Life in the Middle Lane

Last week I got an email from someone who found me from reading Cosmopolitan Urbanist. I don’t know if he found the blog, then found me on LinkedIn or he found me on LinkedIn and clicked through to the blog. I guess for the purposes of this story, it doesn’t matter.

He found me, read my resume, and emailed me asking for help.  He’s a MPA student from UGA, and he’s looking for an internship. And in this economy, getting an internship is like being the new kid at school. The upperclassmen always win. Hell, I’ve even found myself looking at internships. (grumble, grumble, spit).  Apparently, something in my writing or my resume, or maybe just our common experience as MPAers made him think I’d be able to help him. HA!

We finally set up a call for today. He wanted to know how I got my internships (my resume is riddled with them). I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to tell him. I mean, it’s hard to tell someone, “I got the job because I knew someone who knew someone who introduced me and then I badgered them into hiring me.” Or, “Sometimes people assume that I know more (and have more experience) than I actually do, because I happen to be in the right places at the right time, then I get the chance to prove myself.” But it’s true. My professional life is a series of coincidences, with me talking my way into good situations, without a plan, a business card or a resume handy. I just show up, and good things happen.

I think that’s why I haven’t been able to find something really great in Atlanta. I don’t know where I need to be, (or I do, but I don’t have the guts to ACTUALLY SHOW UP.) I don’t know who I need to talk to (or I do, but I feel that I’m bugging them all the time. I don’t know what I need to say (because I don’t want to sound stupid, or worse, desperate). Sending out cover letters, emails, and the ordinary run of the mill job search stuff just isn’t working for me. This summer, I’ve realized that ordinary cover letters will get you an ordinary job. And I’m too…much… to have an ordinary job.

I asked the kid today what would be his ideal internship. And like I figured, it’s not something that you find in the yellow pages. So I didn’t tell him to scour indeed.com, idealist, or opportunityknocks like I have been doing all summer.  I told him about a fellowship that I knew he could apply for (along with 100’s of other MPAers).  But I told him to hang out in the alumni and career services office at UGA, and connect with alums that are working in Atlanta in his interest area. I told him to brush up on his association memberships (and GO TO MEETINGS and talk to people).  I told him to call everyone he knows that is currently working, and tell them what he’s looking for. I even gave him the names of some of my favorite Atlanta organizations, with instructions to call and ask for informational interviews.  Then I told him to call me back in a couple of weeks and tell me what he’s learned. (What can I say, I liked the kid and I want to help him.)

Over the course of the conversation, it slipped out that I’m unemployed (oops, did you know that?). And he flipped the switch on me by asking me what I’m looking for? Hmmm. Ideally, I’d like to work with a non-profit or community organization doing grassroots community development work. I want to develop programming for community building, volunteerism, arts and business related stuff, do some strategic long-term community planning/visioning, and also be able to talk to people about living their best lives. I want to keep one foot in the MPA waters, while also dipping my toes in the ministerial pool.

I didn’t tell the kid that because I just figured it out when my fingers typed it.  But he knows me from the blog, so he knows what I think about. And he gave me the names of a couple of organizations to stalk and they are right up my alley.  And he totally turned me on to following companies on LinkedIn, where I’ve already found a few people that I should know (and located my people who already knows them)

Who knows, maybe by (hopefully) helping this kid land a gig, I help myself to one too.

I have three major “passion” projects that I should be devoting major amounts of time and energy to; the first is this blog, the second is Cosmopolitan Urbanist, and the third is my ¾th completed novel.

These three creatures gnaw at me. An idea for my novel will come to me when I’m supposed to be reading a report for work. A blog post for CU or an idea for a survey will come to me while I’m driving through some town or neighborhood.  Infinite ideas for this blog and other websites come to me as I hurl myself through my day at work, my home life with the GF or while I’m driving, talking on the phone, or cooking dinner. These projects are with me 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Rain or shine, sleeping or awake. They haunt me.

