Dark Muse

Gabby came back from her visit to South Africa a couple of weeks ago.

This brought a huge sigh of relief to other friends of mine who have been floundering in the fertilizer of my personal growth since she has been gone.  (As if they haven't had enough fertilizer of their own to deal with lately; tell me, is it only Lawnton that has had a sale on fertilizer recently or is there really something to this 'Venus in retrograde' business?)

There have been huge tectonic shifts on the personal growth here, but the afterschocks remain.

My core, thank you for asking, is stable.

I have learned to step back, I have learned that not everyone has to like eachother (or even me!) and I have learned - lo and behold - that I am NOT the centre of the universe...and that, Lori you are right, it is not always all about me.

What a relief.

That this is all a gigantic, smelly load of self-indulgent fertilizer hit home when Gabby came back with stories from South Africa.

I am so blessed.

In another life - in this life, in another place - that could have been me. 

This is an educated white woman who went to teach at her local black highschool.  This could have been me.

This is a woman who was brutally gang-raped by her students.  This could have been me.

These are young people who butchered their teacher by hacking off all four of her limbs after the rape.  Could that ever have been me?  Or my boys?  Could my family - raised in different circumstances - have become this bestial, this savage, this less-than-human?

This woman - and these boys - are alive today. 

And I realize that I have five children to raise in a world that allows children to become less than animals.

I realize that I have been blessed by circumstance, that I have been given the gifts I have been given, and that these gifts carry an obligation to do better than most.

I owe it to myself, to my children and to our savage world - I owe it to my dark muse, HIV positive, missing four limbs, and most likely a shattered shell of a human being- to do more than the average person because I have been given more than the average person.

Do I fit in?  Absolutely not.

But I do feel that I can finally leave the self-perpetuating cycle of highschool mistakes behind me (every adult female group that I have been part of has been a repeat, in some way, of highschool!), that I am strong enough NOW not to worry so much about what other people think of me, that I am wise enough not to waste my time on things I can't control (including the past and the future!), that I am learning to be like the lotus.

I'm not doing it for my dark muse.  She just reminds me of what might have been.

I have an obligation to my children, sure.

But I am doing it for myself.

I have been given gifts.  I CAN do more than most.

And damn it, I have four limbs and an intact soul; I am not going to let trying to fit in with everyone else stop me from achieving heights that I was meant to reach on my own.

Namaste.