The Spirit of Our Better Angels - A Call to Resist, Reflect, and Reclaim

The time we are living through now is like the dark night of the soul that Theodore Roethke spoke of in his famous poem In a Dark Time. We are all living through a test of our mettle. What we choose to do with our limited time, in this critical moment, reveals the core of who we are. “In a dark time, the eye begins to see.”

I sit here typing my frustrations, tilting at windmills, as it were. At times I feel ready to take on the giants, to fight the entropy of society, and organize a movement. Viva la resistance!

At other times, the reality of the forces of darkness surrounding us becomes so overwhelming I just want to curl up and hide.

I sit here grappling with my thoughts. We are facing a battle—the same battle our ancestors fought and died for. To uphold the rights of our fellow citizens, to face down fear, to sacrifice for the cause of freedom. I ask: “What’s madness but nobility of soul at odds with circumstance?”

We are called, make no mistake. Those of us who feel the spirit of humanity’s better angels flowing through our veins—we are the type who cannot fully rest while ignorance and hatred thrive, while evil men plot to take away our rights. The day’s on fire!

I see lines appearing on my face and think: of course they appear now. The cause is taking the last remnants of the peaceful life I had hoped to lead. I have been fighting my entire life, against the odds, to get to where I am now. As a mother I have protected my children. At times I have related deeply to this passage: “I know the purity of pure despair.” I’ve made sacrifices to keep them safe, and I will continue to do so.

My heart is torn between the dream I once had of living peacefully and the certainty that we must all stand, or else the changes we are going through as a nation will be cemented.

Little by little, our heritage is being sold off and our country weakened. I once fully believed in the promises of America’s founding story, but that faith is being eroded like sand in the waves.

Now is the time to find out who we are. “A man goes far to find out what he is—death of the self in a long, tearless night, all natural shapes blazing unnatural light.”

I think: this is our dark night. The test of our mettle. Who we are as a people, and who we choose to be as a nation.

We are faced with the challenge of our lifetimes. “A fallen man, I climb out of my fear. The mind enters itself, and God the mind, and one is One, free in the tearing wind.”

Sleepless

Early morning, 2 am on an important day. I have every reason to be happy and sleepy but I didn't eat enough today, even though I brought food to work with me. I guess that's what happens when you get used to being able to make a meal at any time and then they arbitrarily tell you to be at work from 9-5 for the next three days. 

Social Media is no comfort, so much wrong and no quick fix. So many deluded into hatred and animosity towards others. 

I don't know why I'm not sleepy, I was able to cuddle with my adorable kitty earlier. She curls up in my arms like a little baby and it's bliss. Perfect angel. I feel sometimes that my animals are perfect souls sent to remind me of what makes life worth living.

My doggy is here now, not curled up in my arms but by my side, solid, warm, alive. 

Maybe I'll try eating something, cheese perhaps. Ugh, I need sleep 😴

Not good odds

I'm laying propped up in bed with a kitty cat laying on my lap on this cold day in March.

I'm sad, life isn't fair, far too often the bad guys actually win. 

Sometimes the most talented, dedicated, hard working people don't get the rewards. 

Sometimes people that should be punished for their crimes, are not.

We who care are left grappling with the reasoning for why this is and the answers aren't easy to accept.

Because we want to believe that talent and hard work will bring us success. That there is justice in this world if not in the next. We want to believe that good will prevail in the end. 

The hard truth is that sometimes it takes a whole lot of people, standing up and doing the right thing, at the right time, to overcome some odds.

These odds are not good, but will we do what it takes to change things? I hope so. 

SG 

Never Again

History leaves an imprint on us that future generations can sense but not fully understand. That is how it was for me in the interactions I had with my grandfather. He was gruff and grumpy and often spoke with a sharp voice. He shuffled after us, yelling as we played, and it always seemed to me that maybe he didn't like me that much. I can still smell his cologne—Old Spice—and feel his rough whiskers as I hugged him before we left to go home. He was a veteran who served during World War II. Later, I would learn that he was wounded on D-Day and was sent to London to recover. He continued to serve and was wounded again—when or where, I don’t know. He carried the scars of that war and pieces of shrapnel in his hip until the day he died. He was not the only veteran in my family; on my mother's side my grandfather served in the Navy, my grandmother the Army.

I wish there were a diary or writings from my grandparents to help me understand how they felt during those dark times. If such a record exists, I don’t know about it.

So, I am left to conjecture. I have watched movies about the war, and I have read books about those who resisted the prevailing sentiments of those times—sentiments that many people were swept up in. I have gathered that there were good people who turned a blind eye for many reasons. They were afraid to stand out, afraid to speak up. There were also some who had been blinded by hatred, who believed the propaganda, and who, having suffered economic hardship before the war, wanted a scapegoat for their suffering.

Hitler had a magnetic personality; people were drawn to him. They believed what he had to say and modified their beliefs and actions to fit the moment. The images of vast crowds all saluting that man are seared into my mind as an enigma—unbelievable—that to them, Hitler was their savior.

