Patience and Perseverance

March 21, 2019 / christyterese / Leave a comment

I have this great relationship in my life. It’s with a rock.

No, seriously. It’s a little quartz bit that is shaped to a point and it hangs from a chain. It’s a pendulum, and it is changing my life with all sorts of insights. Today it told me that “What’s going on” with me emotionally is that I am struggling with perseverance and patience. And that clashes with someone else’s challenge to cope with my “Drive to Win”.

If you know me, even a little bit, you understand this post fully right now. I could basically stop typing and you could surmise the rest based on the juxtaposition of Patience and Drive to Win. Because they struggle internally, but apparently that struggle is now coming out, and potentially driving away others whom I don’t wish to repel. So …

I approached my day with as much patience and perseverance as I could muster. And this day definitely took some of each. I needed to call the housing authority that subsidizes my rent, because I felt they had made an error in figuring my new rent amount after the approval of my accommodation request due to disability. I talked to two people, and then they put in a request for the person that I spoke with on Friday and Monday to call me. I suggested he may know more about my case, considering we had discussed it twice already. He called me back, walked me through the same response I had gotten earlier, and then I patiently thanked him for his time, while still feeling a mistake was made.

But I didn’t let my Drive to Win intervene. I let it go and hung up the phone. Fifteen minutes later, I received another call. I was correct. Anthony, who had been looking at my case repeatedly, noticed that I had not been given the utility amount for a two bedroom, and the change lowers my rent and increases my subsidy.

There was a woman in line at the market earlier who could have driven me nuts. She was very scattered and also chatty and I could have thought, “If she would shut up and focus I would get my coffee and tomato and get home much faster.” But I reminded myself that patience was an important focus for me right now, and instead I said to myself, “Isn’t she adorable. I’m probably like that when my brain fog kicks in and I’m in public. Good thing I usually have Luke along to do the things for me when I get all scattered. I wonder if I pull it off as adorable?”

And that response made my day go an entirely different direction.

I left the store feeling peaceful and entertained and a bit joyful. I’m pretty sure I was smiling. I laughed aloud at a text Adam sent and people looked at me like I was strange. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. And that was just a trip to the market.

I also went to the pharmacy. I said I needed to know if I could go without one of my medications, since permission to refill hadn’t come in. The tech forgot to ask the pharmacist. I gently reminded her and she called him over. He gave me three days worth of pills and told me to get in touch with my neurologist to get a new script in as soon as I could. He didn’t want me experiencing symptoms. Perseverance and patience win again!

A little later today, an old partner, whom I used to help with work tasks he didn’t have the capacity to perform–like typing things and using big words, for instance–called and asked me how to get “a blank page to type on” to come up on his laptop.

Breathe. Breathe. Patience, Christy.

This one took a lot of extra patience and perseverance.

He finally found “Office” on his desktop and then “Word” inside that. And a happy cheer came from the phone as he found that blank page. I congratulated him and then politely ended the conversation.

Minutes later, he called again. “Could I bother you for a minute?”

“What is it that you need?”

“Well, you can figure this out and get this printed. I can’t figure all this stuff out. You can do this in a minute. Can’t I just come up and you can do it up there?”

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Patience, Christy. More patience, Christy.

“You just need to click the little print symbol, or go to “File” and then click “Print”, so I think you can handle it.”

“You’re better at this stuff. I don’t know how this stuff works. Why don’t I just bring it up there?”

“My printer isn’t connected to my Chromebook yet, so you will have to wait for me to transfer it to my tablet and print from there,” I said, hoping to deter him from utilizing my skill to do his job.

“Well come down here and use my printer then.”

“No. I don’t want to come down there.” Breathe. Breathe.

“Okay. I’ll be up in a minute.”

Breathe. Breathe. Plug in the computer. Move the desk away from the window. Prepare to do the task with haste and grace and then go forward with your life.

As soon as he arrived I texted another man and asked him to call in a few minutes time to give me an excuse to shove out this one. But he was with a client. I said I would make another excuse, but maybe he should call when he was done working, just to be certain I was freed from these clutches. He said that wouldn’t be until 8. I’m not that patient. I would have to deal with this situation on my own.

But, frankly, the texts to the other man were part of dealing with the situation. The jealousy meter on the ex-partner went up to “fuck this bitch, I’m outta here” with my second coy smile and giggle at the arrival of a text. And we weren’t talking about anything to be coy or giggling about, but I knew that the fact that someone else had my adoration and attention would frustrate him. It’s a terrible way to play with a person’s emotion to get the outcome I want. I can admit that without hesitation. But I don’t really have any shame over it, because I have been used for his outcomes time and again, without even a thought about my care or concern at all. And I was being used by him at this present moment. He had a task that he didn’t want to try to accomplish on his own, so he bullied his way into getting me to do it for him. So, I fought back with my text game, and it worked. I was patient enough to complete the task that he needed me to complete–simply typing out some names and addresses, and then he went on his way.

Now I am impatiently wondering if I will still get a call from my other friend after he finishes work. Which is probably the worst impatience I could have, because he is one who cannot stomach my Drive to Win, and I cannot be impatient with him. So, all of this patience today and all of my persevering is for naught if I cannot hold onto it for the long-term.

The long-term is kind of how patience works though, right? Playing the long game. Waiting for the right moment. Anticipating the needs of others. Being able to stop demanding instant gratification.

I fail at those things a lot just because I am super open and available as a person. I say what I feel. I put things out there. And I am accustomed to being around people who are comfortable with that.

I suppose I have always known that there are people who are not comfortable with that. But those people simply were not my friends. They were outside the circle where I spend most of my time living. And the thought that the shy, quiet, slow-moving, considering deeply, and taking their time to decide people should have space in my circle, and that I needed to make a space for them wasn’t one that concerned me much until now.

He isn’t a bore. He isn’t a nerdy, weird, unsocialized guy. He just has lots of layers of stuff. It takes time and energy to get beyond the surface. And there are nights when I want to break it open and get in there and figure it out and know it–whatever is down inside there. That isn’t how he works, though, so trying to do that won’t work. Only Patience and Perseverance and letting go of my Drive to Win will work. The only way to know what is beyond the surface is to wait and watch and be present and let things slowly unfold.

I don’t need to be different to do that. I just need to see differently to do that. I just need to interact differently to do that. That doesn’t change who I am or how I am, at my core. It just opens me up to a possibility that I hadn’t taken the time to make available before. It gives me an opportunity to learn a way of interacting that is foreign, but may have beautiful results.

