Survive, learn and thrive on the path to zen

Miki MarkovichBY MIKI MARKOVICH
Lesbian.com

When you have the opportunity to truly connect with someone, you’ll often learn of an intricate plotline more fascinating than anything you’d see on the big screen. I have always believed that everyone has a complicated struggle and an even greater story.

Although I’ve never thought mine more special than others, I have found it more humiliating at times. However, when I recently shared a bit about my mother trying to kill me with Lesbian.com editor Shannon Wentworth on the anniversary of the event, she asked me to consider chronicling some of my more sordid history with lessons learned and carried forward. If you’ve had the great fortune to meet Shannon, you know she’s a force of nature who’s almost impossible to refuse. So, over the next several blogs or so, my intent is to share a story here and there, bare my soul and connect deeply and fully with not only readers but with my colorful heritage.

I’m the biological product of a career criminal and a rocket scientist-missiles engineer, so life was bound to be interesting, right? The questions, “What do your parents do” or “Where are you from” were colossal obstacles I stumbled over throughout my youth. I never knew how to answer since telling the truth was absolutely forbidden.

I come from a very small family. My older sister died before I was born, supposedly at the hands of my father whom I didn’t meet until my late teens. My mother, on the run from the police for various indiscretions throughout my childhood, often used aliases and made up histories. Trust me, this shit got confusing for my young self.

Perhaps, this is why I became engrossed in non-fiction and technical writing, so I could differentiate what was real and what wasn’t. Shortly before she died, my grandmother gave me a copy of a newsletter I wrote and distributed when I was seven. It was a spring letter reporting on growing grass, electrons and Easter happenings. A fiction story of a talking egg was included in this informative, and may I say riveting, newsletter. The funny thing? It had a disclaimer: “This egg is not real.” I am still very much this girl today. This is one reason you’ll probably never hear me share a decent joke.

The lesson? Well, for me, it means I’m still on the track I was meant for.

The bigger picture? We’re all here on our own quest, our own journey. I believe that most everything we survive can provide us with tools to expand our reality and connect with each other.

Zen can be found in these shifts and expansions, but more importantly, your authentic, real self, the meaning you seek and true understanding can be found here.

Just for this week, consider suspending judgment of yourself and of other people, especially the difficult ones. Consider being more open to multiple possibilities. You, my dear soul, are a survivor, a beautiful being, a ray of light &#151: and don’t you forget it. Shine on, baby, shine on.

Miki Markovich is a seeker of beauty and truth, traveler of interesting roads, saver of furry souls, typer of words, iPhone lover and mac head. You can find her on Twitter at @mikimarkovich and @fiveminutezen. If you’re looking to go from pissed to blissed in five minutes flat, find balance or improve the quality of your life through self care, check out her website at fiveminutezen.com.

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