My novel characters talk to me.  I promise them that their stories won’t languish on my virus infected laptop. That one day, I’ll at least compile their various Word documents into some semblance of order, change all the language from 1^st person to 3^rd, upload the whole damn thing onto Google Docs so that A. I can share it with my “editors” my BFF and the GF. (who are both waiting patiently) and B. so that I can work on it from work wherever.

I’m not kidding when I say I have notebooks and Word Docs and Google Docs galore of half-finished blog posts, and pictures on my phone, camera and computer of things I want to put on tumblr and flickr.

Every day at work I stare, (sometimes aimlessly) at the computer screen, absorbing inconsequential tidbits of news. I lament the fact that I’m an internet whore that just won’t quit. That I CAN”T get anything accomplished despite the fact that  I have these three things that are screaming inside my brain for attention. These things that I say I care about, but whom I neglect badly while I read the latest on twitter. I feel guilty. How dare I not spend my free time devoted to my work.

Now I think my subconscious is getting involved.

Over the past few weeks (maybe months) I’ve been having horrible, horrible nightmares. These are not my garden variety nightmares of devils attacking or me running from some unseen terror.  In these new nightmares, I’ve killed (or been privy to) the deaths of my siblings. Repeatedly. In these nightmares, I’ve watched them get attacked by snakes, lizards, a faceless friends, and finally, the unseen terror in the closet.  I’ve had dreams about going to weekend long family funerals, of someone being buried in the backyard, of multiple car crashes.  I had a nightmare that two of my uncles were fighting over money and somehow it was all my fault. Last night, I had two dreams.  In one, I was a dolphin in a dolphin family.  And in the other, I was fighting zombies like Lara Croft.

And those are just the dreams that I wake up and can recount. I have also had several dreams about transporting people in tubes across dimensions of space and time, and about medieval (or 22^nd Century) weapon technology, but I can’t remember all the details.

I, my therapist, and the GF, (bless her heart with infinite patience) have analyzed my dreamscape to death. Thank goodness that the GF is training to be a therapist since she’s had to listen to me talk about all the death and destruction that I go through most nights.

According to Freud, Jung, and the whole gang of therapy experts, dreams are our subconscious trying to tell us something about ourselves and our surroundings. Each part of the dream (even the parts played by other people) are symbolic pieces of ourselves.

After a bit of research, I was relieved to know that I’m not dreaming of the deaths of my siblings.  But I was horrified to know that I’m dreaming of the death or destruction of parts of myself.  I’ve taken some time to think about what part of my personality is represented by my siblings.  The answer came to me a few weeks ago as I stared at the ceiling in the middle of the night, refusing to go back to sleep after having a dream where I watched my sister get choked by an unseen hand from the closet. All of a sudden it hit me, I sat up in bed and using my cell phone light, wrote it quickly in my journal (scaring the GF half to death in the process).  My siblings are my legacy. They are the pieces of me that will live on after I’m dead.

My siblings are the reason I don’t want children. (And I mean that in a good way) As the oldest, I spent my childhood caring for them; reading to them, keeping them out of trouble, beating up their bullies, helping them with homework, making their lunches over the summers, making sure that they were ok. I consider them as much mine as my mother’s.  By watching my siblings die in my dreams, I witnessed the death of my legacy. Without them, no part of me lives on.

In one of the dreams, my cousin (who happens to be a a loud mouth) gives birth to a stillborn child, while I lay on the hospital bed beside her, unable even to birth the thing I could see moving inside me.  I think the dead and unborn babies refer to the unfinished projects and notebooks of ideas that I haven’t been working to GIVE BIRTH TO. My dreams are telling me that I need to stop talking, and start taking action.  It would be shame if my ideas die before I can do anything about them. I can’t depend on my siblings to be my legacy (somehow my mother thinks it’s cheating to consider them my children anyway). Only I am the master of my legacy.

Crazy, huh? The brain is a marvelous and mysterious hunk of meat.

AKA- I can be sexy, too OR  A word from your fat friend

This post is a rant and a confession and an invocation. I might curse. Forgive me.

Earlier this week I was watching Tough Love reruns on VH1 On Demand (don’t judge me). I actually love Tough Love. It teaches women to get over themselves, and be open to love. It also teaches them how to go after what they want, which is in this case, a man.

