Purpose

I’ve pretty much spent the entire last 18 months in constant drama and trauma. There have been tremendous amounts of upheaval, fear, anger, sorrow, frustration and discouragement. There have been countless days of feeling like I was walking through life in a coma of heightened emotion. Where it felt like I had reached my own personal threshold for feeling; as if there was no way I could possible feel anything else. I have fought and clawed my way back from insanity and apathy so many times I’ve lost count. And it feels like my very DNA has been irrevocably changed forever.

I have had to open myself in ways I didn’t even know were possible. I’ve had to confront and dismiss demons that have plagued me for more years than I’d like to admit. I’ve had to re-learn how to trust, both myself and others. I’ve had to redefine what joy and love and hope mean. It’s as if my very being has dilated.

So where does all of this spiritual pontificating leave me?

Raw. And with the ability to be utterly, profoundly present in every single moment. I never could have imagined that this combination would leave me with much but a teary short attention span. But instead it’s given me an intimate understanding of faith, which is an animal that I’ve been chasing for all my life. And once that level of faith had entered my being, any feeling of impermanence simply vanished. I always imagined being rooted in the moment would make me long for the big picture view, but I never dreamed that I’d get a picture in picture perspective.

And in the end I feel like I’m getting closer to my purpose. And it has nothing to do with any of my previously preconceived notions. It means having the audacity to be unabashedly me in every single moment. In all my different incarnations, wearing all my different hats, using all my best voices, strutting in my favorite shoes, laughing and crying with abandon and utterly embracing life as it arrives on my doorstep. Giving myself permission to simply love, without fear, because it’s what I’m the very best at doing.

Deflation

I don’t know what to write about today. I’m drawing a complete blank.

We bought my husband a new car. Well, new to us. His old car was pretty high in miles and just about to be in need of close to $2000 in work. So we decided to look for a newer one with fewer miles instead of putting a bunch of money into a car that would most likely drink it up and then ask for more before too long. And we found him a great replacement. With the help of a great salesman. Although it was incredibly time consuming, it was a great car shopping and purchasing experience.

Until we went in today to follow up with a couple of things (like the fact that we discovered that we couldn’t get the driver side door to lock) and learned that they were having a hard time getting us financing. Apparently even if you have a high credit score (which we do) banks are turning down requests for credit left and right for just about anything they can find. In our case they say our revolving debt is too high. Which I actually agree with. It is too high. But it’s nowhere near as high as it was 6 months ago. We’re making progress. And because of that progress, because of how hard I’ve been working to get our debt down, it just pisses me off that it’s not enough. It pisses me off that this otherwise exciting and fun experience just got the joy sucked out of it so fast it took my breath away.

It will work out, either way, it will work out some way or another. It always does.

But on my last day sans kids, it’s put me in a bit of a sour mood. Disappointed, defeated and frustrated. It just drives home for me why I need this job. Takes the shine off of it and reminds me that not only will this opportunity be fun and exciting, but will also help us tremendously financially.

So my fingers are staying crossed tighter than ever and hopefully when I wake up, I’ll have pulled out of the pout.

Mi CASA

I was a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) for a little more than two years. I saw the ad for the volunteer position in the New Mexico small town newspaper where I was living at the time and immediately had mixed feelings. It came at a time when I was trying to decide if I wanted to go into the direct service or administrative field of social services. I knew that this would give me valuable training for direct service, but I also knew it would be extremely hard on me emotionally and most likely take an immense amount of time even if it was just a volunteer position.

But I jumped in with both feet and really just threw myself into it. Most CASA’s work on several cases over the course of a year. I had the same case for the entire time I was involved with the organization. It was a family of four children who was being raised by their grandparents. Their mother was a serious addict and every single child had a different father. The kids were taken away from their grandparents because they were found to be keeping these children in cages and keeping them so drugged that the oldest (he was 7 at the time) had started noticeably drooling in school. And it came out later that the grandfather had sexually molested the little girl and that he had severely beaten all four children.

I came onto the case about three days after the children had been removed from the home. And I stayed with them for more than two years. I celebrated birthdays. I worked with the treatment team to try to figure out new ways to work with the oldest when he started showing signs of developing a sociopathic nature due to the level of abuse he had endured. I became good friends with the foster family.

I still think about these children and wonder where they are today. I wonder if they ever found a family to adopt them. I wonder if they were able to find happiness. I wonder if those two years that I will never forget, made any difference to anyone except me.

Angry Broad

Anger is a strange thing for me. Usually when I’m just mad I can typically get to the point where I am off-handedly dismissing it with a small to moderate amount of snark. But when I get angry, really angry, I usually wind up in tears. Throwing things and yelling and writing drafts full of awful things in my head is usually the precursor to tears, but I always know they are there. Waiting to be unleashed in a humiliating display of my most base vulnerability. Because try as I might to deny it? I’m a crier. I always have been. I’m fairly sure I get it from my grandmother, who could always be counted upon to wind up sobbing no matter the event or circumstance.

For me, always lurking, right under the seemingly steel hard surface of anger is hurt. Pierce me to my core hurt. It can be camouflaged as guilt or sadness or indignation, but really it’s just hurt. Hurt that someone has hurt me, or hurt that I’ve hurt someone. Whatever. Anger and hurt go hand in hand for me. And most of the time I have a hard time distinguishing between the two.

And because of this blurred line, I never manage to communicate effectively what it is that I’m truly trying to say. Whether that is I’m sorry being screwed up with a liberal dose of self-righteousness or you hurt me being tainted with I told you so. Whatever the case may be, it usually takes me at least a couple of tries to get it right. And that sucks to be me and it sucks to be other person in the equation.

One would think this would be a perfect reason for why being a person who wears their heart on their sleeve would actually be a very, very good thing. But as most rational beings do when they are vulnerable and potentially in danger, I immediately cover it up. Hide it, bury it, whatever, just don’t let the other person see it. See me. And like most other things for me, I’d probably do so much better if I just laid all my cards on the table.