That brings us to the modern day, where a propaganda machine has been at work for many years, radicalizing our citizens—making them angry and afraid. The seeds of fear and hatred have been sown to drive ratings, engage an electorate, and make money for elites who have benefited from it all.

After the war was over, our countrymen and women said, "Never Again." The reality of the death camps and the loss of life was so great that it threw the past into stark relief. It was clear what had happened—though some would deny it. So, the motto was "Never Again." But mottos lose their power when they are not maintained by diligence against the forces that came into play during those times. For too long, people have justified their anger and hatred by cloaking them in terms of religion or political expediency.

Those of us who have stood outside the ecosphere of media influence have watched the rise of radical fear and hatred with dismay. We've tried to counter it with facts and emotion. However, to someone who has built a belief system over many years—a system that holds disdain for certain facts, emotions, and groups—these tactics don’t work.

So, we now take up the refrain of "Never Again." Though many Americans see this as radicalization and dissent, we know that we are carrying the banner of our ancestors. We cannot set it down, no matter the cost.

9/15/24 Thoughts

There is a certain feeling that takes over the world as day fades into night. The sounds are different, quieter, and the air feels different as well.

I am sitting, alone, in my office. I closed the door and the blinds and all I hear is the ticking from the clock on the wall and wind, blowing outside the office door.

Distractions abound, the cat is meowing now, and I can hear the dog tip tapping in the kitchen. I don't know if I will ever be able to find a time when I can wholly focus on writing. I suppose that's been every writers challenge from the beginning of time.

I have been gathering with people in my community to write post-cards. The first time, I had people over to my house. There were 7 of us, we got through 200. Today we wrote at a queer bookstore in Provo, it was a lovely space but hard to find and we scheduled it on a Saturday which I tend to think is busier than Sunday's. 

I'm missing my young kids, the rhythm of my household is different now. No more do they wake up and sit around in the living room together watching shows. No more do I hear their little voices raised in silly arguments or laughter. I miss their play battles, their calls for "Mom." 

Turning Back - Where to begin?

 Sometimes I wish I could get to the root of where we have gone wrong as a society and work backwards from there. Clean up the logic, clear up the confusion, sew up the broken threads of humanities morality. We have, after all, gone through many era's of brutality and enlightenment and scholars of history can point out turning points where brutality retreats and enlightenment grabs hold once again.

This epic of the American tale is going to be studied in classrooms some time in the future when they value learning again. People will shake their heads and wonder how we could have been so deceived. 

The answer many times seems to be that people are led down paths of ignorance when they give up their power and autonomy for what seem to be simple answers.

This story is one that I saw unfolding but didn't realize the import until it was too late.

When Rush Limbaugh came on the air I detested listening to his aggrieved and angry rants. I would tell my father to turn them off, because I wanted to protect my peace.

Then TV personalities started to appear in turn, telling folks what they wanted to hear, stirring up the anger and hatred that lay dormant in their souls. 

This turned into a cycle of aggrievement and manufactured outrage over things like "Christmas being canceled." 

I've turned away from that over the years because it was too toxic and I've never been one for manufactured outrage. 

I like many others of my generation have sailed along with the idea that politics don't matter all that much because both sides lie. I didn't want to get too involved, I already had overwhelming issues to deal with in my life. 

I counted on the canceling out of each political ideology by the other when they got into power. But that isn't happening any longer. The extremists are in charge and we're being pulled in so many anti-democratic directions that it's not possible to sit on the sidelines if we want to keep what our Grandparents fought for. 

Mark Twain wrote in "Letter from Earth", letter VI: Each of you, for himself or herself, by himself or herself, and on his or her own responsibility, must speak. It is a solemn and weighty responsibility and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government or politician. Each must decide for himself or herself alone what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man, to decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor. It is traitorous both against yourself and your country. Let men label you as they may, if you alone of all the nation decide one way, and that may be the right way by your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country, hold up your head for you have nothing to be ashamed of. 

J. Michael Straczynski wrote:

It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in. no matter the odds or consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move. Your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world: No, you move

It is imperative that we become aware of our duty to determine truth from error through study that takes us beyond the surface of what is presented in the news and popular entertainment. We are all threads that make up the fabric of this country and we abdicate our responsibility to the peril of the whole. 

SG

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.

Not There Yet

I didn't just wake up one day and become an ally, that is a work in progress. There is a lot of stuff that goes through my head that isn't accepting and supportive of marginalized groups. There is a lot of hatred and fear in my heart. I didn't intentionally put it there, but it comes out sometimes and a better part of me wonders where it comes from. I think it's there in all of us in various ways. It's a fear and mistrust of others, it's a monster that is fed when we don't question the quality of information coming into our heads, without or within. It is something we must be vigilant to fight against for our own sake and for the sake of the others around us. 

Hiding

I have been hiding all of my life, observing but not commenting, and scared but not sure what to do about it. My strategy has been to hide so that I wouldn't have to defend myself, so that I wouldn't be attacked for what I said, or humiliated because of my ignorance. 