I was watching the episode where the ladies posed for a photos where they were supposed to be sexy. They were meant to be sexy, not slutty, not skanky, not tomboyish, not porn star, not business casual. Sexy.

Of course the ladies each had their own ideas about what sexy looks like.  Some wore t-shirts and boxers, there were a couple of short pleated skirts and baby doll dresses, one girl wore a large button down shirt, in past seasons, girls have worn next to nothing, or strawberries and whipped cream.  Most of them failed miserably at being sexy.

One girl, whose pictures came out horribly, kept saying that she didn’t know how to be sexy because she used to be fat.   Men never look at me, she said. Sexy isn’t something that I know anything about, she whined.

I call bullshit. How dare she use her weight as an excuse for not knowing how to be sexy!

I have always, ALWAYS been the fat friend. Even when I was 17 and a size 8, I was the fat friend with size 2 friends. In college, when I was a size 12, I was the fat friend surrounded by size 4’s and 6’s. Now, at my most rotund, my friends run marathons, and climb rocks, and do other ridiculously athletic shit like that.  I secretly hate those skinny bitches

As the fat friend, you might think I’d be relegated to the sidelines, watching all my skinny friends get hit on and danced with and talked to.

Nope.

In all my years of being the fat friend, I’ve never, NEVER not been sexy. Regardless of the thickness of my thighs, or the jiggle of my stomach, or the pudge in my cheeks, I am always among the sexiess people in the room.  I’ve never had a problem with getting attention from WHOMEVER I want.  Even in the gym (post workout!!) people try to get my phone number.  I get chatted up on the walking trail near my house.

So how dare this recently skinny chick talk about how she doesn’t know how to be sexy because she used to be fat? I wanna elbow her in the stomach for spouting that stupidity on TV and fuck VH1 for even allowing that to make it in the broadcast.

This poor woman’s problem has little to do with the number on the scale, and everything to do with her lack of self confidence. She doesn’t think she’s sexy. Not when she was fat, and not even now since she’s skinny. Somewhere along the way, she lost her mojo.

You can call it mojo, self-esteem, inner spark, personality, whatever. She lost hers. And that makes me sad for her.

But I’m pissed because somewhere some chunky girl heard her talk shit about her weight and might have thought, Oh I can’t be sexy because of my weight?

Dear Fat Girls of the World: You, too, can be sexy.

A few weeks ago I attended an awesome Food Seminar at Woo Cosmetics on carbohydrates with a buddy of mine.  Leaving the seminar my friend and I were talking about body size and body image, and I mentioned how being the fat friend has never stopped me from also being the sexy friend or the pretty friend or whatever.

She looked at me with a funny little frown. She said, I’ve never thought of you as my fat friend.  You have too much sass and spark to be the fat friend.

Notice that nothing she said had anything to do with how much I actually weigh. Being the fat friend is a state of mind, not the size of your skirt.

I have a friend who insults people by calling them fat. I look at the girls she calls fat and cringe. Because the girls she calls fat so aren’t. And if she thinks they’re fat, then what the fuck does she think of me?

I know for a fact that she thinks I’m gorgeous and athletic and too cool for my cube. She doesn’t even think about my weight when she cattily insults someone by calling them a fatty.

Even when you ARE the fat friend, it’s still what is inside that counts. Regardless of weight, age, height, whatever, we all can be sexy.

You might need to reach down inside yourself, find your mojo, set it up on your shoulder, and  smile but dammit your sexy is THERE. Bring it out and show it to us.

Alternatively titled I love the Internets or I just wanted To Share

I have several half written blog posts that *one day* will make here for your reading pleasure, but today I’m just going to share a few posts that  resonated with me in a very special way. So without further ado.

Blogs that made my day.

Being by Doniree:  Found via (Genpink): I love this post so much that, not only do I want to print it and read it lots, I also want to copy it.  Not word for word, but I want to copy the style of it and create my own “I am” piece.

