Thoughts on the state of our Nation

 The history of our country is one of great men putting their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor on the line to establish a nation where self-determination is the distinguishing trait, not the social position one is born into.

I love our country. Our founding fathers weren't perfect, but they strove for ideals that have guided our nation for hundreds of years. President George Washington stepped aside instead of seeking re-election because he wanted to avoid the presidency becoming a lifelong appointment. He warned that “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.”

In his farewell address, Washington feared that partisanship would lead to a “spirit of revenge” where party men would not govern for the good of the people but only to obtain and maintain their grip on power. As a result, he warned Americans to guard against would-be despots who would use parties as “potent engines…to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” 

I write now as a single mother whose aim has been to gain an education to provide for my family. I have always loved history; one of my favorite books is "The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin." In school, I loved economics and statistics, subjects that allowed me to see the theory behind many different economic and political models. I am fully aware of the foundations of the Republican Party's belief in small government, free trade, and free markets.

While I was in school, I had very little time for politics. As a young mother and later when I entered the workforce, I had even less time to follow political candidates. I admit I relied on opinions from those around me to guide my beliefs. 

As I reflect now, I realize there was an undercurrent of hatred flowing through political discourse, and I tried to stay away from it. I did not and still don't watch the news or listen to "news radio." Whenever I caught parts of different segments, I noticed a tendency for pundits to exaggerate, display anger, hatred, vitriol, and paranoia. These characteristics made me shun all of it.

When Donald Trump ran in 2015 against Hillary Clinton, I didn't like either candidate and voted for the third-party candidate, hoping to send a message to our politicians. When Trump was elected, I told my father, "I hope he doesn't start a nuclear war," because my impression of Trump was one of instability, self-aggrandizement, and personal gain. 

Throughout his presidency, his continual attacks on immigrants, women, and other marginalized people made me strongly dislike him. When 2020 hit and we were all scrambling, the political climate was heating up. It wasn't just Trump, but people I knew on Facebook who made me feel most concerned about the state of our nation. The first time I noticed what I think of as a cultishness in Trump supporters was when almost every Trump supporter I knew simultaneously posted "Ivermectin works" on Facebook and elsewhere. I had never heard of it, and when I looked it up, I found it was tied to Fox News. 

I began to fact-check and dig in, but nothing I said seemed to make a dent in the minds of those espousing virulent support for DJT. 

It is this blind devotion that I am fighting against. It is our hard-won rights over centuries that I am fighting for. I implore you to put aside pre-existing beliefs and assess how your beliefs were formed. Our nation was built on the ideals of self-determination and informed citizenship. Let us not be swayed by partisan rhetoric or charismatic figures. Instead, let us honor the legacy of our founding fathers by striving for a government that truly represents the will and the welfare of all its people. Our democracy depends on our collective commitment to these principles.

[1] https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washington-s-farewell-address

Vulnerability

It seems to me that no matter how much I figure out about life and living, I can't escape from the feeling that I'm missing something.

I feel vulnerable, like the sky of open possibilities is a promise and a threat. It feels like a wrong choice can limit me, like I could lose everything in a moment.

I can't help but feel like I'm walking close to the edge; I hang on when I should let go, as though the only options I see are slipping through my fingers.

I make these moves, I do these things, and then question myself. Was that the right thing to do?

It's terrifying; I feel like a fool sometimes.

Perhaps it seems as though I'm as sure as the sky on a sunny day, but I'm not. I often do things that are against the grain, not commonly advised, unconventional, subversive, and it is so scary. My biggest fear is not hurting myself but hurting others, and ironically that's where a lot of my problems stem.

Where they've always stemmed.

Because I can't keep everyone happy and be true to myself, someone is going to get hurt, and often times it's me. I'm swallowing the pills to keep them from affecting other people. But it's really not doing anyone any favors, and it's hard to see that. Because it hurts to admit the necessity of change, of disappointments, and not being able to meet everyone's expectations.

