disclaimer:
1. I am exhausted past anything I've felt before. This is scattered and weird and ... whatever. it's like streaming consciousness, not a formulated thought-out statement. and it's hella long. and probably preachy. but we all have our moments and I needed to vent.
2. I love my friends and everyone who constantly gives me support and encouragement and love and positive vibes. I don't want any of this to seem like I don't recognize the incredible amount of support and love I have in my life. I appreciate it more than I could say right now.
My heart feels so heavy tonight. And I guess I need to vent since I can't sleep.
The first thing I need to get off my chest is the fact that I am sick of being misunderstood because of everyone’s limited ways of understanding the world around them. I am not “this” nor “that”; I am both, neither and everything in between at the same time and at all times. I am tired of being labeled, misunderstood and misrepresented because the way I fully embrace fluidity and multiplicity and the way I understand things is not the way mainstream society does. If I’m pro-this, then I must be anti-that. NO. If I’m thinking critically about the situations students on our campus are facing and coming up with solutions that don’t adhere to fundamental Catholic doctrine, then I must be anti-religious or at the very least anti-Catholic.. NO, actually I was close to getting my religious studies minor. And how are people going to label me before even asking? (Assuming makes an ASS out of U... not even me in this case... just you.) I have the best intentions and my own way of thinking. If you think you know me, or my motives, or what I’m about or what I represent (and you’re not already one of my closest friends) I have a feeling you are wrong in a lot of ways. Even if we are friends, even if we get along. See look, there’s another example. If I say to someone “you don’t really know what I’m about” and we’re friends, they will feel disrespected or defensive or what-have-you. When what I am saying, in my mind, has nothing to do with them being a good or bad person and is in no way a reflection of them. I dont think there ARE good or bad people, for that matter. It's just a statement of how I feel based off of what I know of the world around me and the fact that I am aware of HOW complex of a person I am and how much I am constantly changing. So if you knew me well 3 years ago you probably know very little about me today, I am constantly evolving and growing and learning.
Almost every waking moment of the last 4+ months has been dedicated to things outside of myself. This week was the most intense. There are so many thoughts and emotions and action plans and questions and confusion in my head, that even though I have exhausting days filled with meeting after meeting where my brain is literally in hyperdrive from 10am - 10pm, I can’t sleep. Alyssa explained it best tonight. Sleep anxiety. But I love sleep. I love dreaming. I have the best dreams ever, and I know what goes on during them is good for the whole energy of a person. I love waking up feeling refreshed. But part of me thinks that is part of the anxiety-inducing part: waking up. But that can’t be the whole thing or even most of it, because I love what I do. I know that it’s the right path for me to be on. I can say that I am living an authentic life (of course I always need to check myself) and that I am making positive changes around me. Making. The people I work with day in and day out are literally building a positive movement. We are manifesting relationships not based on domination/subordination or us vs. them mentalities but rather co-intentional learning experiences, respect, and understanding through what feels like sheer will alone. I respect that every person is going through their own struggles, their own life paths, learning their own lessons. And those life experiences create a standpoint from which one views the world. Which is why i don’t take our opinion as normative. I don’t take my views of the world as unbiased. Or right for everyone in all situations. I just know they make sense for me in relation to my experiences and my life. My point is that we are building, manifesting, creating. And it is hard fucking work. Spending 12 hours a day AVERAGE at school is taxing.
One reason I have a heavy heart right now because I feel like what I am working for is being misunderstood. Or passed over. Like, people aren’t even taking the time to try and understand what it's all about. I know it’s easier to keep your head down, focus on school, your job, your relationship, just get to the weekend and play some pong and have a good time with your friends. I’ve been there. I’ve thought that was what college is about. That CAN be what it is about. But then what changes? If anything is static there is a problem. Things should always be in flux. If we, the youth, aren’t looking critically at the world around us we are just going to buy in to it. And look at what’s happening around us. Everyone is miserable, jobs are being lost, we all know the story. All of this is happening because of our current infrastructures and the way we do business as usual. even normal things in daily life. It is all connected. I REFUSE to buy in to this. Instead I work my ass off to change what tiny, minute portion of it I can. Because if you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem. People can be part of the solutions in varying degrees, but always keep in mind that in whatever ways you AREN’T challenging or questioning or critiquing you could be perpetuating a detrimental cycle. and that takes a lot of focus and dedication. and THAT is a lot of fucking work too. This is a call to action people need to hear, while the callers also understand that everyone has lessons to be learned in this life and not everyone's path is that. But right now very few people's ideas in life involve changing the way things around us work, and I do believe that is a huge problem. But I digress...