You Already Have Everything You Need by Jenny Blake: I’m not sure whether I have a humongous girl crush on Jenny or if this is just hero worship but I love her.  This post is the answer to all of my angst filled “why can’t I just get over myself and do something” posts.

How To Be Creative At Work by Penelope Trunk: She kind of lost me in the middle with all the high brow vs low brow commentary, but the last paragraph sums up the trouble that I think I have finding work in organizations and how I feel today about the work I’m not allowed to do at work. Sometimes our pre-conceived idea of what is acceptable or what we need causes us to miss out on the gems that are amazing but don’t quite fit what we’re looking for.

Empty Spaces (and Moving Past Loneliness by Jenny Blake: (Told you that I love her!) I love this post because I can relate. Moving to Atlanta was incredibly hard. I left a lot of my “I’ll be at your door in 15 minutes” friends in NC, and haven’t really filled that space yet. So now when the GF and I are involved with different things, and I can’t get someone on the phone, I find myself really alone for the first time ever. It’s f’ing scary and I hate it but those times teach me to be comfortable with and by myself.

Rescued by a Social Justice Christian by KT_Writes: As I struggle to reconcile my spirituality with the other parts of my personality, I crave wisdom from other people who succeed in that endeavor. Kristin is a great example of Christian done right. And this post exemplifies points about Christianity that many Christians fail to remember. Jesus is about service and helping others and feeding the poor. And that’s all social justice is.

Kevin Powells “Open Letter to Black America” by Sista Toldja: I really like this letter.  It speaks to several issues: Spiritually, Health, Community Economic Development, and Urban land development issues that I care deeply about and that I worry don’t get the “air play” that they deserve. I also believe that while this letter was aimed specifically at Black folk, there are a lot of poor Asian, Hispanic, Latino and other folk who need to read/hear/see it as well.

A month or so ago, I reconnected with one of my first blog homies, Holly Hoffman, who has been doing BIG THANGS for herself lately.

We tweeting briefly and she asked me what’s been going on in my life lately. And I replied like a smart aleck,“I’m full of angst as usual. Trudging upstream. Surrounded by mediocrity”

I thought Holly would laugh it off, or commiserate before moving on to the next topic.  She didn’t.  Instead she asked me what I’m going to do to change it.

After I gasped in shock and horror, I scrambled for a reply. I wanted to reply in a way that didn’t make me look like the lame asses around me that I deplore but I wanted to be truthful and not say something that could come back later and bite me in the ass. So I replied with an only-slightly BS line about “working on some things and making some connections” when in reality I spend most of my time lamenting the fact that I’m not writing much, and watching TV on Fancast and Netflix.

But having been posed that question by Holly, I started to really think about the things that I dislike about my life and all the stuff I’m not doing to change it.  And I realized something. I’m incredibly lazy and beset by inertia.

Inertia, according to Wikipedia, is the resistance of an object to change its state of motion.

“The vis insita, or innate force of matter is a power of resisting, by which every body, as much as in it lies, endeavors to preserve in its present state, whether it be of rest, or of moving uniformly forward in a straight line.”

Before I get all over my head in science world, basically this means that as much as I think I’d like to change certain aspects of my life (or even myself) at least a part of me is comfortable here.

A less science-y example:  This past weekend in Atlanta was gorgeous. 74 degrees, sunny. It was an amazing glimpse of Spring and I loved every second of it. But over the past few months, I’ve gotten used to wearing a coat, gloves, scarf and hat and walking around outside in just my regular clothes and a small sweater made me feel exposed and incomplete.  And I HATE bulky winter outerwear.

But it just goes to show you how easily behaviors and mindsets can become ingrained and how things, even the things that we hate, can become the norm.

There are lots of things I want to do, but every time I make a little progress, something (usually my own negativity) pulls me back into inertia.

I don’t have a solution to my inertia problem; if I did I’d be 50 pounds lighter, have written a book or two and would be chilling in Costa Rica. I know you are probably thinking (like I often do) Why don’t you just get off your ass and DO something.

I only wish it were that easy. Inertia is a powerful thing. You see, not only does the power of inertia state that an object will remain in its current state of motion, it also states that only a greater force can cause the object to change.

