honesty and courage

Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears (their) grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.  But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge - from which new sorrows will be born for others - then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply.
- Etty Hillesum

not rocket science

so
i am at work
talking to women with black eyes
women whose kids have been seized by the government
women who have just been kicked out of their homes because of factors they had nothing to do with

and i am listening to a podcast on the upcoming climate disaster
and then one on the holocaust where i almost started crying when i heard about people getting in trouble for throwing bread to those in the concentration camps

and then i said, "what the hell am i doing?"

sometimes i get home from my job and i feel drained. super drained, exhausted, in a bodily way

so maybe if i am working on the real-life effects of poverty all day i should consider what i am putting into my ear
something uplifting maybe

i know its important to know what's going on in the world
i know its important to work against oppression and harm
i know i really really really want a just world and that self-education is a huge part of that, especially through individual stories and through alternative media

but
i also know that sometimes i feel like i am losing my mind
sometimes i feel that these burdens are sitting straight on my shoulders
sometimes my job is too too hard

so maybe i should listen to banjo music or something once in awhile.

unresolved

So...I did it. After months of plotting and planning and working 50 hours a week, i have simplified my life.

And that's great. and holy whoopsie.

So I have time again to sit and to be and to think. To clean my house, to take walks by myself, to sit by the river and on culverts, to be spontaneous, to leave room for god and spirit and myself to collide.

Shoot.

And I remember now why i became so busy two years ago. How this wasn't actually an accident like I have fooled myself into remembering. Time and space means plunging back into deep and sometime dark places which are swirling around somewhere in my heart. It is surprising how quickly they have returned.

It is time to face some of these demons which I have tightly tucked away. I just didn't think they would come back so soon. I feel back in a time warp, being faced with thoughts, feelings, griefs that I thought I overcame so very long ago. Past losses, past hurts, past relationships, self-doubt, anxieties, fears, you name it.

I want so badly to be comfortable with myself; to be able to sit alone in stillness and feel contentment instead of nagging doubt; joy instead of fear; self-love instead of regret.

So. Here is a change, a shift, a new yet familiar journey. It is exciting and terrifying and mostly lonely. But I am thankful for it. Or trying to be, at least.

buckle up, here we go
b