Be the change you want to see.

In a lot of ways today is no different than any other day of the last couple of years. I'm puttering around the house, doing household chores. I'm reading, I'm writing a little bit, I'm being sat upon by the cat...

But I have a unique perspective on today, perhaps partly because of the recent two weeks in Australia where everything was springtime uncertain instead of autumn uncertain. There were flowers instead of falling leaves, there were purples and pinks instead of yellows and oranges.

Today's been a beautiful day. Sunny and warm at first, clouding over and getting dimmer as the afternoon progressed.

I find myself welling up with tears, for no reason I can actively identify, it's just a little tangle of feelings in the middle of my chest and down into my belly I don't even really want to identify it. I'm just going to let myself feel whatever it is and, it looks like, cry a little bit.

I think one of the hardest things I've had to learn in the last decade is that there really is, and never can be, just that one path that we're "supposed to" take with our lives. You may think there is, and you can spend years beating yourself up for failing to meet those imagined goals, or benchmarks, or, I don't know, life crisis points. But the best thing I did in the last 10 years was to realize that it's my life and nobody else's. That my meandering path is just as valid as something that looks straight as a ruler's edge. That nobody but me gets to set my goals for me, regardless of scripts that I have in my head from movies and television and other stories. It's like that one XKCD comic where the first character fills his apartment with ball pit balls. They're all bright colored against the black and white drawing and he says from inside the apartment, "we're grown-ups now, and we get to decide what that looks like."

In the next year I want to practice radical kindness. Radical generosity. I want to practice speaking up, and calling out b******* oh come on now say it bull crap (voice to text). I want to be there for my friends and family. I want to be there for my husband and my home. And I want to be there for myself. Maybe, that's still the most important thing I'm still learning, how to be kind to myself and when I think of all the bologna I had to shovel in order to just get down to me... To get past childhood and adolescence and young adulthood's indoctrination of this is what you're supposed to be.

You know when I was teaching I always had a hard decision to make as far as where do you spend the majority of your your attention, your time, and your planning? Do you spend it with the stars? The kids who are already smart and have it together and are on it? Do you spend it with the kids at the tail end of the class where if it was a physical education class they'd be lagging behind the rest of the class by a lap or half lap? Do you spend your time and energy in the middle and hope that the ones behind will catch up and the ones that are far ahead won't resent you for it? Wow I haven't thought about that in a while...
One of the best things about leaving teaching If I can say there are good things about leaving teaching, which, honestly my mental and physical health appreciate that I'm not doing that anymore. I don't have to make that decision anymore. The world is full of places I can help, and all of the work that I do does something somewhere. And I can forgive myself for not helping absolutely everyone I come into contact with, which was not a headspace I knew at all while I was still teaching. I blamed myself for every child had an f, or who moved away or every perceived failure piled up.

My failures now are softer, they don't have edges of self-hatred. I don't have to have shields up every day cuz I'm not getting attacked every day.

Somehow I am both softer and stronger than I was then. Some of that is just having lived longer, and having been in therapy as long as I was. But I don't hate myself anymore. And I'm not constantly angry with myself, or disappointed with myself. I do feel guilty for having the leisure to do the healing work for myself when 95% of the people who I know don't have that opportunity. which is why I try to use the healing work I've done to benefit other people I offer literal, physical help or emotional support or sometimes I have wherewithal...

Anyway, tonight is a tipping point. And there's no holding it back. There's no rushing it forward either for that matter!

Happy birthday to me. I still have hope in the future, I have hope for the world, I have hope for myself and my loved ones, and I acknowledge that the world is complicated and it's broken in a lot of ways and I promise I will lend a shoulder when I can.

Oh god, we were SO FUCKING STUPID.
So naive.

those long discussions around the campfire or around the HDTV, cold beers in our hands, hot nachos in the fucking microwave, laughing and joking about the fucking "zombie apocalypse". How we would have this job or that job, how we would hole up in a Costco store, because it would have everything we'd need to survive and even enjoy life after the world ended. The skills we already had or could learn quickly in order to be valuable enough to win our way into someone else's fortified stronghold.

We had NO IDEA. We had NO IDEA what we really needed, what we really knew how to do, how fucking SOFT we were.
How much EVERYTHING would hurt. How much WORK just bloody EVERYTHING would take, how much thinking and planning and acquiring.

How much FEAR. Terror. Absolutely shit-your-pants terror.

We used to say, "I'd get a really good knife, and really good boots, and this kind of backpack and that kind of rifle" without really understanding.
What happens when your knife gets dull? Well, you sharpen it. How do you sharpen it? Do you KNOW how? do you have the right tools? can you recognize something else you could improvise as a blade sharpener, if you run across it? and can you use that blade, even dull, to do what you must to survive another day? It's hard work, gutting a carcass, butchering an animal for meat...

Same goes, obviously, for the REST of all our dumb-shit assumptions about how privileged and lucky and SKILLED we were.

What happens if someone TAKES your tools from you? Those books you treasured, that were the reason why you thought you'd gain admission into someone's guarded bolthole? The boots, the knife, even your CLOTHES. What happens if you're not strong enough to protect them? To hold onto them?