Last summer I was hit by a greater force. I graduated from MPA school with no prospects for employment. I was given the chance to change my life and break away from the power of inertia. I was living with the GF in a stable environment that could have been a breeding ground for creativity, self-discovery and entrepreneurship. Mostly it wasn’t. I wasted my tine trying to get back to where I was most comfortable. Working for someone else.  I dabbled in starting my own business, but I don’t think I took it as seriously as I should have. I didn’t push as hard as I should have.  Now I find myself, basically in the same place that I was in before I went to graduate school, except now it’s worse.

When I look at some of my peers, I see them as these brilliant rockets blasting off into the outer spaces of life and success and I wonder what drives them so.  This reminds me of a quote I heard during one of my Philosophers’ Notes that says that

“the majority of fuel used by a rocket is  used during take-off when the rocket is trying to breech the Earth’s gravitational pull.”

Hmmm.

Physics (Gravity and Inertia) shows us that the hardest part is getting started. Maybe, if I can just start moving and build some momentum, I can shift my inertia from one of standing still to one of constant movement. Maybe it only takes a push to propel myself (figuratively) into the air. Maybe then getting to and staying at cruising altitude will be relatively easy.

Alternatively titled: Why I prefer nudity

I have to start this post by telling everyone that I’m not just getting fatter. I hope to GOD that I’m not getting fatter, since I pay 50 bucks a month for a gym membership and I spend 3+ hours several days a week working out and dealing with all the stuff that goes along with working out (travel, showering, etc)

Since starting to work out last year, I’ve toned up tremendously (I have thighs and buns of steel) but I haven’t seen the scale budge.  Honestly, I haven’t seen a difference in (most) of my clothes. It takes a huge weight gain before my clothes let me know that I’ve started gaining.  The latest weight gain took place during the two years that I was in MPA School drinking beer and exercising little (none in the first year, sporadically in the second year).  I’m just (in the past 6-8 months) starting to notice and, only recently, try to do something about it.

Because I’m something of a yo-yo weight loser I have about 3 different sizes of clothes.  The first (lowest sized) clothes are tight now, and I’ve moved on to the next largest size.  These clothes are supposed to fit.

So I was surprised last week, when, after only a few hours at work I realize how uncomfortable I am. I realize that my clothes are tight. And of course, as soon as I START to think about how the waistband of my pants is digging into my stomach, I can’t think of anything but my bloated stomach.

So after a couple more hours of labored breathing and hurting stomach, I vow that as soon as I get these clothes home, they are going into my “goodwill” pile.

Later, I get home; chuck the pants and the shirt (good riddance!) away, put on my favorite sweat pants and finally starts to breath normally.  When the GF get’s home, I, still sore from the day of poor circulation around my middle, tell her about giving the pants away.

And she asked me which pants I’m giving away because I’m not allowed to give any away until she made sure that they aren’t the pants she liked to see me in.

*Shrugging*.  What am I going to do with her?

The story continues….

It has been unseasonably cold in Atlanta this winter, so I’m learning how to layer (Don’t judge me, I’m southern.  I shouldn’t have to layer).  I was wearing a button-down shirt under a sweater.   Somehow two of the shirt’s buttons have come undone, it’s tight around the shoulders and the sweater is itchy on my skin.  And I think I shrunk this sweater last time I washed it because it is RIDING UP along my stomach.

Not happy times.

Guess what?  I have more items for my “goodwill” bag.  (Yay for somebody.)

I think I need to go on a diet.

I’m also going to think about fundamentally changing the way that I dress.  Three out of five days a week something I wear to work makes me uncomfortable. I hate pants, shirts, and boots. I can’t wait until summer when I can wear skirts, dresses and flip flops. I NEVER feel this uncomfortable in a skirt (unless I’m cold).  I felt more uncomfortable yesterday than I did in 4^th grade gym class when I had to turn flips in a shirt without showing my ass. I need flowy pieces, tunics, elastic, cotton, things that breathe (so that I can breathe).

I need to go shopping.