So, my rock told me today that I have to focus my attention on patience and perseverance and not my drive to win. And it is proving to be an excellent guide.

It is a guide. And that is what I call it. Before I use it I have a mini incantation that I say, basically ending in “my guiding stone you shall be”. It helps me find the way when I don’t really know which direction I need to point myself.

There are days when you wake up feeling strong and ready and full and you just go. You know where to go and how to go and you do life. And there are days that you need a little guidance. Today my guidance came from a little bit of quartz. It is a really smart bit of quartz, I think. It gave me excellent advice.

I’ll keep working on Perseverance and Patience. I’ll keep trying to let go of my Drive to Win. If the Divine is offering me guidance that says these changes will serve me well, I believe that it is true. And I do believe that my bit of quartz is one way the Divine speaks. That seems foreign to many, I am sure. But seeing is believing, in many cases, and I have seen over and over that this little pendulum tells me the truest of things and the best of things. I’ve grown to trust it over time. And I guess that is what it is asking of me now–to grow to trust people over time, if time is what it takes for them to let down all of their walls and let others see them truly.

I think I can do that. It won’t be the easiest journey upon which I have embarked, but it might be a great one.

Operation Patience, here I come … or wait, I suppose.

Accidentally

January 13, 2019 / christyterese / Leave a comment

My dad left only about two hours ago, and already I have realized that I accidentally left my handicapped parking placard in his vehicle. I suppose this is one accident less than the two from his visit just weeks before, when he accidentally took my spare keys and accidentally left his air mattress and pump. Regardless, it seems there is always something left or taken without us having meant for it to be so.

While he was here I accidentally got him a parking ticket. I meant to move the car from one street to another, since one is free at night and another is permitted parking only at night. I was late in my duty and saw the ticket writer moving along the street as I went out to move the car. Too late. The ticket was already written and he wouldn’t take it back and offer a warning instead.

A few hours later we were off to lunch in the backseat of the vehicle of my friend and his husband. It was snowing out, and we were all pleased that the “snow” function on the new Range Rover worked exceptionally and kept us from sliding into the intersection where the road was slick from precipitation. Unfortunately, the vehicle behind us was not a Range Rover with a snow function to choose, and we were struck from behind. Nobody was hurt, thankfully. (Though I have had a headache since and am inclined to claim that being jostled has thrown my vertebrae off center–but know that my physical therapist can just push those babies back into place next session and likely fix the problem, so I’m not ready to file an injury suit just yet.) But it took some time to exchange information, and our friends needed to go to the police station after lunch and file reports for the collision, and will need to take the car in for repair.

Accidents happen often.

And not just the collision kind, but the kind where you aren’t paying attention to your things or your words or your actions with enough focus to make certain that you aren’t saying or doing something that is potentially harmful.

My dad and I also discussed, at length, the type of accident where people’s words are accidentally stupid or hurtful. Because people don’t seem to pay close enough attention to their surroundings to understand that they are leaving something out. And generally the thing left out is compassion for a person’s situation–empathy.

There are so many statements that have come across our paths that are unintentionally hurtful.

I understand how you feel. You must be lonely. When are you going to find a new partner? You should [insert obvious medical advice we have already tried]. Your partner/parent/child is in a better place. You’re young, so you you’ll find someone new.

All of these things are meant to be kind, but they accidentally cause even more wounds. They aren’t helpful. And what would be helpful is simply to not try to identify or give advice, but to say that you don’t understand, but that you are ready and able to listen, to perform household tasks, and to help in practical ways that give a person time to rest, heal, and grieve in the ways they need to do so.

As a chronically ill individual, I have a whole set of ways that people accidentally offend, atop the normal process of grief and singleness. I have people who tell me to get well soon–which I won’t. I have the constant onslaught of home remedies and stories of “my [loosely connected acquaintance or distant relative] who did thing X and was healed of their illness, which are unsolicited and annoying, because I have a team of 13 specialists who oversee my care and some raw honey is not going to be the thing that all of them missed as a magic cure. The other night my cousin said, “If they keep looking around the doctors are going to find things wrong.” Later my dad laughed at me as I recounted that statement and how badly I wanted to reply that medicine doesn’t work that way, and I am not a used car. Things must actually be wrong for them to diagnose me with an illness. They don’t make up illnesses so they can bill you for a new pancreas! It was another accidentally, really weirdly, delivered comment that made me feel like my situation isn’t one that others take seriously or treat with validity and respect.

I am not saying at all that my cousin, or others, don’t take me seriously or treat me as valid and respected. Quite the contrary! But somehow, when it comes to these statements, their care for me and their understanding of and care for my situation don’t align. They accidentally get it wrong.

So, how do we change that?

I wish I had a clearer answer. Because I can shout empathy, listening, and validation from the rooftops all day long, and people will say, “I’m a great listener and your feelings are totally valid.” But the disconnect remains. I think there is a big difference between hearing what a person says and feeling what a person says.

My dad is of the mind that until you go through grief of this depth, you can’t understand and will continue to view things in a way that is incomplete–and, therefore, will continue to say the wrong things.

I’m not of that mind. I’m not of that mind because I know people who suffer physical pain and still don’t have empathy for my physical pain. And I’m not of that mind because I have a few friends who are deeply aware of what I am feeling, even when I am doing what I believe is a good job at hiding my true feelings–they see through my act. I’m not of that mind because people who have suffered similar experiences to mine can shut down in ways that I cannot, and can ignore the past in ways that I cannot, leaving no room for empathy, even though they know exactly how it feels to experience that pain.

Instead, I think that we all have the capacity for empathy, but very few of us have the strength of will and the courage to open ourselves in that manner. Because doing so means deliberately seeking to feel the pain of others. It means to share in their sorrows–not just on some surface level where you offer the accidentally insensitive platitudes, but truly feeling that sorrow. And why in the world would we want to add sorrow to our lives??!!

But the thing that is important about sharing in sorrows is that you also get to share in joys. When you share in the sorrows in deep and meaningful ways, you also share in joys in deep and meaningful ways. So, letting in the suffering means letting in the celebration. Letting in some darkness means flooding the space with light! Who would want to miss out on that??!!

The people who see me in my darkest moments also are invited to share in my brightest and most glorious moments. And those are really fabulous! I pour so much love into the people who love me truly that it is almost ridiculous. I’ve probably loved some people so well that it has frightened them away, because they were not accustomed to such unfettered, unconditional love and it felt awkward or foreign. But those people also dealt with me in the depths of my despair, which was extremely difficult, I know. And the reward isn’t likely to be equal to the expense, but that is just the way that life works out, I think.

