This is morning, it's when I spend the most time thinking about what I've given up

Sometimes I feel invisible. Here's just one example: An email was sent out to a group of people asking if someone would step up and do the job of someone who would not be able to. I happened to be online at the time the email came in and I answered right away that I would be more than happy to cover for that person. I hit reply all, so that everyone would know and everyone could relax and not worry about stepping up to help. About a day later (today, in fact) another person on the email list piped in that he would do the job. Next thing I know, a flood of people replied how awesome this guy was to offer to help. I was like--WTF? I'm just so sick of people and the stupid games they play. Why can't anyone act normal? I know that I don't give off an air of liking to be dismissed and yet...there I was being dismissed by these people for no reason. Joe f-ing Blow is so awesome and I am---invisible, I guess.

Then I email my parents to see how they're doing and I filled them in on what's going on here. I also jumped up on my soapbox and did a little political ranting because I am just so incredulous about our precarious state of affairs as far as the economy is concerned (I believe the government will go bankrupt at some point), and the response I get back from them went something like this..."glad to hear you're doing well, life is filled with disappointments, the better you get used to it, the better off you'll be."

Ok. I didn't mention a thing about being disappointed. Hell, I'm ANGRY, not disappointed. I never get the feeling that they know anything about who I really am. For Christmas this past year they sent me a granny bathrobe and a gold pin thing that you see old ladies wear on the outside of their jackets. I am NOT KIDDING. I've never seen anything like it in my life. When I opened the gift, me and the kids started heart-attack laughing over it and I couldn't stop. I laughed so hard that I knocked off a Hallmark angel from the table next to me and the head of the angel broke off. I figured that was a sign that perhaps I shouldn't have been disrespectful of the gifts I was given because I really loved that angel. Immediately I stopped laughing.

Anyway...if I had to assign a theme to my childhood years it would be that "life is filled with disappointments" line. My childhood was great, but what was pounded into my head from an early age was this: be seen and not heard, don't question anything, dream small, aim low, follow the leader, be a good child of God, be good, color inside the lines, keep anger in check, fighting is pointless, live INSIDE the box, give other people control over your life, surrender. It was like living with someone's hands around my throat squeezing the life out of me bit by bit. It's taken me forever to knock those bastard hands off from around my neck. Forever.

I am running on anger now. It's behind everything that I do. It bubbles up just beneath the surface and is the motivating factor that keeps me moving. I want to break things. Then I want to stomp on top of the pile of things that I have broken for good measure. I keep the anger stoked by reminding myself of all the different ways I am asked to deal with asinine people and situations while keeping a straight face as I'm dealing with it all. I have to keep the fire alive or I am liable to give into a paralyzing sadness where I won't want to do anything.

Some of the anger is self directed because I'm finding out late in the game that I have been had by people I've trusted all of my life. I refused to believe evil exists and now I see it everywhere. I am having a crisis of faith--not in God, because He remains a constant, but rather in people, in humanity. It's like I've been sleepwalking my entire existence and have finally woken up and now I am on the war path. My mind is alert, questioning, and above all else, angry.

So I wake up angry, all day long I am angry and I even go to bed angry. It's with me all the time. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and it is still there with me in the quiet darkness reminding me that I need to stay vigilant lest I fall back into that mindless, listless sleep again where I can be deceived and not even know it.

There is a reason I am alive right here, right now. There is a plan for me written somewhere and it's important that I wake the f*&k up and stay awake to find out what that plan is. My anger keeps me on the path to searching out my destiny. It my fuel. It keeps me going.

Congress passes Hiltler Youth Service Bill

Expanded Americorps has an authoritarian feel

Is anyone else besides me alarmed by Obama and our government yet???? They've stripped the "mandatory" wording from the bill, but as we all know, it can be slipped back in at any time (Friday evenings after everyone else is asleep). Get your kids prepared to go off to indoctrination camp because it's coming (uniforms included!!!)!

He promised this BEFORE the election, then wiped it off his website when it was given too much negative attention in the blogosphere--however, now that the teleprompter narcissist is in power, the bill was not only added back on, it was PASSED without hardly a word of it being mentioned in our mainstream media (which is there just to feed propoganda to the unsuspecting public--what you don't know won't hurt you and all that...).