My point is that I love what I do. Even though I did not know anything could be more difficult. I had no idea how much I could take on, how much I could accomplish, how much love I could have in my heart or how much passion I could feel. This year I have been pushed to what I believed were my limits and THEN i ran with it. I used to be very depressed. I used to not really know what my purpose was. I felt lost. Now I feel a vitality I never had before. I knew it was possible because I saw it in people around me but I have it now. Not always. And it's not easy. But I could not be happier with my life. Not because it is easy or even fun. Honestly I don't think I've smiled very much In the last two or three weeks, but I know this is just a heavy moment. Even during the less intense periods I don't have much of a social life; I don't have a job because I work full time on school-related things so I can't go out to the bars or dinner or to the movies, and most days if I wind up having the time I dont have the energy anyways. But I have found happiness and a reason to wake up in the morning. I love my life.
Energies just seem to be coming to a climax right now and it is affecting me heavily. All I want to do is sleep. Yet when I turn the lights off I start to cry. Now, it’s not like, the end of the world, I feel devastated and horrible type of cry. It’s a passionate sort of... exhausted confused weeping. Since yesterday I keep being overwhelmed by the urge to cry. It started Wed. night at 11:15 when I closed my computer to end the work-portion of what was one of the most challenging (in a productive way) days of my life (Class and then meetings from 10:20am-9pm straight with one break for lunch and a trip to the gas station in the afternoon... and the Dialogue). Since then more and more things kept building on to this dam, a few leaks had sprung but they wouldn’t come out. I begged them to. Even when I heard news that made my heart fall through my stomach and crash on the floor I barely cried. I needed something cathartic. Maybe this is it. The emotional cascade felt good when it finally came tonight, but I wasn’t able to sleep still. And every time I turn off the lights I start to cry again and that isn’t helping me sleep. I know this is all over the place but bear with me it’s hella early in the morning.
Another thing I need to get off my chest is how people are attacking what Our Struggle is doing... at least we’re DOING something. I don’t think we have all the answers, i don't know that any of us do. We just know that the current situation is NOT okay for many people (if it’s okay for you, you’re lucky and we call that PRIVILEGE) in various ways, those ways are all interconnected, and so we are trying to make it better the best we know how. Enter to learn leave to serve. Think critically, make changes for the better. I don’t hate the school AT ALL. I wish I did. Maybe then I would be sleeping at night. Or maybe if more people gave a damn they would help us, tell us the ways in which we could improve, work with us. It doesn’t make sense just to oppose something. Especially something that is trying to do good.
You know, we don't go in and tell many people that they're wrong when they take what they are studying into the real world. But for some of us, that is exactly what happens. I am tired of being scoffed at when I talk about White Privilege. Or the fact that America is a white supremacist nation. That might SOUND heeellll of crazy. But if you sit down and talk to me about it I think it would make a lot more sense than just assuming you understand what I mean by that statement and flipping out. I am tired of being rebuked when I talk about sexism, ESPECIALLY by men. How do men know that sexism doesn't exist? How does anyone who hasn't studied power dynamics or social problems or race or gender theory feel entitled to disregard (usually very disrespectfully, for that manner) what someone who HAS studies those things says? I do not understand this.
I guess after being called a “filthy red” (which i could write an entire blog about by itself... and probably will because of the intricacies of it all), being verbally bitch slapped when I least expected it in front of a room of 50ish people, being completely disrespected by someone I thought was fully capable of respect even through disagreements/misunderstan
I don’t have walls around my heart the way most people do, because that wall that would be protecting me would also be distancing me from people. And I believe in authentically connecting with people even if there is risk. If you have nothing to lose it was never really worth it. I get immense fulfillment out of my friendships and relationships because of this. But it also means I am heart easily. Especially because most people are calloused from being hurt, which in turn makes them prone to “toughening up” others. So all of this takes a toll on me that perhaps it wouldn’t on another. I am sensitive. Yet I still get stuff done. You don’t have to be a hard ass to be productive or successful. I prove that. But it does come with a price. Feeling.
But what does that feeling get me at 4:53 in the morning when i don't know who to call or talk to? I don't want to bug the people i'm working with every day because I know they are exhausted in many of the same ways I am. I wished for a moment I could go down the hall and just wake up my mom and talk to her. But that is problematic on sooooo many levels. Mainly the fact that any problems I have with the family unit are discredited as my own depression issues and are invalidated.. and so to go in there crying hysterically about things she can't understand and I can't explain right now wouldn't make me look too good in an arena where I'm grappling for legitimacy. So my problem comes down to this... the people who would understand need to be asleep, and everyone else wouldn't understand and know how to offer me support... and how many people could I call up at 5 in the morning? Ok well a lot. I have a lot of really amazing friends. But I wouldn't want to call over something like this. I wouldn't want to have to explain it all. To explain how I'm feeling and the reasons for the crying would take a day.
So I do this to purge myself of the rambunctious energy inside of me. And I don't know that I will be sleeping tonight. If I do it won't be very much. But I feel like I won't be crying any more and I feel better. I'm going to cuddle duke and meditate now that I am calm.