The risk in life is often greater than the reward. But that does not mean that it isn’t worth it. That doesn’t mean the experiences and the people and the adventures are not worth it. Because the idea that we shouldn’t move forward unless the reward is greater than the risk is one that was manufactured by the modern man, not one that has always been a part of humanity. It is an accident of our economy that we weigh the risks and decide that the safe bet is to not open up. We keep closed our bank accounts, our doors, and our hearts because the risk seems to outweigh the reward. But in doing so, we have made a grave error. Because life happens in the accidents, more often than not. We cannot plan for every outcome. We cannot keep “safe” by keeping distant. And keeping ourselves closed off from everything and everyone just makes us more susceptible to being left alone in our tragedies, should they arrive accidentally.

We need to open up and find that empathy and feel for others and with others. We need to share sorrows and joys. We need to stop weighing what we think will be the consequences and throw the risk/benefit analysis out the fucking window. Life isn’t a series of rewards assessments. Life is often a challenge. But it is often an adventure!

So go out there and make your accidents be ones that aren’t based on selfish, closed-hearted living that causes offense to those who are suffering. Make your accidents be the kind that are derived from throwing caution to the wind and running headlong into feelings and actions that let you know the deep lows and the exhilarating highs that life has to offer us as human beings. Because that is amazing and wonderful, and, I believe, what we were designed to experience.

Use that empathy. Feel deeply. And experience a full life.

And the Storm Rages On

May 3, 2018 / christyterese / Leave a comment

It isn’t easy for me to be vulnerable.

I remember a friend from cohort saying to me once that I was very open by not very vulnerable, and I was upset by that statement, because I didn’t think it fair to separate the two out in that manner. Being honest was, in my mind at that point, being vulnerable. Now I understand more fully that there is a difference, and that Chris was correct in his assessment. It is easy for me to tell the truth, and it is hard for me to be open about how that truth can harm me—how exposing the heart of me is different from exposing the facts of my situation.

I was recently quite vulnerable about the financial situation that I find myself in, and the subsequent challenges that my daughter is experiencing. I let people know how hurt and frustrated and damaged and judged and punished I was feeling as a result of all sorts of things that are far beyond my control. And I didn’t shy away and rewrite and edit and try to add decorum or lessen the blow of my emotions.

Overall, the response was positive. I had a few people who commended my authenticity and vulnerability in stating not just the true facts, but the challenge of my own feelings about those facts.

But there was one response that has been eating away at me for days now, and I can’t help but craft some sort of retort. I won’t start some strange, heated Facebook argument about it, however. So, instead I want to address it here, and, hopefully, give it a worthy apologetic.

After lamenting that my daughter was forced to drop out of her educational program just 6 weeks prior to graduation due to financial constraints, and noting that my own challenge of being trapped in cycles and systems that keep me in an impoverished state, rather than offer me the chance to thrive—both of which I consider to be rather unique to me in my particular circles of acquaintance and/or influence—I received this comment in reply:

It’s not just you, Christy. Nor is or (sic) just single income households. The economy is tough and there are a lot of people that I know right now that are struggling to keep the lights on.

I’m so sorry. I know what you’re going through when the stress, the anxiety, disability, and desire all meet in the perfect storm.

I’m praying for you guys…

And under that was a meme that said:

Sometimes God calms the storm. Sometimes He lets the storm rage and calms His child.

I later texted another friend that I was “Zen as fuck” until I read that comment.

I can’t fully express how upsetting comments like this are for someone in my situation. The idea that my situation is just like a whole lot of other people’s situations is laughable. To normalize what is incomprehensibly abnormal as a strategy to deny me aid is not one that is foreign, unfortunately. People love to rationalize their refusal to help their fellow humans as “reasonable” instead of cruel or evil in all sorts of ways. And the easiest way to do that is to dehumanize the person in need—using racism, classism, moral relativism, or some other ism to blame the needy for their own struggle. That dehumanization is much more difficult when you sat beside said person in seminary classes and your child was babysitter to mine, so you resort to the second easiest rationalization—the “lots of people” argument.

“Lots of people” have disabilities and they…

“Lots of people” are divorced and they…

“Lots of people” are having financial challenges. “Lots of people” have anxiety. “Lots of people” want life to be different than it is. “Lots of people” struggle.

All of this is true. So, in the mind of the one arguing for the many, the one is simply an exaggeration of or a dramatic expression of what all sorts of people are dealing with. They “understand”. They “sympathize”.

Bullshit.

I call bullshit.

And I get to call it because of this ugly feeling in the core of my being whenever I get to read these sorts of comments under my vulnerable posts.

Ironically, just above this comment was a series of comments and replies that talked about how I hate to open up because of the times that I opened wide my arms for a hug and got a gut punch instead. This “lots of people” comment is a gut punch where there should be an embrace. And I will tell you why this feels like a gut punch.

My vulnerability is not something that is shared by lots of people. It is an intimate thing, to share my heart and my deepest wounds and fears. To say that lots of people are touched in the same way—even if it were true—is a betrayal of my trust. This comment is akin to a friend confiding in you that they were raped, and you saying, “Lots of people get raped. I know what you’re going through. Sometimes you need to let go of shit and let God change your perspective.”

Gut fucking punched.

I’m deeply involved in all sorts of methods for changing my perspective, by the way. I meditate almost every day. I practice yoga. I practice gratitude daily. I use several mindfulness practices, and I have all sorts of routines in place to keep my heart open, my outlook positive, and my disordered thinking in check. When I said that I was Zen, I meant it. I could not have been calmer when I received that offending comment. And I addressed it in the calmest manner possible: I ignored it. I talked to a close friend about how it made me feel, and she supported me through the event and helped me to keep a positive perspective throughout the situation.

So, even after being gut punched by the insensitive rationalizing comment, I kept my cool demeanor. I didn’t need “God to calm his child”.

But the storm is another story.

The storm should NEVER have been here in the first place, and yet it rages on.

This common little meme, and the saying upon it, are very upsetting for me. They assume that the things in life that harm us are somehow meant to be hanging around our heads so that God can teach us some sort of lesson in how to keep our cool under pressure. And I don’t understand where that idea comes from, but it is a terrible sentiment, and we need to put an end to it.

My challenges stem from disabling conditions, yes. And those disabling conditions might never go away or be cured. I understand that a certain amount of coping is required for me to navigate life with those conditions. In that sense, there with always be challenges.

But “the storm” for so many of us can simply go away if people stop using the rationale to avoid helping one another and affect change.