And it's deceptive because I'm hiding the truth of my vulnerability.

But I hope you all can forgive me; confrontation is hard, the truth can be hard, and my heart breaks so easily.

A bit of writing

2/19/2024

Sometimes it's hard to imagine when I look at the whole of my life that it's all really happened, I got through it all and I'm on the other side to this new phase of not having young children about. Sometimes I really miss just having them all here, but they've all grown so well and they are such fun people. I'm amazed at how wonderful they all are.

I've always been a romantic, I have a certain way of looking at the world and seeing all this beauty. I saw flecks of different kinds of rocks in the top layer of the concrete that was coming up off my grandparents patio. I would collect little bits of it, and so would my brother.

When I would look down the side of the garage I saw the bright red of the bricks, the ivy vines, the spiders webs. I saw the cracked window, the gloomy light and felt the coolness of it out of the hot sun.

I feel everything so deeply sometimes. 

I used to dream that my life was more luxurious than it was, I put up silky sheets around my four poster bed and pilled pillows up. I took the little vials of perfume that I got from my grandmother and dabbed it on the end on the little toppers at the top of the pillars around the bed so that I could smell them. 

When I would lay awake at night I listened to the sounds of the trees, there were so many in the field behind our house. The sound was hypnotic, soothing, it was a big comfort to me. 

I identified a lot with Anne of Green Gables. 

Cavalcade

 It has been snowing, but first there was a slushy kind of drizzle, the snow is like a coverlet on a layer of slush. I have been working hard, all my skills of gathering, sorting and analyzing data have been coming into play every day as I try to make sense of a complicated and obscure contract mess. 

It's at times like these when I wonder if I will ever have balance again. If I'll ever be able to rest. 

As I go through my day a cavalcade of thoughts go through my head. I think of my childhood sometimes, my grandmother, my home. I take pleasure in the way my house is set up, it is fun and different. I'm not too concerned about things looking like they do on Instagram. 

It's interesting to me how many ideas I've picked up over the years and then put back down. Ideas of self identity, theology, nutrition, and life in general. I've found that life is not so straightforward and clear cut as we make it out to be and that wanting certainty only leads to rigidity in our thoughts and feelings.  

Sometimes I wonder if I am too passive, or if my ability to wait and see allows me some advantage that assertiveness fails to see. In some ways I am assertive in my passivity, it is a choice, it is a way to avoid conflict and also a way to have more options. In some ways it is unhealthy, but I'm not sure how to untangle it all to be different.

I wanted something so much at some point, or at least I thought I did, and when I didn't get it I felt grief but also relief. That is the way of life, sometimes things don't work out the way you want them to but it all turns out in the end.

Anyway, I've been in the habit of writing something every night. That has been good for me. 

SG

Slowly Going Crazy

It's late, 8:11 PM, I have been trying to work all day but I have had problems. First of all, this morning, I was too tired to get out of bed, so I joined our staff call on my phone.

Then I stumbled about, because, vertigo, and made some tea. 

I tried to work, and did some things, but wasn't all that efficient. I went into a panic mid-day when my brain wasn't working and my inbox was filling up. 

I've been trapped by this ridiculous "fustercluck" of a contract since late November. It keeps infiltrating my time because it's the most convoluted contract that I've ever encountered (well, that I've encountered in a long time). 

I'm simultaneously trying to work on that and do my regular tasks. On top of that the productivity tool I used to use "Sunsama" just came up for renewal so I spent a good part of my day trying to make Outlook more organized. If I could only schedule the tasks I create in Outlook like I can in Sunsama I would be golden. Should I really have to pay $200 dollars a year for a tool I use some of the time when my brain is melting? 

I got several contracts booked and I made a bit of progress on my reconciliation of the "fustercluck" but I don't even know if I should consider that having accomplished enough for the day. There is still so much to do! 

