Be the change you want to see.

Hi there.

This is where you should comment if you know me IRL or perhaps have met me via a community here on LJ.
I'm not averse to having new Friends, and you are welcome to add my journal. Usually I will read some of your journal first before deciding whether to add your journal to my filters.

A few posts are public so people can see if they like my writing.

(June 11, 2007)
(Edit October 10, 2009)

{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

This doesn't count (to me!) as one of the posts toward the 100 count.

This is, instead, me, trying to encourage other folks to make a commitment to blog something that matters to you. To think thoroughly, or experience thoroughly, something you want to know more about.

Recently the idea circulated round here on Livejournal to describe oneself in terms of absolute truth yet to paint what might be considered an untruthful picture of yourself as a whole.

In contemplating this idea I'm realizing that I can only think of descriptors of how I *used* to be but am no longer, or events or injuries, or choices I made, which can no longer describe the me I am now.

What am I now?

A teacher, a student, an artist. A dreamer, an idealist, a warrior for the truth. A happy homemaker. A woman with two lovers. A woman who is moving out of Mother phase but is not ready for Croning... I think Teacher and Warrior make good intermediate stages, don't you?

I am a crafter and a destroyer and a designer. I am a gardener and a keeper of the flame. I pray and I meditate and I struggle with forgiveness.

I am forgetful when I get immersed in technological storytelling. I get sucked in SO BAD by computer, TV, or phone that I try to take media-free vacation days where I don't touch any of them. This is hard though because the smartphone is soooo magnetic...

I have good intentions that I don't always follow through on. I miss my own deadlines. Yet I am still producing more and better quality projects with greater quotae of finished-ness than I have ever done before.

I get a lot done some days, and some days I do nothing at all. I'm okay with that. I quit shaming myself and beating myself up over not meeting my own or others' expectations, somewhere around five years ago. It didn't help, and it made me feel miserable.

I try to live for myself now. I try to DO a lot for others, but that's different than LIVING for others, the way I used to. I make my own goals and help my life to have rhythms that meet the goals without panicking or pushing myself, or at least not any more than a natural focus and attention to detail requires.

I love more easily. I don't tolerate drama much anymore. My ups and my downs both tend to be flatter than they once were (of course we used to be talking Himalayas and Marianis Trench, so that's actually a GOOD thing!)... and because I no longer need to wallow in my OMG SQUEE or OMG POOR ME, I do indeed Get More Stuff Done. More art, more fun things, more time with the cats and my sweeties. Soon, more time for my friends, and I can't wait!

simplification is very appealing. purging the unnecessary is very appealing, and I'm more ruthless than I ever have been. but, but I get overwhelmed by the leftovers of my former lives. Especially paper, especially in huge piles still packed up from the last move or the move before that one. so I don't deal with it for long periods of time. maybe I can trade with someone I trust: I'll go through that one box of paper for you if you will go through that box of paper for me. Save out the things that are actually useful and trash the rest.

I have tattoo plans that might surprise some people.

If I love you, live with you, and am happy and content, I will match and fold your socks in the laundry. If I'm pissed off, your socks will still be clean but you will have to turn them right side around and match them up for yourself. (I just turned a TON of socks right-side around today and matched them all up and made a pretty drawer-space for them. Today is a good day!)

Sometimes I'm a hypocrite in small ways. For instance, I will often forget to clean up after myself when working on a project, but if someone ELSE does that I get very angry. (shrug) Guess that's pretty human.

I'm working on (gently escorting) some bad habits (downstairs and out the door). Some I can't get rid of myself, so I plan to hire someone to help. Namely, a fitness/rehabilitation coach. Best advice on this: find someone my age or older who GETS what it means to rehab an injury or illness, and will listen when I say, this is my goal, how can I best and most safely achieve it?

I like to brain dump and don't always bother to come to a pretty conclusion. =)

*whew*

Guess I've been here a long time now.

Here's something I learned this weekend.

