Random Thoughts on turning 40

I am a bicentennial baby. I was born today in 1976. I like so many of my friends I have grown up alongside have no generation we belong to & none that we fully connect with. I & we are lost souls caught between generations. I/we embrace many ethics & values of generation X while loathing & embracing so many things of generation Y aka “the millennials” we love & hate social media, we send SMS more often that we call. We are possibly the last of a generation that kind of knows how to connect with& have relationships “in real life”. I have learned on a professional level to lead & manage the youth that is rising behind me. However I was born in a year where I am young enough to fully embrace & understand technological advances but old enough to remember card catalogs & microfiche.

I have been a first adapter of tech since as long as I can remember. I got my first computer when I was 6. But I find myself hating the way social media has shaped society. I find myself living in a world where the baseline of human emotions is through facebook & only acceptable when all of life is #Epic & #Awesome & anything any type of feeling expressed in negative to epic & awesome is viewed as drama or possibly categorized as #depressive or #suicidal even though a decade ago the feelings of life would have been acceptable as feelings people sometimes have... feelings are what separate Humanity from the animal kingdom? Also, George Orwell talked about this in his #Epic book 1984

Turning 40 inspired me to look back on my life. This is never easy. There are times I wish I would have made different decisions & I have lived a lot.... if I had to do it over again.. there are a few th9ng I might considering changing....

For the most part... I would not run from feelings, I would dive into everything that reflects humanity more no mater what the emotional cost might be. I would have allowed myself to accept a whole lot more of love in the ways of romantic love a la 20s randomness even of my 40 yr old self might say this is irresponsible...

In my 40 years of being human I have lived a life that many never have had the opportunity to live. I've been a vagabond in Europe & an expat in 2nd & 3^rd world countries. I have lunched with a tyrant or two.... I have learned the art of diplomacy....

I have learned what humanity is.... I have fallen in love with the idea of family in whatever the concept is morphed out of. I have learned that family has little to do with what I in-vision and has everything to do with what God sees as family & I fully embrace my family from bio to internet.

I once fought for children & learned to fight for parents. I have seen the best & worst that humanity has to offer. I know I am repeating myself, but I want YOU to understand that I have learned family takes many shapes & forms.

I literally have wrinkles & gray hairs to solidify what I have learned about love & family. EVERY gray hair & every wrinkle I have has a story attached to it. I admit I want to tell everyone about the stories attached to the visual aging I have taken on through the years.

Turning 40 is a new chapter in my life, the rest of my life for the next decade....“Society” tells me that I should hide all the things that have shaped me into the human I am.... hide all the is wrinkled & all that is gray. But I reject that and am entering into The “40s” with an excitement that this is a new chapter in my life a book mark marking the time I stepped into another place where I was to become fully me... I embrace every wrinkle & every gray hair that I have, each one has taught me something & I refuse to hide them.

In my 40 years of living I have “hopefully” learned to dive into all the life hands you... I think I have learned to make lemon aide with the lemons lie sometimes serves. Many of the women I have walked alongside when I worked with families in a state of crisis through Safe Families are the most amazing mothers who taught me how to make lemonade when you are handed milk that is spoiled.

In many ways turning 40 is actually freeing... makes me ponder all that this life has taught me. When I was 18 I though I knew everything. The 40 years I have of life have taught me everything I need to know.

When I think I know everything, I really know nothing. #40Years

About a year ago I wrote this as a note on FB to several moms I know who have trusted me with their lives..... 

This started as a 140 character tweet... to a tweep that was listening to Emo songs.... so for my rambling I am #SorryNotSorry

This note is for all of the mothers I who trusted me to find a safe place for your little ones during your most vulnerable & dark times....

I've had this song on my playlist for awhile. I think I finally just heard it... or at least I just realized how much is resonates with when we met.

http://youtu.be/ZouujJsHO4k

You all know who you are you =) & you should know you fit seamlessly into my Facebook stream =) I enjoy seeing where you are & what you are doing.  This song just reminds me a lot of when I met you & somewhere in the midst of your personal tragedies we became friends. We've laughed, cried & celebrated & I appreciate you for sharing your life with me.

This song just reminds me a lot of where you were when we met & how far you have come.You may or may not be with your little one(s) right now but i know that you are a mom who loves her children fiercely.