Knowing how to brew beer isn't very valuable when there's not enough fucking FOOD. Nobody really cares about booze when they're starving. Knowing how to bake bread is useless, so are gardening skills, if you can't settle down anywhere longer than a week or two for fear of the scavengers. Wildcrafting is a blessing, and I'm glad every day for what I learned from my beloved Girl Scout Leader, of all things. What she taught me when I was fourteen makes the difference now between hungry and starved to death.

I'm always hungry now, I'm always worried about getting hurt bad enough so I can't run anymore. I haven't had any of my meds in over two years, I've got half a tube of neosporin left and fuck-all chance of scoring any more. I'm getting slower, I hurt more often, I'm lonely as fuck. I'll never stop grieving my husband and my home and the comforts I once took for granted, but I just don't have any fucking TIME to FEEL. Every moment has to be spent in working out how am I going to survive this day, food, water, shelter, taking care of myself, whether I can trust anyone at all. Despair would dog my footsteps if Despair could keep up with me. I move fast for an old broad. Fuck that, I move fast period.

What the fuck am I even doing? Who am I even writing this for? I have no idea who's going to read it, but I'm stuck here anyway till it's dark and I can sneak away through the shadows. Might as well, I guess.
heh.
One thing my shitty childhood was good for. Learning how to hide, to sneak, to find all the places nobody would think to look for me. No, I'm not sharing my secrets. Find your own damn bolthole. Oh. Heh. If you're reading this, I guess you DID find your own bolthole, just that I was here first. Hi.

I'd tell you to keep the faith, but I don't think anyone has faith in anything but themselves anymore. I'd tell you to keep up hope, but I know you know that's a stupid, useless thing to say. I can tell you I'm thinking about you, because it's true. Random Stranger Reading This, I hope you're less hungry and less alone than I am. RSRT, I hope you have someone or something to love and take care of. RSRT, try to be kind. My only happy memories from the last two years are of random kindnesses. Someone scratched directions to a waterhole that hadn't gone dry. Someone left bedding in a bolthole. Someone left the last few pieces of fruit on a tree... that might not have been kindness, that might have been someone who was too big to climb out onto those thin whippy branches at the top of the tree... someone little like me could still get up and out to them.

Once, back in the day, I was fat and prosperous and happy. I thought I was ugly, being fat, I had NO fucking IDEA. I was so lucky then. I was loved, and safe, and pampered and treasured, and I had no idea. Now I'm tiny, wiry, strong, and fast. I have had to be, to survive.

Random Stranger Reading this, despite everything, have hope. Life may be shit right now, but if we all keep going, something has GOT to get better. Maybe I've been off my meds too long, and this is a manic episode, maybe it's just I've exhausted all my fear and I don't fucking have time for anything that doesn't keep me going.

I do have hope. I don't know why, but I do. It's almost dark now, I can barely see to write, so it's time to pack up and head out silently to my next bolthole.
I hope you can pass some hope along to the next person you meet, and I hope they're worthy of you trusting them.

Good luck, and gods' speed to you.

"kilroy"

May the best man win.

Seriously.

(of course that means MY candidate would win...!)

Wow. Just wow.

I want a copy of the inaugural poem and I want a copy of Barack's speech and I want a copy of the blessing, even. I am happy.

I'm across the street at my neighbors' house, where they held an inauguration party in their aMAzing kitchen/living room, with the ginormous tv and view of the lovely backyard; so many happy liberal democrats in the same room, and an amazing breakfast spread... Had to turn down a glass of what was probably some awesome champagne, glad I brought my own teacup over...

I am so happy to hear Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddows (sp) even Chris Matthews, swapping history geek stories about past presidencies... watching the crowd scenes and the incredible multiculturalism everywhere and the enthusiasm and the optimism and hope... Barack being strong and upright and noble and positive and photogenic... (lol) and I am so pleased at being able to breathe deeply, and smile for real, and to hope. to HOPE.

This will not be an easy road. This will not happen overnight. But it certainly sounds like the philosophical style is more about doing, about self-sufficiency, about being fair and transparent (I love this concept, especially if we can successfully implement it into the government...)

~~I'm going to go looking for a copy of the SF Chronicle and for a copy of the Contra Costa Times as well, and read them cover to cover... (or something... LOL)

~~My neighbors Joan and Mike are awesome. I hope to get a chance to know them better in the upcoming, if they stay living across the street (their house is for sale)...

~~GW's plane just took off. Wow, people cheering in the background...

I never thought talking about economic policy was interesting, but I grok it much better now than I ever did, and I have more of an investment in understanding it also... homeowners and mortgages and foreclosures (and how to help people avoid them), and how to "goose the economy" ... and a story from Al Roker about being on a bus full of high school band kids, who cheered when Obama took the oath of office... and speculating on how it might feel to BE Obama, looking out on Washington at all those people cheering for him...

the atmosphere of engagement and interest and investment, the appeal to young people, th wanting to work together... "this is a Moment" says Al Roker, "that I haven't seen since I was a kid, and Kennedy was inaugurated..."

Hope. HOPE. Wow.

OMG OMG OMG OMG...

is this real? has this really happened?

this is part of why I wanted to be someplace with loud TV's and lots of people tonight...

WOW.

it doesn't feel real, yet... I'ma get me an old fashioned newsprint newspaper and read it tomorrow, babies!!