My storm includes a system that doesn’t fully support those in our society who have disability, and only offers me $750 in cash and $15 in food benefits, plus a housing stipend. Adding those together doesn’t make a livable situation, and I am constantly in need and constantly in danger of losing my home, starving, not having my medications, or some other disastrous challenge.

My storm also includes the challenge of mental illness that has been present since early childhood, and which left untreated for so long has influenced my life in countless ways, making it impossible to consider any decision I’ve ever made one that wasn’t made under duress, and challenging me to figure out who the hell I am, and why. I don’t need a midlife crisis, because I’ve never had an independent identity—my crisis is ongoing.

My storm includes a divorce from a horrible man, whose damage to my person and my psyche cannot and should not be downplayed, for any reason. And that also means an absent father is a part of my daughter’s storm—and the storms of our children influence our own storms. The weight of being a single parent goes far beyond “single income” households—and I’ve generally had a no income household, because of my difficulty with employment due to PTSD. Having a completely absent parent, who contributes in NO way, is not anything that a person who lives in a two-parent home can ever imagine. It still infuriates me when married people say things like, “I’m a single parent for the week”, when their partner is away on a trip or something. Having a partner who is physically absent for a matter of days is nothing like having no partner at all. You still have all sorts of support, financial and emotional just being the tip of the iceberg. You can’t imagine none of that being present, ever.

My storm includes debt totaling over $250,000. Most of that is from student loans, and much of the rest is due to the three years’ time that I spent waiting for my disability claim to be approved. I was unable to work and waiting for the Social Security Administration to look at the body of proof that I was unable to work and sign off on my meager $750 a month payment. In the meantime, I had nowhere to turn but credit cards, my dad, and charity. So, I owe far more than I could ever pay back on my own, but I am not eligible for programs that would forgive these debts. So, I sit and owe, and the interest just increases the amounts and increases the amounts.

My storm includes the complicated situation where my adult daughter cannot be considered an independent student, according to the rules of the government, but I cannot claim her as a dependent, according to the rules of the government. This leaves her with a shortfall that other students don’t need to deal with regarding their own financial aid. She can’t take out more money, but I can’t take out money on her behalf. Because she is in this weird limbo state, because I am a disabled individual. This isn’t her fault. This should not be a storm she needs to weather, because I should be able to provide for her. But I can’t.

So, my storm also includes the constant feeling of guilt because I cannot offer my daughter enough to put her in a position where she is on equal footing with her peers. She isn’t set up for success. She doesn’t have the advantages that her cousins and her friends and the children of the commenter on my post have. I can’t offer her a chance at starting out at zero sum and working her way up from there. She starts with my handicap. She starts at the back of the pack, because I can’t give her an education and rent money and clothing and food and care packages and enough love to make up for the losses that she has suffered and the abandonment that she has felt. I have loved her fiercely. I have done and continue to do all that I can. But it will never feel like enough.

My storm includes shame. So much shame. Not being a pure virgin girl, and not knowing how to stop being abused, and not understanding what that abuse even was or meant. The shame of hiding and the shame of secrets and the shame of difference. My storm later became one that was volatile and violent and full of rage—so much rage. I felt like I was the storm, or like the storm lived somewhere deep within me and it was trying to get out and I was desperate to hold it in—failing to hold it in. And then the storm became the shame of promiscuity and feeling like all of those words that are used to keep women captive—whore, slut, bitch—were the only thing that I could be, tainted that I was. And it felt good to be used in a sense, until it was over, and then the dissociative state wore away and the wave of shame washed over again and I started holding in the storm again, as long as I could … until the next time.

My storm includes being all the people that you could rationalize away as not quite human. Homeless. Addicted. Divorced. Unemployed. Mentally ill. Using my body as currency. Shielding my body from blows and then crawling into bed next to the one who wielded them. Perpetually single. Having sex with partners that were not my husband. Having sex with partners who were not men. The girl who stays out too late. The girl who mows her lawn on Sunday. (Oh, yes. Some people consider that a grievous offense!) I received anonymous notes about my bad behavior. I was told I could lose my scholarship for having sex. I got dirty, side-eyed looks from others. When I talked to your husbands after church, you would suddenly appear at their sides and pull them in a different direction—like talking to me would lead to me stealing them away to mow lawns and suck on body parts by sundown. In truth, I was just interesting and unconstrained by convention. It’s an attractive thing to be interesting and unconventional. (Translation: read some books not written by female bible study developers and then discuss the contents with your husband … he’ll be mowing your lawn in no time.)

So, my storm also included years and years and years of not having my needs met. Hence the comments about opening my arms for a hug and getting a gut punch.

I’m still not surprised when I open myself up and somebody hits me hard, instead of offering me love and support. Unfortunately, it is what I have come to expect.

The dumb thing about that meme is that you don’t have to tell me that the storm might not go away. I fully expect that storm to fucking tear me to pieces and kill me. It takes weekly therapy, twenty drugs, a host of friends, and all sorts of self-care strategies to convince me that the storm can be survived. It takes every ounce of energy I can muster to get up in the morning and face the storm again. It takes all manner of strategies to be my Zen self in the midst of all this chaos and terror and shame and unmet need. But I do it. I do it day after day after day.

I keep on facing it.

And some days the storm wins a little, and I freak out on a new potential partner with a host of doubt and shame and fear. Other days I wake up and counter that with a bit more of the Zen and apologize and open up and tell him why I reacted that way, hoping that he will meet my need and connect with what I am saying … and not gut punch me while my arms are open.

But I face it.

And your job, as the people who would support me, is not to remind me that there is this big, ugly, terrifying storm that I am working so hard to live in the midst of without losing my shit. Your job is to do everything that you are able to make that storm disappear. Your job is to offer support where there wasn’t any. Your job is to accept me and not shame me. Your job is to love and not harm me. Your job is to prove that the storm isn’t going to win, and that we can make all of that crap go away by being better than the crap. We can change and grow and not hurt one another anymore and counter the falsehood with truth and slay the dragon of cruelty with a sword of kindness and acceptance and love.

That is the only way I know how to continue to face the storm—by trusting that we can eventually find calm skies for everyone. Without that assurance, facing it is a worthless effort, and I may as well off myself now. (That isn’t a suicidal statement, fyi. That is me drawing on the extreme to make a point.) Because if there isn’t an end to the need and the shame there isn’t really a point in moving forward. And I don’t mean just the money—I mean the need for understanding and connection and love. But I define love as “meeting needs”, so the money is a part of the equation.