I have been afraid and defensive of my own weaknesses, I wanted to compete but I didn't want to lose, losing just seemed to prove how worthless I was. At least that's how I felt.

Was this societal indoctrination? Raised to be submissive, to not question authority, maybe it was. All I know is that I didn't want to stand out, to be the center of attention, to draw the disapproval of others towards me. It's still hard to break away from that tendency. It's easier to hide and live a life of quiet anonymity.

Yet I've always admired those who are bold, the people unafraid to show their flaws, the people standing up to bullies and telling them that it is not OK. 

I'm inspired by intelligent people, who lift people up, who are working to make a difference in the world, people who don't back down in the face of ignorance.

I'm envious of people who can just have fun with life, who see the bad but are also able to celebrate the good things in life. Those people that celebrate holiday's and the accomplishments of themselves as well as others.

I tend to fall into a trap of doing instead of being. Trying to organize life instead of living and enjoying life. There has to be a balance and balance isn't easy to find for me. There are all kinds of things I enjoy doing, writing, drawing, painting, photography, roller blading, hiking, walking, gardening and cooking among many others. But sometimes I am paralyzed by indecision, afraid and hyper fixate on cleaning the house or making a budget. I try to organize so that I'm not wasting money or time and in spite of that I quite often end up doing both. 

I am aware that I need to change, to be more brave. Hiding is a good strategy sometimes, it preserves me from being overwhelmed and burned out by the cruelty of the world, but hiding should be tempered with speaking up, too many of us are hiding.

Overachiever

There is a ball of hurt in my chest that is there despite having accomplished a lot of the big life goals I set out for myself, an education, a nice home, and a beautiful family. I still look out at the world as someone who needs to achieve something to be worthy of all the wonderful glittering experiences that I think I should be having. 

I feel a lack of, personality, worthiness, ability, and intelligence. I feel like these things are keeping me from having this idealized picture of friendship and competence. 

I want to retreat into a world of books and television and just be by myself because it's safe there. But my "by myself" time is actually quite full of remote work and adorable but needy dogs.

I feel like I need time to recharge my batteries by being left alone to think deeply and read but I so seldom get the chance to do that. Sometimes I think that a lot of these self-confidence issues and the stress in my life would dissolve if I could just spend time doing core activities like that.

For most of my life, I've felt like I needed to learn, I've had a great interest in many things, but in a way, I wasn't driven by what was most enjoyable to me but what I felt was a skill that I lacked.

I've spent a lot of time organizing my interests into a plan of action and trying to make progress on all of them at once. This doesn't work, I just get frustrated and give up. I need to focus on a single interest at a time and make progress toward it.

The task then becomes narrowing down what I want to work towards to that one thing.

I kind of like the idea of learning Python but also like the idea of learning a financial software called Anaplan. One would lead me down a path towards a coding career (possibly), the other further down the path of finance skills.

Then the trick is to do things I just naturally like; gardening, health, drawing, painting, and music putting time aside to do them without putting pressure on myself to do them.

At my company, they're all about automation and I have the skills to pull people together to work on things but I don't have the skills to do the automation. 

I'm a bit frustrated.

Some reflection

 I am almost 44 years old! Reflecting back I acknowledge the struggles that I've faced, how I've grown, what makes me the person that I am today. I'm perfectly imperfect. 

My biggest periods of growth have come from accepting uncertainty and letting go of beliefs that were given to me that no longer fit. I'm emotionally, physically and mentally healthier because of this. 

The night before last night I got stuck at the bottom of the canyon to Ophir. I had gone down the road to call Matt and had kept the headlights on so that cars zooming down the canyon would realize I was there. Now I knew the battery could die if I did that, so I turned it on every once in a while and ran it. But I didn't want to keep running it so eventually I stopped turning it on. Well the inevitable happened and the battery died. So lesson learned. 

Now I could have just stayed there waiting for someone to pass by, but I felt strong enough to at least make a start on walking. At least if no one came by then I would get back to camp. 

It's a pretty safe area, not much wildlife to worry about, so I wasn't particularly scared. But I was a little intimidated by the distance since I had driven that road earlier and it took a lot longer than I thought it would to get to camp. 

I tried to take in the beauty of the night sky, I could see thousands of stars. I tried to appreciate that I wasn't particularly cold, even though the wind was whipping around me. I had a moment of awe as I looked down at the ground and saw the wind dancing through the light on my phone. I also saw a deer on the other side of the road. 

I couldn't help but cry a bit, sob actually as I walked. I felt so alone, a feeling I know well. I think we all know this feeling well. 

I let the sobs subside into calm and just kept walking. Then when I was almost back my son passed me on the road and gave me a ride the last bit of the way. 

I was less tired than I thought that I would be. Probably because I had been exercising a lot the past week on the long trip I was on with my cousins. In fact I'm proud of how healthy I feel, I'm not as sore and worn out as I would have been in past years, though I am still sore and worn out. 

I'm not immune to bouts of melancholy but they're fewer and last for only a short amount of time. My life has been good and I still have a lot if it left to live!