finish.

    What I needed wasn’t the sander. I needed him beside me.

    The Shadow

    His father — my grandfather — was a maths professor in Zimbabwe. Brilliant, respected, exacting.

    That shadow must have weighed on him.

    But my father wasn’t an ordinary man standing next to an extraordinary one. In his younger years he won scholarships, engineering competitions, and was marked as someone going places. People liked him. He carried himself with a confidence that made the world seem open to him.

    And yet something happened.

    Instead of trying to measure up, he seemed to step sideways from the contest altogether.

    He had real endurance when it was on his own terms. He trained for years to earn his black belt in karate. He could push through pain, repetition and fatigue. The problem was never a lack of will.

    The problem was that his will worked best in freedom.

    When someone else set the terms — when the work wasn’t freely chosen, when conflict appeared, or when success required sustained exposure to judgment — something in him would retreat.

    I remember him helping my mother in her shop late into the night, cutting fabric by the metre. He did what needed to be done, but with a quiet resentment, as though obligation itself carried a weight he struggled to bear.

    Looking back, I don’t think effort was the issue. I think he found it difficult to stay in places where he felt measured, constrained, or exposed.

    That was the tragedy.

    Not that he lacked gifts, but that he couldn’t always bring those gifts fully into the world.

    The Battle of Will

    His will was both a gift and a trap.

    He resisted being told what to do, even when he agreed with what was being asked. Freedom mattered deeply to him. He wanted life to be chosen, not imposed.

    For a long time, I thought his struggle was perseverance. Now I think it was something more complicated.

    He could stay the course when the path felt like his own. But when commitment required surrendering control, enduring conflict, or risking failure in full view, something in him would pull away.

    There were so many thresholds he couldn’t quite cross because of that.

    Moments that asked not for more will, but for a different kind of strength — the willingness to remain present when the outcome was uncertain, when the work was unglamorous, or when success was no longer guaranteed.

    It was a constant tension between freedom and commitment, possibility and limitation, pride and exposure.

    And maybe that was the battle of his life.

    The Inheritance

    When I was younger, I thought this was the whole inheritance.

    The avoidance.

    The pride.

    The temptation to step away before failure could find me.

    But as I got older, I began to see that I had inherited other things too.

    My father loved people. He could walk into a room and feel at home. He was affectionate in a way many men of his generation were not. He told us he loved us. He hugged us. He made warmth seem natural.

    For years I compared him to his brother, who succeeded in many of the ways my father did not. It was easy to imagine that life would have been better with a different father — one who knew how to build wealth, navigate the world and get things right.

    Then after my grandfather died, my uncle confessed how sad he was that he had never really been able to hug his father.

    And suddenly the comparison wasn’t so simple.

    My father struggled with money. He struggled with business. He struggled to bring all of his gifts fully into the world.

    But love came easily to him.

    And I carry that too.

    The Turning

    That part of me still flinches from trying, afraid of what it might expose.

    But in honour of my father, I’ve spent my life walking toward the hard things —

    learning to stay, learning to fail, and learning to begin again.

    The mountains helped me.

    I found what I needed in vision quests — four days and nights alone on the land.

    I started when I was twenty-nine and finished when I was forty-three.

    My last was thirteen days on a mountain, alone.

    Those mountains taught me something my father couldn’t fully live.

    How to stay when every part of you wants to leave.

    How to sit with hunger, thirst, fear, and the voice that says you’re not enough.

    How to meet yourself at the threshold — and not turn away.

    They didn’t just teach me to stay.

    They taught me why to stay.

    For a long time I thought I went to the mountains to escape my inheritance.

    Now I think I went there to understand it.

    The question that followed me onto those mountains wasn’t really mine alone. It belonged to my father too. How do you stay when the path becomes difficult? How do you keep your heart open when life asks more of you than you want to give?

    The mountains didn’t erase those questions.

    They taught me how to sit inside them.

    The Completion

    For a long time I measured my father against his brother.

    My uncle succeeded in many of the ways my father did not. He built wealth, security and a life that looked successful from the outside. It was easy to imagine I would have been better off with him as a father.

    And maybe, in some ways, I would have been.

    I might have lived a more comfortable life. I might have worried less about money. I might have inherited more certainty about how the world works.

    But after my grandfather died, my uncle told my father how sad he was that he couldn’t even hug him.

    That stayed with me.

    Because whatever else my father struggled with, he never struggled to love us.

    He hugged us.

    He told us he loved us.

    He made affection seem natural.

    The older I get, the less interested I am in deciding which brother was successful.

    One built a life many people would want.

    The other gave me questions I couldn’t escape.

    Questions about meaning, perseverance, worth, belonging and what makes a life count.

    For years I carried my father’s failures.

    Now I see that I also carry his gifts.

    My growth has been to grow to love and want the father that I had.

    The Blessing

    If my father had given me a sander and sat beside me, if we’d made one small table together, our story might have been different.

    There are still parts of me that wonder about that life.

    The boy in me still imagines another version of his story — one where the scholarships led somewhere, where the business succeeded, where all that promise found its way into the world. Sometimes I imagine another father too. One who knew how to build foundations, who stayed with things to the end, who could have shown me how to turn possibility into reality.

    But that wasn’t the father I was given.

    I was given a man who was warm and affectionate. A man who loved people. A man who could make a stranger feel welcome. A man who carried both confidence and self-doubt, both promise and disappointment. A man who taught me as much through what he couldn’t do as through what he could.

    For years I carried my father’s failures.

    I carried the unfinished projects, the missed opportunities, the places where he turned away from himself. I carried the fear that I might do the same.

    But as I got older, I began to see something else.

    I carry his heart too.

    I carry his warmth, his generosity, his love of people. I carry his refusal to believe that money is the measure of a life. I carry the questions he left unanswered and the longing that drove him to keep searching.

    My growth has been to grow to love and want the father that I had.

    Not the father I imagined.

    Not the father who might have been.

    The father who was.

    Sometimes I still speak to him.

    Not because I need answers anymore, but because part of me is still walking with him.

    I find myself asking for his help.

    Help me get it right, Dad.

    Help me get it right for both of us.

    For the man who couldn’t always believe in his own gifts.

    For the boy who spent years trying to understand him.

    For the men who came before us who couldn’t quite stay when life became difficult, who couldn’t always trust themselves, who couldn’t always believe their lives mattered.

    Help me carry this inheritance well.

    I love you as you were.

    And I needed so much more.

    The older I get, the more I understand that both of those things are true.

    Thankfully, that so much more is now my responsibility.

    The threshold is mine to cross.

    The sander is still waiting.