When I was a high school sophomore, I started fainting. Frequently. Inconveniently. Embarrassingly. Sometimes, painfully.
I tried to explain it to my folks. Perhaps I was less than convincing while upright and coherent.
My classmates were really supportive the day I fainted in World Religions, fell out of my chair, and got everybody an extra day to study for the exam.
Then, one day, I fainted in gym class. It might have seemed like simply a good plan to escape a context that made me feel uncomfortable, except for one detail.
I was on the top bar of the uneven parallel bars when I fainted.
The bumps and bruises weren’t too bad but suddenly my fainting became a big issue. One thing led to another, to another, to a major neurological work up.
Two things about that experience have remained with me.
My ability to perceive right and left is, shall we say, non-standard. Which made a lot of things make more sense.
And, apparently, I had grown “too fast.”
According to the neuro guy, I was fainting because I had gotten taller, quite quickly, and my cardiovascular system was still adjusting. Specifically, my brain was not dependably getting enough blood flow. In short, growing pains.
Hence, fainting.
A couple of months worth of meds and some time resolved things. (And I got past the gym class phase in my journey!)
Recently, I’ve been thinking about that adventure again.
We’re growing here at The Fiercely Compassionate Grandmother, which is great! I’m thrilled to have each of you, and your friends and family, along on this journey. There is much to learn and do!
I’m also reminded that we don’t know what we don’t know until we know.
Think about learning to read.
As newborns we are unconscious incompetent readers. We don’t know we can’t read. We don’t know what reading is.
Later, for most of us, there was a time when we knew that we could not read, but wanted to. We were conscious, some of us painfully, of our incompetence.
These, by the way, are terms from the study of neuro-linguistic programming and do not imply judgement of any sort. Only description.
Then, as we reached the required developmental milestones, and sat in the laps of loving people who read to us, one day we began to read. Most of us found it challenging. We were beginning our journey toward conscious competence with reading.
We had to think hard about each word. Depending on our age and the trendy educational theories of the moment, we may have been taught to “sound things out.” We learned sound-alike words like cat – hat – bat.
Many of us learned See Spot run! and Puff is on TV!
Eventually, we arrived, most of us, at unconscious competence with reading. Meaning that we no longer had to think about reading. It just happened.
Some of us are still on the road.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot more conscious of the places where I’m incompetent.
Mailing lists. Target Facebook audiences. Platforms. All the things that go along with growing if you’re a writer at this moment in time. (Things which will no doubt change in the future!)
You may see some lumps and bumps along the way. And some new things as well. One day we’ll be closer to conscious competence with all the technical stuff. I’m looking forward to that. (And I have help!)
You can help, too.
First, share these posts with people you know. There are two easy ways to do that. If you get an email letting you know that a new post is up, you can forward that email to anyone you think would be interested. Grandmothers. Teachers. Dog rescue friends. Your neighbor. Local foodies. Quilters. New moms, who generally know some new grandmothers!
(If you don’t get emails, that just means you haven’t subscribed yet, which we’d love for you to do! Just enter your information in the green and white box that pops up in your post and click subscribe. And I am now conscious that the box needs to be changed. Blog posts come twice a week these days!)
Or, if you’re happily cruising the website www.sueboardman.guru with a cup of tea close by, just click the picture at the top of a post and you will be magically transported from the home page into the post itself. Up at the top left, just under the top banner, three little sharing blocks will appear. If, say, you’d like to share a blog with your Facebook friends, click the dark blue one with the “f” and follow the prompts. It’s easy.
Abracadabra! Sharing. Which is really what this whole thing is all about.
And, while you’re there, all clicked into the individual post, scroll on down, clear to the bottom, past another green and white box, until you come to a place you may not have known about…a box for comments!
Let me know what you’re thinking. What keeps you up nights. Where you think the world needs Fiercely Compassionate Grandmothers.
Or, leave a comment on my Facebook page at Sue Boardman, Author. The posts are always there, too. (There’s a magic little white box with an “f” in the middle of the homepage, just below my picture, that will take you there in one click. It’s a miracle!)
We need your voice, too!
Growing isn’t easy. It’s just where the hope becomes real. I’m so glad you’re along for the journey! Sue
PS – all the other magic little boxes will take you to places about which I am still consciously incompetent. Keep the faith!