Dogs had their final de-skunking today. Lenore is the only one who loved it, the border collies hate it, unless they get to chase the water coming from the house. Lenore would do it all day.
  A friend of mine told me today that I had changed, and I said…well, yes…I hope so. I am working on it. I will be forever abashed at the mess I was in so many ways, and it isn’t like I don’t have lots of work yet to do.
  Change is a seminal element in my life. I came to the farm for many reasons, few of which I grasped at the time. One was a refusal to define my life by a culture that measures happiness in money, age, security, and the absence of a lot of chores. You can live for security, but it doesn’t make you secure, any more than having a lot of money makes you happy. If I learned nothing else working in television, it’s that people with lots of money are not generally happy, because the things you have to do to earn it and keep it don’t make  you happy.
  People can sense when you change. They see it in the writing, in the photos, the blog, and when they meet me. I have a lot of changes yet to make. I am abashed at how far out of touch with myself I was, how destructive to me and other people, how angry and removed from reality I was becoming. It’s interesting, because so many people thought I had found the perfect life in my farm, when in fact I almost ruined my life there. You never know what it happening inside another person’s life. Animals cannot make people happy, any more than money.
  I see that most people do not really want to change, and I also see why. It is painful, difficult, exhausting. People find all sorts of gurus, short-cuts, self-delusions – anything rather than face themselves. This was surely true of me for most of my life, and I don’t mean to suggest I have the answers for anyone else. I am working hard on mine.
  I see that changes is possible. I see that we can make our own news, define ourselves. I see that telling my story is essential to changing my life. I accept that many people do not with to change, and will not, and often can’t come along, or just don’t want to. That’s tough. I’ve lost a lot of people I loved to change.
  But I know now that there is really no getting around that. For many people – I believe I was one of them, and in some ways, am still – misery and fear is normal, the reality of life, the boundaries of possibility.
  I am working hard on it. I am determined to continue the process of change, and I understand it will never be finished.