I hope you all know that... We have all been in a place where we just need to hold on for a night, we've been displaced, & that we feel like no one survives. you amaze me because not only have you survived you are thriving.  I know it always doesn't feel like it but everyday that you wake up & face life every time you say hey I need some help here you are winning.

None of you need to comment. I just wanted to remind you that you are all courageous & strong. Never forget that you have a community to support you so that you can continue to survive. You have home & are no longer displaced.

I have been spending some time writing out the last decade of my life & have been thinking about you & your life. I have been thinking about where you have been, where you, & where your life is headed. I have been doing the same for me. If we are friends here on the Facebook it is becuase we are friends & you have taught me much about life. (Yes I am practicing what I preach you know how I am always telling you to write it out =) if you need a journal let me know)

Renee

Storm Outside

Growing up in California I have never experienced much weather.  I know how to duck and cover in a quake and I know a lot about water conservation, the result of the lack of weather. I really don't know what to do with weather. Sure I lived a couple years in New England, and a few years with the fog of San Francisco. One of my favorite things to do is watch the fog roll down the street instantly taking the warmth out of the air. I've watched lightening light up the sky over lake Victoria while sipping wine in the dark, sheltered by balcony. None of my limited experience with weather prepared me for a Spring Storm in Texas.

The initial worry started with a text from a volunteer, "Welcome to Texas, you're about to experience a spring storm. Sit back and enjoy the show." After that first text I started receiving others, they went from watch to warning to instructions to take cover. Inching along the freeway that was turning into a river. I walked into my apartment just as the sirens started to blare. It was so noisy outside I could barley hear them A friend called, a Texan Native. In a calm voice she told me exactly what to do. With brief hesitation, my blinds rattling, my heart gripped in fear and I moved into action.The next thing I really remember is laying curled up in a ball underneath my sofa cushions sweating in the warm wet air my back angled awkwardly against the cold hard prociln of my tub. I did what any experienced Humanitarian would do, I bawled my eyes out crying for my mommy. After a few minutes my tears turned to laughter as I realized how ridiculous I was being. Yes the thought of a tornado forming on top of my tiny little no wall apartment scares me. I've lived in some of the most challenging and personally dangerous places in the world and I am scared of this? I could hear my friends voice, you are going to be fine, just stay covered in your tub, you aren't going to die tonight.

I am so grateful for my friend who in the midst of a storm put her own safety on hold to calm me and walk me through the storm. I cannot help but think about the families I work with that are in crisis. Their lives spinning out of control just like the wind that had been turning against my building. They must feel the same way. Scared to death. They don't know what to do. My volunteers are the ones taking the time to step into the storm, a calm voice soothing them. The whisper into the phone saying, do this, do it now, you are going to be ok.

I Dreamed a Dream

Since moving to Dallas, I have lost my face to face processing. I have been writing. A lot. I wrote this shortly after seeing Les Miserables a few months ago. I thought I would share it today.

I recently saw Les Miserables for the first time. I sat in the theater weeping during Anne Hathaway's I dreamed a dream scene. Her character, a single mother, is fired unjustly from her job. Being a single mother with no means she does what she has to in order to provide for her daughter.

I could not help but see the mothers we walk with in her, onscreen I watched as Ann sold her hair, her teeth, her possessions; witnessing the raping of her innocence and body through prostitution. In my mind I saw the pleading eyes, the cries of the vulnerable, the scars on her arms, the bruises on the others thighs, seeing through their explanations, so desperately wanting to hide in the embarrassment and shame of the hell they are living.

The women I meet through work live in a perpetual state of crisis of a life on a downward spiral, living under a shroud of shame and embarrassment. One day they were young in spirit and vibrant, they dreamed a dream. Their lives twisted into a downward spiral of circumstances and regretful choices that leads to isolation and the devaluation of their lives.

These beautiful hearts of broken women share their deepest darkest secrets, they share their greatest failures, and they expect judgment and condemnation. Rarely am I able to meet these expectations, I willingly offer my hand to hold, walking with them into the embrace of a community that will love them just as they are offering the hope to dream again.