I came up with a makeshift system of organization in Outlook by Categorizing and then flagging each email as for "Today," "Tomorrow," "Some time in the future," "etc...." that sort of helped me get a grip but I'm not sure if it will be enough.

Send help.

SG

Christmas Thoughts 2023

In the development of a person's soul, there are certain requirements of honesty and vulnerability that need to be addressed if they want to create a sense of wholeness and integrity. Without this work, we are left to drift about with half intentions guiding us, pulling us this way and that. That is when or how we can be most destructive to others. If our mouths speak half-truths and our minds are not really on board with what we are saying, then we can lie against our own ideals to have integrity and to live among others in truth and honesty.

The problem comes when what we wish to be true and hope to do are at odds with what we truly do—reality. We might say that we would like to feed the poor, help the destitute, and yet when opportunities arise to do so, we decline because we are tired or for some other reason, we are all hypocritical I think.

In love, we might admire someone and wish to be with them. We might think of ourselves as trying not to hurt our lover by hiding our true intentions, by projecting an air of falseness about where the relationship stands. Saying something on the one hand and doing something else on the other is worse than false, more harmful, more faithless than honesty about what you really want and need.

I don't place blame on others or myself because I too have lived and projected a false self out of preservation of what I thought was good when I knew I would lose that when reality was revealed. I write these things out of a deep desire to heal my own soul, to be more transparent in my relationships with myself and with the world. This on a Christmas Evening, where the day has been spent well. My only disappointments have been in not being able to focus on getting my loved ones as many thoughtful gifts as I would have liked to get them. Also, remembering that this night, one year ago, I wrote a poem of joy, celebrating someone who had brought light into my life. That moment is past, but the spirit of discovery, the pursuit of happiness and wholeness still lives on.

Living My Life

I'm making this up as I go along. I see what others are doing and copy that, sometimes I do my own thing, but this really is mostly a phantasm of the reality that I live in. 

Sometimes I think that it's really important that I know all about healthy blood sugar levels and dig down deep into that and think that intermittent fasting is the way to live and it seems like that's right but then it becomes unnatural and I obsess and then all I think about is how I should be doing this thing that's supposed to make me healthy, when really just need to be mindful to a certain point and that's good enough. Sometimes I'm just hungry, I didn't have the time to plan things out and eat at a perfect time and be a perfect person.

That's OK

There's exercise as well, I should lift weights. That would help me reduce my risk of osteoporosis, which is high because it runs in the family and I already have osteopenia, but I over think it, I don't know which weights to lift, nor in which order or feel motivated enough to join a gym and have someone tell me what to do. So what do I do? I think I just need to do whatever I can with whatever I have. I'm not perfect, I don't have the perfect circumstances. 

I look at what I have and who I am and see that I have more of the same things that I've always had. I dive deep into what I like, more books, more thinking, more trying to make up for what I think I lack.

But I have what I need, it's all here, I have books and family, I have the Christmas decorations and games and whimsy. I don't need to have a themed anything, where my whole house is set up in the same type of color, where my kitchen cabinet's are white and there are perfect place settings on my immaculate kitchen table. That's all an illusion anyway, it's empty. What I need is to just be, to get what I like because I like it. To be who I am, to like who I like and spend time with people just because I like spending time with them. 

I wrap myself up in the idea of doing and forget about the idea of being, thus abandoning myself. I've done this to myself since I was little, because I had to grasp around for structure, trying to figure out what I WAS supposed to do with my time. 

I can let go of that now, I can let go of preconceived ideas about what I need to do and just do things, be who I am, love what I love and have fun with life. I can put together a perfect table setting if I feel like it, but it doesn't have to be perfect to enjoy it. I can get pillows for my couch to match my themed living room decorations if I want, or not. 

Because we are still playing, the ideas we get are just that, ideas. We can have fun with life, and do what we want to do, even as adults. Because as we take care of ourselves, doing our adult things, we can have fun as well. 

I can do all this, and not worry about it or what others think, and so can you.

