ugly/beautiful
I haven’t been able to write for a few weeks. I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I have felt so downtrodden about everything and at a loss about what to do to fix it. I feel so small and insignificant in this world. It’s not that I don’t matter, but that I feel helpless to do anything about the horrible state of the world and the way I’ve been living my life for the past 40 years-I just don’t know where to start to make positive changes to either. I’ve always said, “Stop complaining. Either make a change or learn to live with it-but stop whining.” And that’s where I’m stuck right now-whining. I can see what I want to do (move to the Caribbean, grow mangoes, and live in little cottage… just an idea :) but the way we live has been so ingrained in me, that I don’t know how to make the transition to actual living. I must make money. I must send my kids to school. I must have a big house. But, going to work causes a panic attack every morning. I’m starting to disagree with the educational system. I don’t want to spend $25,000 a year on a house (do you know what I could do with that $25,000?!?!). I don’t want anyone else to have a say about what I do with my body. I wish immigration wasn’t even a thing and we could roam the planet like we were meant to do (trust me, I know it’s not realistic to have no immigration restrictions or to not work, but there’s got to be a better way). We are all just producers so people like Jeff Bezos can go to space. It’s pretty depressing to think about. I’ve been working in some way since I was 11 years old and have nothing to show for it but a weak credit score, cheaply made clothing, and expensive health insurance. I have an education and a professional job and I can’t afford daycare or a 5 day vacation. There’s no way that living this way for the rest of my life is going to cut it. I’ve got to do something about it.
Although I don’t know where to start, I feel that the answer will come to me. I’ve been having a lot of clarity about how the world works (which is obviously why I’ve been feeling defeated), and I’m hoping it will all make sense soon. I had a really big moment of clarity while I was at acupuncture last week and t made me feel like I was moving in the right direction. She was doing some mental health/chakra work on me and it really opened up my third eye (I know this stuff sounds a little out there to some people, but once you accept it, it’s a beautiful thing) and I really felt deep about Ian’s accident. Because of the traumatic, rare nature of Ian’s accident, people heard about it: “this girl I went to high school with”, “this guy I used to work with”, “my daughter’s friend” etc… not to mention how things spread on social media and the news story we did. Because of this, people started paying attention to water safety. Somebody started closing that pesky pool gate, somebody enrolled their child in swim lessons, somebody started having a designated water watcher at pool parties. Somebody lived. Maybe 5 kids DIDN’T drown. We will never know the outcome of this, and I’m sure there are people that we have never met or heard of that made preventative changes so that their child didn’t drown. And, I have intuition that those 2 or 5 or 10 kids that didn’t drown are some of the special ones. The ones that will improve upon humanity. The next Martin Luther King, or Ghandi, or Jesus (I know, I’m aiming big) was a kid who didn’t drown because of Ian’s story. Somehow, my baby getting in the pool that day, is going to have profound positive impact on our society.
I guess that’s what life does. Shows us all the ugly, but gives us something beautiful to grasp on to.