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
As they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

random thoughts

i have been getting so many crisis calls lately that my head is spinning. every call i take makes me think about life. my life and the life of the caller and my volunteers. each of us has our own story, each story is epic, sometimes our stories intercept one an others.

i have learned that there is no rhythm or reason to crisis. it seems to come in waves. what causes this? is it weather patterns? the moon? a change in oxygen levels? the stories are sometimes so similar they are difficult to keep straight. i find my self saying no that was the girl that is pregnant, i am talking about the one that...

i can see how each job i have had and each way that i have served has prepared me for what i am doing right here, right now. each step god has directed me to take is a step to what is next. so i wonder what is next?

when i lived in uganda i felt isolation for what may have been the first time in my life. i felt alone.desperate and needy. yes needy in one of the most economically depraved countries in the world. experiencing isolation helped me understand why people make the decisions they do in life. isolation can drive you to make decisions in a way that under normal circumstances you would respond different.

comfortable and in community i know that i am not alone. i have people who i can count on in my life. they make me laugh and smile and love me where i am at.

the common thread with all the families who call me is isolation. they have no one to call, no one to turn to. when judgement starts to seep into my mind when i think of them. i think about how it felt to be alone. i think of the suffocating feeling of isolation. i think of how if one thing had wobbled in my world i could have made some really poor decisions simply out of a need for connection. i think of the sadness and desperation that comes with being alone.

i try to reach out a hand and i try to not let go.

daily grind

Most days I just go through the motions at work. Coffee. Check. Email. Check. Phone calls. Check the infinite and always growing to do list. Check. Check. Check. Sometimes I forget that I work in the third sector. I forget that what I am doing is for the greater good. I forget that I am not selling cosmetics and alcoholic beverages in a marketing firm. I forget that my work has little fiscal value and that I actually do not contribute to the GDP. I forget that I am in the business of people and this business impacts the lives of everyone involved.

On occasion I hear back from one of our volunteers or a family that is caring for children in crisis. One of my coworkers passed this along. A tiny celebration amongst the hectic holiday season.

If there is ever a time of year which points us to God’s love revealed in unexpected sources, it’s during the Christmas Season. The story of two children of poverty, homeless travelers, dependant on the fickle hospitality of strangers, they make their place in a dwelling appointed to them by God for His purposes. We still peer into that scene of sacred space in Bethlehem to see the Savior revealed in human form.

“There is a castle on a cloud, I like to go there in my sleep. Aren’t any floors for me to sweep, Not in my castle on a cloud”

A Grandmother in San Clemente, California is drawn to a bedroom in the home of her Safe Family daughter. Her daughter and husband and 3 children have opened their home to two homeless sisters, temporarily orphaned. The Grandmother is drawn by the singing of her three grandchildren. They are singing along with the CD of the opera musical Le Miserables.

“There is a room that’s full of toys, there are a hundred boys and girls, nobody shouts or talks too loud, not in my castle on a cloud.”

The two grandsons leading the singing know the musical because their sister Cosette, was named for the young girl main character in Le Miz. If not for this connection of the story to their own sisters, they would have little inclination to pay any attention to the story that Le Miserables tells. These are aggressive, rambunctious boys of 7 and 9 years singing with the young, forgotten orphaned girl on the CD also named Cosette.

“I know a place where no one’s lost, I know a place where no one cries,”

The Grandmother gently opens the door and peeks her head around the door and sees the 5 children in the a circle, arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders singing as best they can with the song,

“crying at all is not allowed, not in my castle in the sky.”

Her grandchildren are singing the wordless fears and dreams of these new companions who they want to love. The Grandmother closes the door, unable to look too long on this holy scene. The purity touches too deep inside and she can not even bear to linger long outside the now closed door. Altered by the beauty, she can only mutter the prayer for God to hear, “now I know why they came, now I know why they are here”

There is a castle on a cloud….. which sometimes comes to rest and express in the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. This is the Safe Family story.

Life's Lessons

It has been to long since I have written my ramblings here. I have been busy learning all the lessons that life has brought my way. Mainly learning not to judge. I have been working for a year and a half with families in crisis. It is both a struggle and full filling. There are time of complete sadness and utter joy. I have learned that I am capable of accepting people for who they are and where they are in their life. I celebrate each time a family is reunited. I have discovered that "we" try to force others into the lives that we think they should live. We try to get them to conform to our prescription for perfection without really examining the negative effects that has had on our own lives. Daily I ask God for wisdom and to continue to let me see the world and its people through his eyes and not my own. I am almost appalled at what I am able to accept but embrace each family as they come hurting and broken just as we are, just as I am.