SG

Becoming Myself

Sometimes it is hard to connect with my inner self. It's as if I have an existence where I am unsure of what I like and who I am. I am an observer, just wondering what I'm doing here, unmotivated to do anything other than lay in bed, aching.

I have to force myself to get up and wander around, pick things up and put them down, take a bath, stay there longer than a moment, just feeling the water soothe the ache. Stretch my muscles back and forth, and clean in-between my toes, critically eyeing the calluses on the bottoms of my feet and contemplating how to be rid of them.

Then I have to get ready, and while I'm doing that, I'm straightening the bed, dusting my bookshelf, and reacquainting myself with things that I've chosen to keep by my bedside.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just throw it all out and start again, gather up different things; perhaps that would make me a better, different person.

So, I decided to write myself down, to reconnect my brain with my body, my inner life with my outer life.

Now I've given you all a piece, a little glimpse of me, becoming myself again.

Giving it Your Best

Life is learning to embrace new ideas, gathering things that are appealing, making friends and experiencing a whole spectrum of joy and pain. 

Then it is learning to let go of certain ideas, discarding things that are no longer appealing and trying new things even when you feel caught up in stagnation and pain.

We set goals and sometimes we realize that even achievements have limitations towards our happiness. 

Sometimes we want more out of life than we have and live for tomorrow's that slip away once we reach them. 

We only have today, we love who we love, we achieve what we can and follow the path of foolishness when we dwell so much on the past or the future. 

Trying your best, giving it your all, or whatever you have left, is the reality of what it means to be human. 

Be as good a human as you can and lift yourself and others up.

SG

Gathering Thoughts

I have felt this grief before; it is as poignant now as it was then. Perhaps all the little bits of grief we taste throughout our lives are meant to temper the soul, to prepare it for the bigger grief that we all must face as time and age take all that we love and all that we are.

It is important to learn to sit with grief, although I'm not sure if that phrasing is correct. I once described grief in a poem as a stone that sits in your soul or like water that bursts forth out of the deep wells of sadness that you feel when you go through loss.

Reflecting back on my last relationship, I realize something: I was able to be myself around him, which was marvelous, a true gift that bolstered my sense of self in many ways. Yet I was also stuck in one version of myself, not letting the other aspects of my personality shine.

When he broke things off, I started to grasp about, wondering what I did wrong. Did I bore him with the couple of subjects I had been going down the rabbit hole on? Did I overwhelm him with the mysterious illness that made me dizzy, tired, and feeling off? All I could do for a couple of months was say, "I'm feeling slightly better today but still dizzy," and feel just a little bit crazy.

I wondered if I had maintained my interest in photography and art, if I had shown him that I could rollerblade and gone on bike rides with him, maybe he would still want to be with me. Or I thought, "What if I change myself to be more interesting?" But then a realization came that I cannot do that; I can only be who and what I am, so I've been doubling down on that.

There is within me a place of rejuvenation that I use when overwhelmed. It requires uninterrupted time to access it, and since we've broken things off, I've been searching it out on my walks with Koru. I put my hand to my heart and let the feelings come; sometimes the tears come, and the deep sadness of loss overflows, and I sob. Sometimes I feel more peace; I let the knot of tension subside, and I allow myself to just feel whatever I need to feel. There is gratitude for what I had with him and an understanding of his situation. There is also sadness because I love him; we felt so good together, we were good together, and it's hard to reconcile that feeling with the knowledge that we are separated, apart, and all the hopes that I had for that relationship have to be buried in the little graveyard of hopes that lives silently in my soul.

Many dreams are buried there: relationships that didn't turn out, wishes that didn't come true, and nine little babies that were never born. It is a sacred place; I walk reverently through it on occasion, and most of my ghosts no longer hurt or haunt me. I have a feeling that the ghosts of my most recent buried hopes are going to haunt me for a while; they were beautiful and strong hopes. I miss them.