And on a semi-related note…

Dear Mother Nature, Can I get some sunshine and 78 degree weather so that I don’t have to wear all these clothes? Puh -Puh -Please?

Atlernatively titled: This is my new motto. or More on why women should rule the world

This morning I was researching slacking off as I normally do and came across a New York Times article about State of the Nation/Union/Country.  Apparently, the US isn’t the only county to have an annual State Address. I was intrigued, and clicked to see what other leaders have been talking about lately.  Mostly its boring, economic stuff but this one quote from Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo during her (yes, I said her) State of the Nation Address on July 27, 2009 took my by surprise and caused me to do a double read.

I did not become president to be popular. To work, to lead, to protect and preserve our country, our people — that is why I became president.  To those who want to be president, this advice: If you really want something done, just do it. Do it hard, do it well. Don’t pussyfoot. Don’t pander. And don’t say bad words in public.

Wouldn’t we be better off if all the world’s leaders felt and behaved this way?

I went to college without really knowing what I want to do. Over the four years I changed my major four times. I started as a Political Science major, then I was a International Business/French major, then I switched to a plain Business major, finally I found my home in a very unlikely place—The Philosophy and Religion department.

I started college without really knowing what I wanted out of a four year degree, other than to be rich and famous. I loved the being a Philosophy major because I got to do my favorite things; read, think, talk and write. When folks asked me what I expected to do with a degree in a Philosophy, at first I shrugged. At one point, I assumed that I would go to Law School but in my heart I knew that was a cop-out. By the time I graduated, I wasn’t worried about the naysayers because I knew that I can do ANYTHING with my degree because I’ve learned how to THINK.

Tell that to the employees who wanted to see me with a Business or Journalism degree.

It took me a little while to get my act together, but I soon I found a field (Government) where I fit, and I knew that making a career in the public sector was right for me.

It took a few more years, and a graduate degree, interviewing my mentors, therapy and a life coach for me to identify what is most important to me, the thing that I would do for free.

What’s important to me?

I write about it, here and on Cosmopolitan Urbanist.

-Being the Best Monica Ever and hopefully inspiring someone else to be the best them ever

-Making public organizations better through technology

-Making neighborhoods stronger through urban design and community development

None of which I get to do in my current job. My job pays the bills, but it doesn’t turn me on.  Every once in a while, I get excited about the opportunity to learn a new skill set at work. Some days, I’m just happy just to have a paycheck at the end of the month and I don’t care that I’m not content in my work. Most days, though, I am so bored and frustrated and anxious that I sit in my cube wondering how I got to this place and what the hell do I have to do to get out of here.

I read Naomi at Ittybiz and Chris Guillebeau at The Art of Non-Conformity and now I’m completely jealous of Jamie at A Life in Transition. I read their stuff and I get emotionally confused. I’m so excited for them and inspired by them, but I also get sad because I feel so ordinary. I feel so unaligned with my values. I feel that I’m just getting by and not living my best life.

I’m the most goal oriented person I know, but I’m feeling a little stuck about taking the small steps that I need to, to move towards my best life. When I think about my stuckness, I want to throw my head back and have a Charlie Brown moment. WAAAHHHH!  This is not my life!!

During a recent conversation, my mom asked me if I was happy. I decided to forego the “I’m fine” answer, and answer honestly. I had to tell her that no, I’m not happy. I’m absolutely not happy. I’m not supposed to be a fricking management analyst. I ranted about how this recession has put a cramp in all my plans, and how I don’t feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do. After a moment of silence, she agreed with me.

She said, “You have a ministry- not necessarily religiously- but you are supposed to be helping people to do and be better.”

Her response brought tears to my eyes. But what she said next made me stutter.

“What are you going to do about it?”

I didn’t have a great answer to give her.

Since then, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I really want out of life, and you should expect a post or two soon outlining just that.

Six years of secondary school has given me the skills that I need to build a successful business and gave me some professional credibility. Unfortunately for me, school didn’t really teach me what I need to do to live my ideal life. Being involved in the blogger community, especially reading Rebecca, and Penelope, and the other bloggers at Brazen Careerist has been the best education that I could have received. Through their inspiration, I’ve started to harness the power of my passion.