See the world through new eyes

I recently had a friend visit for a few days. Seeing the world through her eyes made me fall in love with my home all over again.

wanderlust

I have been back in the US for almost six months and am just starting to feel the lure of the road. No; that’s not true; I always feel the lure of the road. It’s more than that. I am going to fumble trying to put it into words.

It is a lifestyle that is virtually impossible to attain in the developed world where I am constantly told that I need more and I need to want more and if I don’t want a certain prescribed lifestyle of consumption, marriage, children then I are somehow deviant; not a woman; not human. No to say that the idea of having someone to grow old with doesn’t sound delicious it’s just rare to find someone whom you could possible see that happening with and even more rare that they too have an attachment to the great unknown, to a lifestyle of movement. A modern day gypsy if you will. I try to change. I try to think about living a life of domestic bliss. It really does sound wonderful, but the pull to this other way of living is to strong. It grabbed hold of my soul as a child and won’t let go. No matter how hard I try to cut it loose and find contentment in routine. I am unable to find it however hard I search.

I am starting to think that there is not a way to quench to desire of exploration, if there is would someone please tell me how? I am quite sure I could start popping pills and numb myself with prozac or some other happy pill that makes you forget, that sedates or something that just makes life look a little more colorless. Just as all people can be classified as people who ask why or how; they can further be classified by those who explore the world and those who don't.

I cannot explain what it is or why it hits but when it does I only want to flee to explore to live life in this different way. To have the freedom to move about the planet with out restraint of perceived needs. I have this desire to dig in and attempt to understand new cultures and the delight that comes with finding something new.

I tend to be a runner. I know this about myself. I get scared and I run, usually away from attachments, relationships or emotions that I don’t want to have. I have considered that I am running. I have considered that I am one of those people who just live better and thrive in a perpetual state of chaos. But my current work is chaotic and I have not truly run in years. I think now when I run I am running to things not away from them. Maybe I am running towards home or to an idea that does not exist.

I am fairly content in my current situation. My work is challenging and exciting and I have been enjoying getting to know my niece while spending quality time with my friends. In fact the older I get the deeper my roots become and the harder it is to leave and yet the ache is still there. I know that our time in this world is short. Why not enjoy it while we are here? But then I get this longing in the pit of my stomach. It is similar to home sickness only for places I have never been.

The pains of being technicolor

I am Technicolor working in a black and white office and the last few weeks have made me want to smash my head against a wall to ease the pain of frustration.

Then I realized I tend to be someone who looks at problems from a million angels while deducing the best plan of attack. I don’t know how but my simple mind tends to run quickly down a virtual path to see where each idea will lead. It might be my tendency to learn towards mania but I repeatedly find myself naturally leaning towards innovation and the use of technology long before most people.

I think my mind is always creating so if I am not taking photos I am creating new ways to do stuff in my program. Only people here don’t seem to like that. The prevailing attitude is that we have never done things that way, why should we do something new?

What I don’t get is how they could adapt the innovating program I am working to implement and yet refuse to try new ways of getting people involved.

I need coffee and Advil to stop this pounding in my head.

Training Review

I have been working with a company to develop web based training for my volunteer families. It's looking good but I am sick of reviewing it, it is making my head hurt. I have to watch it from multiple angels and perspectives.

I have a headache and need coffee.

1984 in your face

Hello Orwellian Prophecy

If i had not read this direct from the white house blog I would have thought for sure it was fanatical paranoia in a chain email, a spoof or freedoms worst nightmare. In fact someone posted a link to a columnist and it seemed so far fetched I decided to investigate. I am floored by what I found and cannot even fathom living in a country where we the people or our representatives have been asked to act as informers as to what we email or through causal conversation in regards to the presidents health care plan.

We live in a country that preaches rights, freedom and democracy but while we sleep blinded by our own fears our government is slowly chipping away at all that we once stood for. The government just asked us to report on each other for stating our beliefs.