If you are to assist another, you need to do more than tell them that there is struggle all around them and to work on their perspective. You need to work to end the struggle. Because no matter what your perspective is, if the struggle persists, you aren’t doing what you should be doing. You aren’t helping.

I know that standing up against the storm isn’t an easy thing. It is much easier to say, “Check your perspective” or to hide in some shelter and hope that the storm passes. But for many of us—and for me—the storm rages on, indefinitely. And that storm can’t stop. It won’t stop without the change of perspective from many other people who are not me.

It is often not the people suffering, but those who are unaware of or those who are causing the suffering who need to change the way that they are operating in the day to day. I’m usually not the one doing things “wrong”. I’m generally suffering because of the things that are unjust, not the things that I cannot accept but that are perfectly fine. And the ones suffering an injustice generally don’t have any power to make the change required to stop that suffering. If they did, the change would happen hastily and without resistance. Because, despite the lies that many in power like to feed you, people don’t wallow in poverty and addiction and illness and homelessness and sex work because they want to. Just like Kanye West is an idiot for presuming that slavery was/is a choice, anyone who thinks that people live in the middle of storms because they like how lightning feels is an idiot. Those people don’t have the shelter they need. You must find ways to provide it for them—preferably by asking them how you can best provide them shelter.

Robert F Kennedy once said:

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.

This is the type of shelter-building act that we need in response to those who are in the middle of storms opening their hearts and asking for assistance. Building currents that sweep down walls—sweeping away the clouds of the storm and bringing, perhaps for the first time, calm, blue skies, should be the goal that we aspire to reach. Asking people to be quiet and calm in the middle of injustice is not the answer. Fighting against injustice is the answer, on the grand scale.

And meeting me in my storm, with open arms and an embrace—not a gut-punching meme that seeks to discredit my need, devalue my expression, and normalize an injustice.

When you are met with someone who opens up and seeks to be authentic and disclose their struggle, don’t tell them to sit quietly in chaos, please. Don’t ask them to be happier with the injustice that swirls around them. Act to improve their lot. Strike out against injustice. Send forth that ripple of hope.

And if you won’t do all those good things, at least stop sending gut punches.

Contribute to Christy’s fundraiser here if you wish to help lessen her storm’s raging. Thank you!

I Have No Gift to Bring

December 24, 2016 / christyterese / Leave a comment

As I was printing out boarding passes this morning (the beautiful gift from my sister that means I can spend the holiday with family), I was listening to some holiday music. The Little Drummer Boy carol caught my attention, and I wondered how many times over the years that same carol has caught my attention.

I have no gift to bring; to lay before a king…

This sometimes feels like the story of my life. And I would welcome you to the story of my life, but you probably don’t have a ton of experience that would help you relate, and I definitely do not want you to gain a ton of experience that would help you relate.

There have always been reasons—totally valid and important reasons—for my inability to afford the gifts that most in North American society consider requisite around the holidays. And while gifting and giving look really different in different households, there is usually a component of the holiday season that involves offering gifts.

Obviously, the first reason for not giving gifts is childhood. Kids don’t have money, and when they do have money they usually spend it on stupid shit, like cotton candy or collector cards or fluffy pens. So, as a child, giving was done on my behalf by my parents. And while my parents were not “well off” and very far from wealthy, they saved and budgeted in ways that allowed at least a bit of gifting.

After you transition from childhood to adolescence or adulthood, other people stop adding your name to their gifts for others. And while some of us are blessed with good jobs and parent-provided college tuition, leaving us cash for gifting in this season of life, I was not. I had the opposite, in a way. It wasn’t that my parents were not supportive. They were supportive. But I was not just transitioning from childhood to adolescence or adulthood. I was on a downward spiral to total meltdown at the rock bottom. I was tortured by challenges that most need not face, and this transition meant something intense and painful and confusing and hard. I didn’t have resources to offer gifts to others.

I can say that I have always been a generous giver. The lack of resources didn’t always mean that I was balled up into a severe self-interest. I gave my heart. I gave my body. I gave my ideas. I gave my support and care. I gave in myriad ways, but not in ways that our society usually recognizes. Love isn’t considered a good gift, for some reason. Stuff you spent money on is somehow what defines giving in my society. Which is sad, because I truly believe that love is so much more valuable than even the most expensive and extravagant stuff.

The rock bottom that I spiraled toward left me in a difficult situation. A single parent, an addict, and a mentally ill but undiagnosed and untreated person, I was left with few resources to offer others. I poured my energy and my love into my daughter, into my education, and into my “dead end” jobs that left me still dependent on others to get by and pay for the basic necessities of life. I still gave my heart and my body and my ideas and my support and care. But I still felt insufficient due to my lack of having and my lack of giving in this monetary sense that Americans hold so dear.

I pulled my way out of the pit of despair time and again. Many times because a hand was outstretched to meet mine, and give me aid. Many times because I forced out the energy needed to climb out of desperation or out of hope—they both push you toward a goal, even though they are such different feelings. There were moments when there was finally “enough”, and I gave thoughtful gifts to my family members and friends. There were moments when I was unrolling the toilet tissue from a public toilet onto an empty cardboard roll and putting as much as I was able into my purse—stealing the most basic of items to survive.

Today I find myself in a position of need once more. And this threatens to be a position that I never get out of—a situation that cannot change. Disability and all sorts of vulnerability leave me without the resources that I need to survive. I’m not yet stealing toilet paper, but I am on the brink—the temptation to take what I need when others refuse to give it is strong on some days. So is the urge to drink too much or start smoking again. It is desperation that pushes me forward these days. And I am not in a position to give. I’m in yet another season of need.

And this gets us back to the start of this post—the little drummer boy.

He has no gift to bring. He has nothing of worth. He has no resources. But he places himself at the altar, packs his love and his talent and puts them under the Christmas tree—or maybe not at the tree, because Christians who would consider the nativity and a lighted tree in tandem didn’t exist during the nativity. Honestly, nobody considered the nativity on the “actual” nativity, and lighting trees was a pagan ritual that was adapted by people who began to believe in a nativity but missed partying on the solstice. Instead of giving up the party, they created their own reason for the party.

Pardon the tangent. But people really should research what they celebrate and why. It might be both scandalous and helpful, because it would help some see that people of different creeds are not really all that different, when it comes down to ritual and celebration and basic systems of belief.

So, the little drummer boy throws down with his little drummer talents. He smacks those bongos like nobody’s business. And all who hear him are pleased with his performance and it is deemed worthy.