I grew up in Sacramento but have spent the last several years slagging it off and praising the Bay Area. Thing is, I don't have to slag off one place to love another place. And visiting family and friends this weekend has been good from the perspective of appreciating how much value-added Sacramento has in terms of old, vivid, meaningful memories. There are stories around every corner: there's where so and so used to live, I got my first tattoo there, Drat my favorite thrift store has gone out of business, there's my first apartment where I lived with Jeff for a little while, etc. Stories that go back so far that I remember distances in minutes-walked or bicycled because I was a kid and that's just how you got around.

Stories that shaped me.

In a similar vein, I found myself falling into old habits of snarkitude. I'm embarrassed to admit this. I took the easy shot, more than once in the last week or so, snarking or slagging people who are "easy targets", people who other people also make fun of, people who I used to make fun of myself. I don't need to do that either anymore. I don't like how I am when I do that. I want to be a person who speaks up when my cousin says something I object to, not wait till he's out of earshot and snark on him. I want to work on that level of courage. I want to have the courage of my convictions and the strength to hold them up.

Truth is more important than the easy laugh.
Integrity is more important than avoiding offense.

It's time to kick things up a notch. It's time to show up and take on more responsibility, take care with the details to make sure they are done properly. It's time to reach out and go get what I need for my life and my health and quit avoiding, best I can, the things that I don't want to have to do but that I know I need to do if I'm going to launch into the next phase of my development and my impact on the world.

I want to make an impact. I'm okay with it being subtle (though knowing me, I'll probably be a bit brash and loud about it instead) and I'm okay with being small-scale.
For now.

Taking care of business is what I can do right now. Bringing Quality and Commitment to whatever I choose to spend my energies on. What I realized this morning, is that means, if I'm being a housewife, to take care of things as best I can, and don't put it off till tomorrow. If I'm being a student, same thing. If I'm jobhunting, same thing. (sensing a trend here? Yes, I procrastinate)

I need to use available tools to help me stay on track, motivated, on top of things, and to complete quality work. To quote a certain famous Hindu, I need to be the change I wish to see in the world. And let what doesn't matter, fall away.

I think I better go. I have work to do.

Here is me testing a new-for-me technique of blogging. Of communicating, and of political activism.



I believe Naomi Wolf is right.
I believe that the window of opportunity is closing, and that we, ALL OF US, will have to push to keep it open.
I believe that we have to ratchet up our efforts to protect our democracy and our own safety.

I believe that this country's Founders meant for all of us to stand up and protect government for the people, BY the people, if it is ever threatened.

Am I scared to speak out like this?

Hell yes.

but I remember the quote by Martin Niemoller:

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

this is me, worried.

Watch the video. Thank you, Cherilyn, for pointing me in this direction, and for helping me wake up.

Elections are coming up.
Please pay attention. I will be trying to, also.

LEARN, FORGET, RELEARN!

This is the Pattern! Until you really internalize it, make the knowledge a real part of you!

My struggles to learn about my relationship patterns mirror a time in high school when I struggled to learn the meaning of the word EPIPHANY. I had to look that word up in the dictionary every time I ran across it - must have been 5 or 6 times, had a little A-HA moment each time. At some point, I actually GOT it.
Ironic, huh?
It's also like a few minutes ago, when I tried to stretch my tight hamstring which was kinking up my lower back (again). By working the muscle isometrically (holding the leg static while tensing the muscle strongly and repeatedly) the pain and stiffness goes away. This worked better than a long walk, much better than a static stretch. And I know I've done this before, probably done it many times.

I had a habit of falling into manipulative and somewhat abusive relationships (not all of my relationships were like this, just about half) because they were familiar and comfortable as long as I refused to think about what was really going on, or what I really needed and wanted...

Perhaps, as they say, you cannot unlearn what has been learned.
But, you can sometimes, (I seem to have done so repeatedly) forget that you knew a thing, for months or even years at a time.

Reviewing records and career files yesterday: I knew in 1992 (wrote an essay) that I wanted, needed to be in an environment with supportive, positive coworkers, lots of people contact, working for an organization whose mission I can really get behind with all my heart.

So then, during my most recent two jobhunts (last late-summer and fall, and now) I've spent HOW much time, taking tests, and journalling, to find out the same exact results.
AGAIN.

AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!

"Already knowing" something is no use at all, if you can't pull it out of storage, activate it, and make it useful.

But now I've seen the pattern and I can try to keep aware.