NaBloPoMo Feb 2014 Day 14: Something I Love

Friday, February 14, 2014 

Show Me Fridays: upload an image to your blog (with or without words) of someone you love deeply.

I would have put up a picture of my fiance, but I don't have a recent picture of him and he is very much against me taking his picture, so... Instead, you guys get an old cameraphone picture of his cat who I love just as much as him because she's a really sweet old lap cat named Tabitha, Tabby for short. 

NaBloPoMo Day 13: 10 Years From Now...

Thursday, February 13, 2014What do you think you'll be doing 10 years from now on February 13, 2024?

My greatest hope is that I'll be working with a steady job, possibly as a Certified Peer Specialist, as well as being a reiki practitioner, and a writer. :) I also hope that by then I'm married and living with my fiance and we're thinking about starting a family in some shape or form. 

February NaBloPoMo Day 12: Draw Me

Wednesday, February 12, 2014Pick up an object and describe it in such minute detail that your readers can draw it without ever having seen it.

It's seated on the desk and has fluffy light brown fur, two furry arms and two furry legs, the fur on its face is in its beady black eyes and a triangular shaped brown nose and a sewn smile barely visible in the fur. It wears a deep royal blue knit sweater with "THE QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILEE" embroidered in an arch over an embroidered British royal crown emblem in gold and red. Below the crown it has "1952 - 2012" embroidered on the sweater. On its left ear is two tags: a round red bottlecap shaped button that has a circle in gold around the words "Keel Toys" in a script front also in gold in front of a long worn card that is mostly red with a union jack waving along the bottom and the words "THE QUEEN'S DIAMOND JUBILEE" in an arch over a golden British royal crown emblem with "1952-2012" underneath the crown. 

February NaBloPoMo Day 11: Thoughts in Perspective

Tuesday, February 11, 2014What helps you keep thoughts in perspective so they don't overwhelm you?

This is something I still struggle with a bit. But the first thing I always do is put one hand over my heart and one hand over my stomach at the solar plexus and breathe. This helps me calm down and grounds me immediately to my body. Then I can tackle whatever is overwhelming so that I can figure out what if anything there is I can do. 

NaBloPoMo February 2014: Day 10: Do You Think You Do A Good Job Keeping Problems In Perspective?

Monday, February 10, 2014Do you think you do a good job of keeping problems in perspective?

It depends on the problem. But I do not think I do a good job of keeping most problems in perspective. I get frustrated and overwhelmed by things that seem to be easy to other people. 

NaBloPoMo February 2014: Day 9: Love Reaches Out and TWLOHA

“Love reaches out. That is the essence of love. Love is our longing for deep connection. A search for connection is at the heart of all spiritual traditions and practices. The spiritual journey is a pathway into the depths of our being and also a journey of transcending the stifling confines of the self. Profound spiritual experiences are experiences of union – with others and ultimately with the great mystery of life. We are profoundly and fundamentally relational creatures.”- Rev. Peter Morales, President of the UUA, Standing on the Side of Love Sunday Feb 9th 

"Stories wait for endings, but songs are brave things bold enough to sing when all they know is darkness..." - Jamie Tworkowski, To Write Love On Her Arms

In high school, I dealt with several ex-friends who were suicidal and/or self-injurious and I almost followed in their footsteps once, but was prevented from it because of my faith and a guardian angel. 

Later, in college, I discovered To Write Love On Her Arms, a nondenominational but Christian-influenced nonprofit organization that uses music to say it's okay to be honest, hurt, scared, stuck, suffering from depression, suffering from addiction. A group that uses music to move people because songs go to the dark places and sing out, they don't care about endings the way stories do. Songs are more or less about living in the moment, no matter what moment it is. Whether it's a moment of pain, or a moment of joy or some bittersweet combination of both. 

I love To Write Love On Her Arms's affiliate bands and their message because I like to know that stories like mine and my ex-friends are told in songs that these are the stories that need to be heard. That we aren't alone and that music moves through pain, sorrow and joy and that hope and recovery are truly possible things. 

NaBloPoMo February 2014: Day 8: Learning from the Past, Hoping for the Future, and sometimes getting disappointed at changes

I am very disappointed.

I was googling the all-girls Catholic high school I went to, Fontbonne Academy, the other day and it came up in my search box with a series of news articles, opinion articles, and news blogs about the administration rescinding a job offer to a food service worker because he was gay, married, and listed his husband as his emergency contact and a group of alumnae protesting this movement which screams of discrimination and runs strongly counter to what we were taught at the school itself when we were students.

I understand from an academic standpoint that they felt they were advised by the Archdiocese against hiring him for his honesty, however, like the other alumnae, I'm not all that happy about it.

This is the very progressive high school that heavily influenced me to get involved in social justice/social action groups. This is the high school where I learned what the Day of Silence was for the very first time outside of the internet.

This is the high school where I had a theology teacher who encouraged us women to push for the Archdiocese to allow women to be ordained at least to be deaconesses as that was a serving option in the early days of the Church.

This is the high school that didn't flinch when I saw God as something like Mother-Father, as an all-encompasing One God. I always loved our Sign-of-the-Cross: "In the Name of the Creator, The Redeemer and the Holy Spirit."

This is the high school that made me realize that I liked women's schools because I could have conversations I wouldn't be getting in a co-ed program. Women's schools talk and do and push against the boundaries of society, we ask hard questions and we try to tell ALL the stories.

I'm not afraid of that school being my past because it made me a lot of who I am: a courageous, smart, strong woman (mostly) who isn't afraid to turn things on their head, to dream, to speak, to act. But I am very concerned for its future, since what I valued most about my education there was being a courageous woman who would stand on the side of love always, even when it was hard.