Shaping Our World

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This morning, I started out by writing an extremely rare rant post. When I got to the end of it, I realized that the point of the thing was not really to complain about the myriad of things that aren’t quite right with the world. What I had really been working up to in that rant was the importance of realizing that we have more ability to create our own world than we often realize.

It can be easy these days to get bogged down in feelings of despair and helplessness, as the times we’re living in are full of uncertainty and turmoil. I’ll admit that for a while, it seemed to me that the solution was of almost utter isolation. Thankfully that mindset has been replaced with a deeper and firmer connection with ideals I’ve believed to be true for a very long time, but had buried in my misplaced desire for acceptance in spaces which do not fit me (thank goddess).

While I certainly am not going to be out roaming the streets among the masses of unmasked people, I have decided to ramp up my community building skills. We really can, to a very large degree, create a world which does fit us. A place to find joy, happiness, peace, compassion, and very importantly, connection. Connection with the world around us, connection with that which is greater than ourselves, connection with other people. Even in the midst of difficulty, we do have the power to do all of this.

You may have noticed that I wrote of that with a lot of certainty, and it’s true, I did. This is because I know it to be true. In a time not too very long ago, I was (mostly) walking that path. There were some kinks to work out, both inner and outer, but it was more good than not. For a few years though, I had gotten sidetracked and lost my way. There were many lessons learned, slates were cleared. In those blank spaces, new things and people have been written and continue to be written all the time.

I’ve learned the huge value of my inherent ability to have, what they called, my head in the sand. Now more than ever I know that my head was not in the sand, it was in the clouds. I’m very grateful to say that it is now climbing back up there. It’s time to return to my ideals, along with some new ones I’ve adopted and get back to creating space and community which are uplifting, compassionate, creative, and loving. Time to wipe the tears, soothe the sorrow, and tame the frustration which comes with disconnecting from our sense of power, sense of belonging, and creative spirit. The direction has been reset, and I’ll be getting back to the work (which doesn’t feel at all like work) of creating an online space which reflects all of that.

Much love,

Tracy

Chronic Worth

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Note: This is a re-post. The only thing changed is the title, which I did because the original title didn’t convey the sentiment the heart of what was being said. Many thanks to Julie from Mountain Made Crochet for helping me out with that.

When I first came back to the blog, I wrote about my awful experiences with various  medications for autoimmune disease. On some levels I feel a lot better without them, but my pain is getting a lot worse, and my energy never did make a full comeback. Back when I wrote that post, my mindset was leaning toward telling the rheumatologist that I didn’t want to try anything else after three different ones being so awful. Now that some time has passed, I am going to ask to try again, because the pain is not conducive to much.

It’s not a fun thing to have to choose between severe pain all the time, or the possibility of medication that makes things so much worse. However, I have things that I want to do, and there are a lot of other things that can be tried, so when I have my appointment in late June, I’ve decided to be brave and give it another go. Surely one of the many medications available will be tolerable by my supremely picky body.

What finally made me decide to continue with treatment is noticing that yet another of my fingers is starting to turn sideways. The incessant body-wide pain was already making me lean in that direction, but seeing yet another joint becoming disfigured is concrete proof to me that there is damage being done that needs to be stopped. In the meantime, I’ll be here as much as I can, and I’m hoping that it’s fairly often. Now that I’ve gotten this all out in the open, the next post will be about something other than my health. It isn’t something that I really like to talk about, but it is part of my life that will be popping up.

For several reasons, I’ve felt almost ashamed to talk about my struggles here. While I do not wish for health issues to make up a large part of this blog, I have decided to be a bit more open about it. There isn’t any shame in it, and that is part of my inner narrative that I am choosing to tell to shut the hell up. All the old voices of the past, and even in our society which cause us to place our value in what we produce, what we can do, how perfect we can make ourselves look can hush. It may be a little later in life, but it’s finally coming clear to me just how wrong those voices are and how to see myself differently.

Of course we should always be doing our best to have a life which is meaningful, but it can’t always be about how much money we make, what possessions we have, and all around being a poster child of materialistic success. Not saying that having nice things is bad, it’s just that as a society we all too often make those things the measure of worthiness in a person. Coming to a realization that I will not be rejoining the rat race has really helped me to see the intrinsic value of people, and it isn’t tied to what they do and what they own. While I’ve never viewed the world in that way, this is a whole new level, because those values had been embedded in me when it came to my own worth. So glad to finally have this fading, as I had a hard time fully loving myself and feeling worthy of acceptance. Here’s to all of us finding our sense of worth.

Do any of you go through this?