I have lost a lot of my “talents” over the years. My voice doesn’t work, so I don’t sing with the beauty I once did. I’ve spent many years away from a piano, so that skill has slipped away from me. I can’t run or dance or throw myself into a role on a stage. I’m a good writer, and a good artist—maybe even exceptional in those fields—but with my physical and mental limitations due to illness, it can be very hard to complete pages and fill canvas. I can’t smack bongos like nobody’s business. I can’t even do the things that I am good at doing anymore.

I used to hear the carol about the little drummer and feel like I could relate. I had no resources from a financial standpoint, but I could still offer my talents, like that little boy who somehow ended up in a barn with his drum. I still found value in what I had to offer.

It gets more and more difficult to feel valuable. Ableism hits me hard at times, and I begin to see that challenges are stacked one atop the other, filling up all the space where the value I once placed upon my life and my self once rested. There isn’t as much room for feeling like I have something to offer. Even though I still have much to offer.

Love and care and support and kindness and equity and a voice and a vote and intention—all of these are things that I have to offer. I don’t need to have anything to place before the king.

I also don’t need to perform for the king.

The mistake that the little drummer boy makes is believing that he needs to offer a performance if he can’t offer stuff. He doesn’t consider that just being present is, in itself, a gift. He doesn’t consider that his existence alone has value. He thinks he needs to bring something monetary, and when he can’t manage that, he thinks he needs to bring some offering of talent. Why, I wonder, doesn’t he believe that he can just go over to the barn and hug the parents and hold the baby and offer his love as a gift?

Is it because we don’t think that love is a gift?

Love is a gift. Presence is a gift. Existence is a gift.

I don’t have extravagant gifts for my family and friends. I didn’t send out holiday cards, and I don’t have any packages wrapped and placed under the tree. But I am beginning to realize that I don’t need either the presents or the talents to have a valuable contribution to the holiday. I AM the valuable contribution. I AM a gift.

I’m not trying to say, “Look at me! I am awesome and you should want my presence as your gift!” I am attempting to convey that the value in this scenario is value inherent in personhood. Giving things is great. Sharing talents is great. But existing—being present—is the greatest.

Being present is the greatest gift that any of us can offer.

Yes, I want presents. Yes, I want donations to my fundraiser. Yes, I want contributions to my start-up that help me open a business. Yes, I want to hear beautiful songs and embrace the talents of others. But more than these, I simply want presence. I want to be there for others and have others be there with and for me. I want to share existence, and honor the gift of being.

I know that is a bit ethereal a concept, and it can be difficult to comprehend my meaning. In simplest terms, I want to be and let be. I want to live and let live.

And that, for me, means embracing that I am a gift to those around me. My open and accepting and loving and helpful and generous self is the only gift I need be concerned with giving.

Having money and resources is wonderful. I would love to have more money and more resources. But I don’t need more money and more resources to offer an amazing gift.

I am gift enough.

Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum.

Food Chain

July 24, 2016 / christyterese / Leave a comment

I’ve watched this progression happening inside my home over the past month or so. The container garden in my sun porch at some point brought little flying bugs into the environment. Whether they came from the soil or from the great outdoors is unclear, but they arrived, nonetheless. And I have tried several remedies that promise to remove the microcosmic infestation in the front window, to no avail.

But the progressive part is that as the population of the tiny insects increased, so did the incidence of spotting arachnids. Spiders. I hate them. I have an irrational fear of the spiders. I’m the Ron Weasley of the real world—freezing, crying, losing the ability to speak, and basically freaking out when a spider comes calling.

For the most part, the arachnids have been tiny, in correlation to the tiny bugs, I suppose. So, I am coping with relative sanity.

Next have come the “creepy bugs”. Someone once told me not to kill them, because they consume spiders, so they are apparently a friend to the arachnophobe. But they are no friend to me, because I consider them creepy. They look downright scary. They are some sort of centipede, I suppose, but they have legs jutting out the bottom en masse, and they have a symmetrical wealth of leg-like protrusions on the top of their bodies. I’m getting a shiver up my spine just imagining them for long enough to describe them.

I remember a time with my friends Nic and Adam had a snake in their second floor apartment. We lived in the same apartment complex, and when the snake showed up in their environment, I immediately jumped into anti-snake mode. That meant a concerted effort to trap and kill any and all mice or rats that could be present in or around my apartment. I’m not sure how you snake-proof a home, but the concern I addressed was the food supply for snakes, not the snakes themselves.

I never had a snake in my apartment. I did catch some mice. And the mice were present because some lady in another building on the complex had made it her personal mission to capture and send to shelters the cats that lived around the apartments. Had she left them be, the cats would be eating the mice, and the snakes wouldn’t move in because they would have no food supply and a potential predator in the cats.

So, as I watch this little cycle of life in my window sill, I think about where I sit on the food chain. And by this I do not mean that I am concerned with who or what might consider me meat. By this I mean, what threats and resources are affecting my life, and why.

I’m not high on the list as far as human hierarchy goes. I’m a disabled, impoverished, woman. So that is at least three strikes against me. I’m also white and educated, so I am offered some privilege. I suppose if we were to consider the hierarchy of my society (and several others) a food chain, I might be the spider. (Ironic, since I am petrified of them.)

I might be the one who had a few being “below” and a few “above”. I am not in the worst position, but I am not in the best. I assist others, but I also need assistance. I live in this middle space, clinging to a rung halfway up the ladder. And it gives me, I believe, an interesting perspective. I can relate to those with more and those with less. I can relate with the “haves” and I can relate with the “have nots”. But there are days that I cannot relate with either—or I don’t want to.

There are days when I want to leave this underserved, loud, dirty, potentially dangerous area. I get tired of the noise—the sirens, the yelling, the gunfire. I get tired of the long commute to anything and everything. I get tired of not fitting in or looking right or getting stopped by the cops because of my white skin. I get tired of being followed by dudes yelling “damn” at my ass. I get tired of trying to explain away how or why I live here without outing myself as poor. And I get tired of all the other people who seize stereotypes and make assumptions about this place I am tired of being in, because despite its faults, this is my home, and there is much beauty and strength in this place.

There are days when I want to be a person with greater means. There are times that I feel jealous of the friends with cars and homes and second homes. There are times I want the “American Dream”.

There are more days, however, when I want to scream at the people who have all of this, and to tell them what selfish, self-serving, privileged bullshit they participate in, without even knowing. I get tired of people who are wealthy pretending they are poor. I get tired of people whining about the inconveniences of their gigantic remodel. I get tired of people saying they are broke and then going out to dinner every night. I get tired of being associated with this type of upper-middle class person just because I am white and educated. I get tired of people assuming that I belong with the “them” while I feel like an “us”.

