I can only say that the ability to love and to let go is the greatest thing to achieve, it happens to the best of all of us, and can only be dealt with by a few. My knowledge of the world has grown and I have felt true heartache but have overcome by looking as to how much love I can give to someone else.

Letting go is apparent in every person’s life, whether it is the loss of a loved one or the loss of my favorite pencil. To lose is never entertaining or wonderful, loss leaves a pit of regret in the stomach, feelings that I did not accomplish enough, or that I never gave it my all. Seeing what you have attained from his adoration allows you to let go, it allows you to love even greater, and mostly it allows you to view the world with the idea that loving and letting go, while painful, will not always bring heartache, but often peace of mind in an accomplishment that can only come from friendship.

It’s been quite sometime since my last blogger a lot has happened that has kept me busy offline more so than on. My daughter had gotten pregnant, had a darling baby boy in March and has moved out prior to the birth of her son. I lived for several months in the Caribbean only to which I’m seriously thinking of going back. Although I still have that mommy instinct and want to be close to my daughter for awhile.

Being a grandmother now I have a whole new perspective outlook on things. Sometimes I think it’s a chance to start over on things that due to work, illness, etc I missed out on when my daughter was small. Now I can make up for that with my grandson and possibly change things along the way from lessons I had learnt. Though the word “grandma” does make me feel old, I am told at my age of 40 I am still very young, well to young to be a “grandma.”

Little did I realize these past few months would make me realize more though on how much I would miss my daughter at home. And how hard it is for me to actually let her go, although I see her or speak to her everyday. There is a fine line between being an active, concerned parent and one that doesn't know when to let go.

I'm discovering how hard it is to stay on the right side of this line. While I cling to the apron strings connecting us, Johanna, eager to taste her independence, yanks at those strings, trying to loosen my grip. What results is an odd mother-daughter, push-me, pull-you kind of tango.

I sit back and study my daughter as she looks excitedly about being a mother, having moved out being with the person she loves. I see a mature, capable young woman with a keen mind and the ability to shape her future. She no longer needed her mom evaluating every decision she makes. I felt proud, although still a bit melancholy.

I look at her and I reflect on the lessons Johanna has struggled to learn over the past 18 years: responsibility, compassion, and hard work. There have been a few potholes along the way, but she is well-equipped and eager to embrace her future. The next step, I recognized, was mine to take. I brush away a tear and mentally untied the apron strings, giving my daughter and myself the independence we both need.

And let go....

At times now when I get up I have to remind myself to breathe in breathe out. Eventually in time as I will be able to get up and not have to remind myself anymore to breathe.

I believe in empathy. I believe in the kind of empathy that is created through imagination and through intimate, personal relationships. I like to think myself sometimes as a writer and a teacher, so much of my time is spent interpreting stories and connecting to other individuals. It is the urge to know more about ourselves and others that creates empathy. Through imagination and our desire for rapport, we transcend our limitations, freshen our eyes, and are able to look at ourselves and the world through a new and alternative lens.

Whenever I think of the word empathy, I think of a small boy named Huckleberry Finn contemplating his friend and runaway slave, Jim. Huck asks himself whether he should give Jim up or not. Huck was told in Sunday school that people who let slaves go free go to "everlasting fire." But then, Huck says he imagines he and Jim in "the day and nighttime, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing." Huck remembers Jim and their friendship and warmth. He imagines Jim not as a slave but as a human being and he decides that, "alright, then, I'll go to hell."

What Huck rejects is not religion but an attitude of self-righteousness and inflexibility. I remember this particular scene out of Huck Finn so vividly today, because I associate it with a difficult time in my own life. In early 2000 when I was working operations in Tehran, I, like many others, became outcast. I was very surprised to discover that my staunchest allies were two co-workers who were very active powerful Muslim. These young men and I had engaged in very passionate and heated arguments. I had fiercely opposed their ideological stances. But that didn't stop them from defending me. When I ran into one of them after my orders to return home, I thanked him for his support. "We are not as rigid as you imagine us to be," he responded. "Remember your own lectures on Huck Finn? Let's just say, he is not the only one who can risk going to hell!"

This experience in my life reinforces my belief in the mysterious connections that link individuals to each other despite their vast differences. No amount of political correctness can make us empathize with a child left orphaned in Darfur or a woman taken to a football stadium in Kabul and shot to death because she is improperly dressed. Only curiosity about the fate of others, the ability to put ourselves in their shoes, and the will to enter their world through the magic of imagination, creates this shock of recognition. Without this empathy there can be no genuine dialogue, and we as individuals and nations will remain isolated and alien, segregated and fragmented.

I believe that it is only through empathy, that the pain experienced by an Algerian woman, a North Korean dissident, a Rwandan child, Iraqi prisoner, Homosexual, Bi-sexual, or any person of a different faith, or colour. It becomes real to me and not just passing news. And it is at times like this when I ask myself, am I or anyone else prepared -- like Huck Finn -- to give up Sunday school heaven for the kind of hell that Huck chose?

Everybody thinks of changing humanity, yet nobody thinks of changing himself.

Life is what you make it. Reality is what you choose to view it as.

With the script of the pen it will be over ....

Not like any other ordinary Monday, but one of lesser thoughts. Received a call today finally after waiting weeks on end from Samorti. He has a layover in Dulles next week for 3 hours wants to meet up with me. Strange how things turnout we get along so good when we are not under the same roof. And I here even lately having second thoughts of joining him, thinking and I still do is this really the right thing to do. The heart say's yes but my mind tells me no I battle that situation out everytime I go to bed. Which undoubtly withholds me from getting any of my rest at all that I need.

Divorce in an airport terminal it's turned out to be not a good situation but than again maybe it is for the best. I must of been crazy at the time or caught up in the moment as my friend Kym tells me. Never thought it would end, instead of a sleepless in seatle experience I end up with ink on paper in a terminal. Ending it all, now I feel like I am trying to talk myself out of this but we can't go on living like this.

Argh I just feel like giving up, I'm not sure how much of life's obstacles that I can take anymore. Litterly, though I've had enough....I've tryed turning to God for answer's but I'm just not getting anywhere I can't feel it anymore. The inspirations that I've had for so long are gone. I don't even know where to begin to pick up the pieces my heart has grown leary I think he has abandoned me.

I'm lost.