I’m moving slowly, and it’s hella frustrating. I never expected to be rich and famous overnight.  I know I’m going to work hard and be patient with myself. I know that soon, my hard work and my passion will get me to where I need to be.

And that’s how I’m crushing it.

I’ve been in Atlanta for almost two months now, and I’ve settled into my life with the GF and I’ve gotten a job. Next on my list of things to do is to make myself some friends. So like any good Gen Y quasi-computer geek, I went straight to Meetup and twitter. And while twitter hasn’t been really fruitful (too much spam) Meet up has been amazing.

There are meetup groups for anything you want to do. Me, I’ve joined a couple of arts/film/food lovers groups, a couple of writing groups and a couple of book clubs. So far, my I haven’t been able to attend many of the activities. All the activities tend to happen at the same time that I have something else going on!!!

A few weeks ago, I went to one book club meeting, and I wasn’t impressed. I spent a week quickly reading the book club selection, and not really liking the book. I almost chickened out of going to the meeting (I’m shy and not that into meeting new people). I talked myself into going, only to be pretty disappointed. I ended up leaving the meeting sad and depressed. I didn’t feel a connection to any of the the other members, and there wasn’t anything about that meeting to convince me to return.

Today was different, I attending a Women of Worth book club meeting. It was, in two words, hilariously awesome. It was my kind of book club; we read poems and drank vodka and laughed our asses off. It was so much fun.

When I got home, the GF asked me if I felt silly for getting all bend out of shape over the first failed meeting up. I didn’t actually answer her, but yep. I feel a little silly.

I generally have a pretty f-ed up view of the world. I expect the worst to happen.  I expect people to behave badly.  I have a horrible time trusting people.  I’m a cynic and a pessimist. I’m naturally sensitive, but I try VERY hard to keep my emotions under wrap, in a box with a key in a vault.  In a cave, under the ocean. (Being called a crybaby as a child will do that to you)

So when I read beautiful things written by beautiful people it makes me really happy and my faith in the world is restored (at least briefly).  And Marie had made me pretty happy today. In her post, Take Care, she asserts that we are in the lives of our friends, lovers, families because God trusts us to take care of them.

Read it again to make sure you got it. God trusts us to take care of them.

WOW. I got chill bumps while reading that statement!!! It is such an amazing and empowering thought. I am responsible for taking care of the people with whom I’ve been blessed to interact.

Sometimes I think about packing up my life and running away and living in a cave in the Midwest.  I’ve wondered if anyone would notice or care if I was no longer around. Most times I think I make a so-so friend. So to think that God (in her/his all-knowing wisdom) trusts me?!?!?!

I have friends and family with whom I have a cosmic (in my mind, at least) connection with.  People with whom I immediately feel comfortable.  People with whom I can be my total ridiculous self.  People who know me better than I know myself.  People who (on the days that I believe in reincarnation) I believe I’ve been living and dying with throughout the millennia. People I would die to save.

People who I am very guilty of occasionally treating badly.  People who I haven’t called, texted or even tweeting in forever. I ignore phone calls. I hold grudges.  I hurt feelings.  I rush to get off the phone or off the IM. I have horrible trust issues. I have hang-ups that keep me distant and invulnerable.

Sometimes I consciously tell myself that I shouldn’t care about anyone.  Caring makes one vulnerable and out of control. And I don’t want to be vulnerable and out of control.

When I think about how I treat people, I feel like an asshole.  Because Marie is right. How dare I not care? How dare I not trust myself to be the kind of lover, friend, family member that my loved ones deserve? I mean, if God can trust me (and my friends and family trust me) to do it properly, what’s my f-ing problem?

I’ve been admonished.

Thanks, Marie for reminding me that love, friendship and family are beautiful gifts that shouldn’t be taken lightly.  I promise to do better.  And I printed out her post and am taping it on my Vision Board.  I want to be the kind of person that God, apparently, thinks I am.

Worthy of the people in my life.