Frankly, it is exhausting to be in this middle space, between two worlds, because I feel like I must constantly critique and defend one to the other. I want everyone in my neighborhood to know that there are some generous and kind, rich, white people. I want everyone who would not desire to set foot in my neighborhood to know that it is filled with intelligent, hard-working, kind people. I need to constantly justify all the things to all the people.

And then there is the added stress of my own situation needing to be constantly justified. I need money. I need help. I need time. I need energy. I need surgery. I need to make it sound acceptable to have all of these needs, or people refuse to take seriously or meet those needs.

The middle is an impossible place to live. You can almost touch the better things, but if you reach up you risk falling back down into a worse space. So you stay, clinging to the little that you have. Hustling and hoping. Wanting more but not able to live through less. Clinging to the place where you have barely enough to survive.

If that sounds depressing, it is.

There are no questions as to why my antidepressant medication dose keeps increasing. This rung is a depressing one. This middle of the food chain feels like a constant threat, but also like a huge blessing. I’m not at my worst. But I am also not at my best.

And here we arrive at the statement “ignorance is bliss”. Because if I didn’t know the best, or the worst, I wouldn’t feel trapped in this middle, fearful of losing my grip and too paralyzed to attempt upward mobility. The people around me hope with an unyielding strength I have never seen before. They keep believing in the more, in the higher rungs, and in a new and better day. I know that the new and better day is not what it appears to be. I know that there is just a dollar or two between rungs. I know that there is prejudice at the top that keeps those with enough dollars to move up tumbling back down. I know that there is abundance and that it isn’t being offered to the people on the lower rungs. I know that if the people above would just share, the whole fucking ladder could turn on its side, leaving us with equity, and even footing, and no need to compete at the climbing. I know that those people don’t share unless it is in their self-interest, and their dollars come with strings attached. I know because I am in the middle. I know because I am the spider. I know because I have one foot in poverty and one foot in opportunity.

The proverbial food chain allows for ignorance at the bottom and ignorance at the top. But the middle is the space filled with knowledge—frustrating, hope-stealing, anger inducing, devastating knowledge.

I know poverty and possibility. And I am not better off for it. I am tortured by it.

The wealth of the top is achieved upon the backs of the ones at the bottom. We are the macrocosm of the microcosmic activity in my window sill. We consume one and escape the other.

And I can’t stop thinking that this is wrong. I can’t stop thinking that humanity should be behaving with a more evolved and more educated system than the insects. I can’t stop feeling that we are very far from what we were intended to be, and that the ladder and the food chain and the striving and the inequity are all distractions from where our attention ought to be placed. I can’t stop believing that we should be placing our attention and energy on justice—on ending the ladder.

There is this line spoken by Daenerys Targaryen, a character in J.R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire Series, that mimics the sentiment that I often put forth. After the many powerful houses of the era are named and called spokes on a wheel, she says with great conviction, “I’m not going to stop the wheel, I’m going to break the wheel.”

In saying this, she expresses that she will not simply be the newest in the line of leaders that overtake the current system. She is, instead, going to destroy that system. She is going to make a new way of being possible by taking apart the system of injustice currently in place.

I’m going to break the wheel. I’m going to break the ladder.

I’m going to create a new system, and not allow the once unjust and oppressive way of being to survive. I’m not going to tolerate the present and hope for a better future, but I am going to smash through the present to create a new present.

What if we stopped being a glorified food chain and broke the ladder? What if we let go of the ideas of “earned” and “deserved” things and status? What would Daenerys do today?

WWDD: What Would Dany Do?

How do we break the wheel in our own society? How do I stop being the spider and consuming the fly? How do I keep the creepy bugs from chasing me? How do we create a system that doesn’t look like the unevolved and inhumane clamoring for power and money and resources, and instead looks like cooperative and compassionate co-existence?

I’m tired of being in the middle, but I am more tired of the idea of the middle. I’m tired of caste systems and hierarchies and patriarchy and all the other systems of oppression and power that make us predators or make us lunch, depending on the situation.

It is time to function on a higher plane. It is time to break the wheel. It is time to end this system and find a new one. It is time for human beings to step outside of the food chain, and use our enlightenment for good and not for evil.

It is time to stop treating one another like meat.

Same

July 13, 2016 / christyterese / Leave a comment

There is this way of speaking that has taken over much of the communication between me and my daughter, and some of my friends as well, I suppose. We shorten things. It just seems like a whole lot of flourish and extra syllables isn’t necessary or important. And while, as a writer, I am a huge fan of the flourish and the big words, in life they aren’t always helpful.

So, when we are thinking, “I completely agree and have a very similar perspective on this issue”, we instead say, “Same”.

I’m in the mood for pizza.

Same.

I can’t believe the state of the world and am grieving deeply over the pain and wounding that is overwhelming millions.

Same.

I wish that I could be in La Jolla right now.

Same.

I’m overcome with grief and don’t know how to express anything clearly, but everything hurts.

Same.

Yesterday I received news of the death of a good friend of my parents. And all day I was feeling the weight of grief. I was feeling it not just over the loss of her life, which is definitely significant and important, but also I was mourning the loss of my own mom. And I was drawing all sorts of parallels between the lives of these two couples and feeling for those going through what I and my family went through a year ago.

All day I wanted to reach out to the daughter of the deceased wife and mother. But there were not words. There weren’t words when my own mother died either. And the platitudes and “she is with Jesus now” assurances helped not one bit. In some cases, they did more harm than good.

So, in the evening, I finally realized that what to say was that there was nothing to say—that nothing makes that pain lessened and nothing changes the complex feelings and nothing brings back the mother that you long for now more than you ever did when she was alive. And I reached out with exactly that: an assertion that nothing would help and that I wouldn’t pretend it might. I offered my love. I offered my listening ear. And I offered my sympathies.

And she shared a huge piece of her heart in reply.

As she expressed her feelings and her struggles and her joys and her surprise and her pain, I realized that all of these long years, we have been living a parallel life. As she spoke of her many-faceted emotional state and the journey that she had been on as her mother became sick, her father became a care-taker of sorts, and her mother passed, I could have replied with that often used, “Same”.

We were sharing a history, but doing so apart from one another.

