I made an interesting shift today. It started with my Yorkie Diogee. Diogee is now 10. That means, in dog years, Diogee is 70. I realized that Diogee is now older than I am.

Actually, this has been true for a while. However, I did not realize it until today.

You see, I really, really love Diogee. Although he is strange, and a little crazy, he is still a wonderful animal, and I have actually learned a great deal from him spiritually. I honor him as a fellow traveller on this tiny world of ours.

Anyway, I was processing all of this, and I found myself, as usual, balling. Yeah. I cry pretty much all of the time now, including as I write this. I cry for Diogee because I know his time is near, and he is probably closer to the Great Divide than I am. I will grieve for him when he goes, although it will very likely be by my own hand. Not a chore I look forward to, that’s for sure. I will probably be pretty broken up that day. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

I petted Diogee for several hours, bathed him, as well as our other Yorkie, Napoleon, all the time crying off an on. It was then that I realized that an important shift had taken place, like I said earlier.

All of the internal work I have been doing recently has been about processing the events of the past. As I have said many times, I have suffered at least as much as any human I have known, and far more than most. At times, I have found myself actually glorying in my own suffering. I had nothing else left, I suppose. Anyway, all of that trauma and all of that pain apparently needed to be released. So I wept. I wept for Debbie. I wept for my brother Jim. I wept for my mother. And, finally, once forgiveness came, I wept for my father. Oh yes, Howard J. Browning. I weep for you as well.

But today, for the first time, I did not weep about the past. Today, I wept for something that is happening right now. I wept for the present.

I am finally, once and for all, emotionally present. I am experiencing what is happening right now, including my own emotions. I am not saying I do not have more to process concerning the past. Far from it. That work is happening and it will continue. But nonetheless, my focus has shifted.

Thanks to many for this. Most of all to my loving and beautiful wife, Elizabeth (most know her as Ruth, but she will recognize this as her new name). Of course, to my family, about whom I now weep daily. And my best friend Ray. May your God be with you, my friend!

More later.