Lab Notes

The Practice of Acting Before Authority

May 2, 2026

I am the executor of my friend's estate.

She is still alive. She is 78. We have been friends since 1978.

For the past year I have been watching a situation in her life that has been bleeding her financially. A condo on the market for eighteen months. A realtor who is also her friend in the building. A sentimental attachment to the unit that she has completely remodeled with her late husband and was never able to enjoy with him. Insurance rising. Assessments rising. The market softening. Each month another drain.

I have been silent about most of it. It is her life. Her decision. Her timeline.

Yesterday she told me she was thinking about taking the condo off the market.

When she said it, my body became psycho-active. My heart opened. Relief moved through me. After a year of watching without speaking, something released.

What released was permission. Permission for me to imagine what I would do.

I am her executor. The decisions about her affairs are mine to help her make while she is here. After she is gone I will make them alone. We are better off using our resourcefulness now while she can be part of it.

Last night the release showed up as exhaustion. Mental collapse. Not wanting to talk to anyone. My nervous system was processing a year of held silence finally allowed to move.

This morning I walked. The thinking organized itself.

I wrote her a letter before we sat down to talk. I told her what I see. The arrangement with her realtor has run its course. The unit is stale. She is tired of paying for a place she will not live in again. I told her I do not have a plan and that whatever she decides, my input feels important.

I sent the letter. She read it. She thanked me.

She also told me her realtor is showing the unit today and her fingers are crossed for an offer.

She heard me. She is not yet ready to release her relationship with her realtor. Both things are true.

This is the practice. Speaking my truth from my own anchor. Letting her be on her own timeline. Not requiring her readiness in order to speak. Not pushing once I have spoken.

What I am also practicing is something rarer. I am rehearsing executor agency while she is still alive to participate. Letting myself feel what it would be to act from full authority. Letting my body register what I would do if these were entirely my decisions to make.

I would rather practice now because this is life-affirming energy that bonds us. The rehearsal is co-creative because we are each in the mystery of life's unfolding. The process becomes as primary as our relationships with our Selves are. We are still able to share that freely.

Maybe that is why.

This is what showing up for someone you love looks like in long friendship. Telling the truth from your anchor. Honoring their pace. The process itself is the bond.

The friendship holds. The condo will sell or it will not. Today she has her fingers crossed.

I have my anchor.

I am exhaling. Patience. Filling the space between with the exquisiteness of relief.

A reference point I used to only know when I downed too much chocolate fudge cake.

That was fake.