When we were kids we played together when our parents got together. And it wasn’t as though we didn’t enjoy hanging out, but over time, as we became old enough to not be dragged along to our parents’ social events, we stopped spending time together. And there were times when we connected over the years—running into one another at Christmas or a special event when we were all present once more. But those little interactions became cordial and socially acceptable, instead of times when we played with abandon or shared secrets or did all those things that come easy when you are young, but cease to be so as you grow up.

Peter Pan had the right of things, in many ways. Growing up steals much of the honesty and joy and many of the dreams which childhood allows, and even encourages.

What was stolen from this woman and myself was the opportunity to share our similar journeys. Until last night, we had not had the opportunity to bond over shared experience, or to support one another. It took the death of both of our mothers to recognize one another on a path we had been walking together for years.

I’ve been thinking much today about this sameness, and this similarity, and this shared experience. I’ve been thinking that we all felt the weight of struggles alone, and all of this time we could have been bearing them together. I have had other childhood friends express feelings that I have struggled with: I’m not enough, I’m not good enough, I cannot compare with person X, I don’t fit in, I can’t do anything “right”, I didn’t want to treat person Y like that but wasn’t brave enough to put an end to it and went along with the crowd. All of this time, we were all young women (and a few men) who felt alone in our struggle. We were not alone.

We are not alone. We are united in this struggle.

The organizer in me wants to shout from the rooftops that we need to come together and fight against our common enemy. But the pastor in me knows that such a strategy isn’t necessarily the right approach here. What might be helpful is for me to express continually my struggle, and to allow others the safe space to express their struggle. Because SO MANY TIMES I find that we are coping with the same feelings, and have so much in common, and could be bearing burdens together.

I’ve said before, and will say again, that I label myself as “spiritual but not religious” because organized religion has left bad tastes in my mouth time and again. I believe in the Divine. I don’t name it in terms of a triune god, but I believe. But one of the things that many religions teach, and that I think is a divine directive, is that we share in one another’s burdens—we carry the heavy shit together to make it lighter. And for some reason the place where I grew up chants the religion like a name at a boxing match, but also chastises individuals and tosses burdens onto their backs while they whisper behind their hands at the failures of those individuals to carry the load.

It is a sick practice, really. It is wholly other than the divine imperatives to care for and love and welcome and heal and help everyone—like literally everyone. All of those imperatives tell us to help carry the load, not toss it on the back of another.

I broke under the weight.

So many people I know broke under the weight.

And still the weight is piled. My daughter experienced that weight when we moved back to that area. And I left, rather than have her live in that place and in that way where you never feel like enough and people are constantly trying to hide their brokenness by breaking the person next to them.

Today I see that we can fix this. Today I see that we were fighting the same war, but we were all at different battle sites. If we could have been honest then, in our adolescence, and shared how we were struggling, we could have become a powerful force for change. We could have swept that town of gossip and lies and shaming that keep the focus off of the problems of one, only to shatter the life of another. We could have united to bear one another’s burdens. We could have lifted the weight and held one another up and shared a journey.

We didn’t.

But I am committed to doing so now.

The past doesn’t change when we change in the future, but it can transform in some ways. It has the benefit of perspective, and new perspective can shed light on events, even though the events themselves do not change. And I am ready to look at this childhood in this place with these people in a new light, and with new honesty and connection and trust. I believe that looking at it in this way will transform not just the past, but will transform us as women and men who thought for all these years that we were alone in our struggles. Knowing we were in it together and talking about it together in this later stage of life empowers us. It lets us acknowledge and release the bad and lets us acknowledge and embrace the good.

And that doesn’t happen overnight. And some events you don’t get over completely—or at least there are some I don’t think I will recover from completely. But knowing that the burden is shared, and that I am not the only one carrying the weight of those events puts me well on the way to recovery.

So, here I am, people of my youth (and any other time period, really). I’m standing open to receive and to offer with honesty, with trust, with grace, and with understanding the journeys—mine and yours and ours—and the events and the feelings and the burdens. I’m here, committed to change, committed to new life, committed to carrying the weight together.

Let’s all try to open up. Let’s try to do it before any more of our parents die. Let’s know that the circumstances of our childhood don’t define us. Let’s know that molds were made to be shattered in order to exhume the beauty within. Let’s know that we don’t need “thicker skin” or to keep our business private or to hide or to hurt. We are allowed to be—in all of our ways of being we should feel comfortable and free and alive. Let’s stoop under the weights of our friends and neighbors and partners and brace ourselves underneath, helping to lighten the load a bit. And when enough of us are willing to stoop down and take some of that weight, we all find relief.

Community. I’ve studied it for a long time. And I keep coming back to this idea, that burdens are borne together, or we are crushed. So, in order to survive, we need to start looking at the plights of those around us and responding with the short and effective communication that my daughter and I have come to use so frequently. Same.

There is a quote I use often, and love from Lilla Watson. “If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time; but if you are here because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

It is time for us to work together. In my childhood community, in my current community, in my social circles, in my city, in my country, in my world, and in my universe it is time for us to work together.

It is time for us to understand that the liberation of one is bound to the liberation of all.

We can only be free when we are free together. We can only bear burdens with all of us carrying the weight. We overcome only because we do so together. And we do so together because in many ways we are all on the same journey—not just in the specifics of events or feelings, but in the sense that we are all evolving and developing into a better version of humanity (or we should be, at least).

We are meant to look to the person next to us, to see their experience and their perspective and the events that shape them and to declare, “Same”. And if we cannot do that, we will be crushed under weights we didn’t imagine would ever be placed upon our shoulders.

I think we see that in the news every day of late.

We join in sorrow over things that were caused by a refusal to bear burdens of another. Discrimination doesn’t hurt us personally—that is the burden of the gay or the black or the Muslim—so we don’t enter the fray. And we are seeing the results of that failure to stoop and lift with our fellow human beings. When we don’t bear the weight together, people break. But there are consequences felt throughout the entire community when those individuals break. You can’t escape the aftershock of the seismic events. So, why refuse to help hold the weight that might prevent those events? Ignoring the problems of others doesn’t work.

We lift together, or we are crushed. All of us. The whole of humanity. The entire planet.

And saying it that way makes it seem an enormous task. But it really just starts with us listening and bearing the weight of the feelings and experience of another. A world full of people caring about the person next to them is a world that resembles what most would see as a heaven or a paradise.

That heaven, that paradise, is achievable in the here and now.

It can happen if you open up and share your journey, and listen well to join in the journey of another. It will happen if we simply love one another, care for one another, and bear one another’s burdens. It will happen when we hear the struggle or joy of another and can respond with a genuine agreement.

“Same.”