This is the kind of bill that is needed when a child does not have parents who puts him/her first in their lives. This is the kind of bill that is needed to keep kids out of trouble--which is something that PARENTS should be doing all on their own without government interference. The wording in this bill is astoundingly creepy.

All I can say is my children will be participating in this little program OVER MY DEAD BODY.

Read the text of the bill HERE.

Saturday at the park

I have decided I am tired of being phony. It takes too much effort. I used to feel the need to fill silences with lots of meaningless words, asking questions I don't care to know the answer to, agreeing to things I detest, laughing at things that aren't funny--you know the drill.

I am clear on what matters in my life, on the people that matter to me. I never have to be phony around my family--ever. I can be my truest self and they love me anyway. I never have to be anything more than who I am and I never feel the need to fill the quiet with mindless noise.

There are people who teach me things without ever being aware of the lessons they are teaching me. These are mostly people I abhor for one reason or another, but they leave me thinking, questioning, assessing, and ultimately changing the way I move through my life.

Too much time has been spent trying to bend myself in ways that are contrary to who I am. I think of all the wasted time I will never get back and that is more than enough reason to put an end to the phoniness once and for all.

On hair, love, politics, and God

"There are times to cultivate and create, when you nurture your world and give birth to new ideas and ventures. There are times of flourishing and abundance, when life feels in full bloom, energized and expanding. And there are times of fruition, when things come to an end. They have reached their climax and must be harvested before they begin to fade. And finally of course, there are times that are cold, and cutting and empty, times when the spring of new beginnings seems like a distant dream. Those rhythms in life are natural events. They weave into one another as day follows night, bringing, not messages of hope and fear, but messages of how things are.”~Chogyam Trungpa


I chopped off most of my hair today--the first time in about five years. They divided my hair out into four sections of ponytails then cut them off. The hair will go to Locks of Love. It makes me so happy giving it all away. I told my daughter that the best thing about getting it cut today was throwing my purse over my shoulder and not having my hair get all tangled up in the strap. I feel much lighter now, like my head is floating above my shoulders.

I know that a lot of time has passed since I last posted but I have not felt like writing lately. I've had this heavy heart for a while in terms of our world and where we're headed and when I'm troubled like I've been, it helps me to turn inward to try to find peace. I've had this horrible feeling about what's going to happen to the United States--and feel like we're not heading in a direction that I feel is good for us. I believe our government is filled with people who do not have our best interests at heart and it's hard being at the mercy of people I mistrust with every fiber of my being. I've wanted to do something--anything--to make sure that my family survives. I believe the financial crisis is much worse than what our traitorous government tells us and so I've been trying to prepare by doing things NOW that I hope will help us down the line. I've started storing food and other sorts of supplies in preparation for the worst. If the worst does not come, I can always use the stuff I've bought anyway. I'm not typically an alarmist, but I listen to my heart when it tells me something is wrong. I think if I listen to my heart with pure intentions, then my heart will not fail me.

I bought a large print Bible the other day (because my sight is failing me) and plan on reading it cover to cover. I grew up Catholic but have not been inside a church for more years than I care to tell you. I went to Catholic schools all my life but after I left home, I decided that there was too much about the church that rubbed me the wrong way. I know too many people who go to church on Sundays believing themselves to be holier than thou, yet on the remaining six days of the week, they are as hateful as the day is long. I never felt any connection to God inside a church for some reason and because I did not attend mass anymore, I figured that I was knowingly signing a one way ticket to hell for myself (Catholic guilt will do that to you).

But even though I stopped going to church, I never stopped having a relationship with God, in fact, I think my connection to Him grew stronger the minute I stopped forcing myself to pray with a church full of people. And now with everything that is happening all around me, I felt compelled to go back and read God's words to see how I can apply them to my life--to find answers that I know are inside if I take the time to read them carefully. I feel slightly ashamed that I am such a voracious reader and yet I've never read the entire Bible. I've sat in churches and allowed other people to tell me their interpretations, but I've never challenged myself to seek the wisdom I know I will find there on my own. Rest assured I am not getting all God squad on everyone because I still manage to sin up a storm on a daily basis without even trying.

Spring is almost here and I am loving seeing the color come back into the world. There are miracles everywhere when I stop long enough to notice them.