I understand the annoyance the chiefs must feel with paranoid and fear inducing fiction that comprises most Netlore. But we CANNOT just submit to the powers that be and turn each other in for voicing our opinions. After all it is opinion and the white house signed up for the job of running this country and all of the headaches that come along with it.

I am sure that the governments "intent" is not to monitor its citizens but if we allow this type of door to creep open when will it stop? How will the information be used in the future will we start being offed at the polls because we speak in opposition?

Now is not the time to be silent, it is the time to use your voice in any way that you can.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Facts-Are-Stubborn-Things/

Cows

A friend of mine sent out a message on facebook asking us if we all wanted to chip in for a cow to buy for a family in Uganda. It took about four hours for us to all chip in. So my friends and I just bought a cow to give to a family in northern uganda. it was so fast and easy why doesnt all funding come with that much ease?

Remebering Uganda

The Uganda Leadership team at my church decided to host a BBQ for everyone who has ever been or might be interested in going is invited. I am supposed to be putting together a video of all the trips and giving some info on other projects that have been going on.

I think I am subconsciously putting it off because I am a little bit worried about what it might do to my mental state and what sort of feelings it might dredge up.

Caught in Tension

I usually spend time talking about the work that I am doing in the third sector, or how I am missing or not missing the developing world.

Yes I am still working in the third sector, only right now I am focused on my home country. I am finding myself in a tension point of wanting to grow roots without clipping my wings, dreaming of the intense blue skies and suffocating heat while traipsing through June gloom of costal Orange County. More accurately I have been in this point of tension for the past few years. I find myself trapped in the tension point between having the freedom to follow your dreams no matter where they land you and a longing to have someone to dream with.

I have just been taught to not be public about relationships or thoughts of settling down. Heaven forbid I scare any boys off with talk of commitment or the future. OK so anyone who truly knows me knows I am more skittish that the average male about being tied down but I keep silent just in case someone who reads this might see me as needy and clingy woman with you know, emotions.

So I find myself wanting to lives that appear to be mutually exclusive. What is a girl to do? DO you choose one dream over the other? Do I settle down in the here and now and not worry about the future. What if that person that I settle with is one of those urber patriotic Americans who does not have a passport because “America is the Best country in the world” and of course he knows this because of all the other places he has been using his nonexistent passport.

So I have to keep reminding myself that I am in control, to you know, let go of my control. I want to let go in a leap of faith and make myself available, for who knows what. What is the worst that will happen? I will fail? I’ve failed at a million things. Ok maybe not but I have failed before. The question is. How exactly does one go about letting go?

Monday Reds

This morning started off with a serious case of the mean reds. Yes, I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's last night and was reminded of one my of favorite fake psychological terms.

I apparently had a sign on my car that said; I am irritated please agitated by not letting me change lanes.

Thank you to all the other jerks on the 405.

Amazing Sushi

After spending years always moving back and forth between two polar worlds I am finding it rather nice to settle back into a normal if not somewhat predictable routine. I find myself wondering if I will bore of this and am hopeful that I will stay content in the daily monotony that life offers when not on the move.

Part of my daily routine is the gym. Last night a friend met me for yoga, we decided to grab sushi after. I had the most amazing sashimi roll as Sushi on Fire. Go there, eat, enjoy.

Nothing New

I don't really have anything new to talk about but I was thinking that I should get in the habit of writing anyways and maybe one day I will have something interresting to say again, or maybe for the first time.

Judgmental

It is not my job to pass judgment. SO why do I find myself judging others? In my line of work this tried and tested almost daily. I wonder how people could not realize that there would or could be huge consequences to their actions. When in a desperate circumstances what is the point that we start making decisions without forethought to the outcome or the consequences that our actions may have? When really none of this has to do with me or what I believe are healthy choices. It’s all about showing Gods love and grace to people who have had everyone loose faith in them, its about “us” putting our faith in them and saying we love you and we are not going to give up on you. We are the last stop; we are the safety net that no one new existed.

Since as far back as I can remember every few years I am challenged to look at the way I view the world and the people in it. A couple years ago this happened again and I was lucky enough to be able to share this story with 12,000 or so people who attended my church the weekend I got to share that I was a judgmental asshole who God changed to see the world through his eyes although, I might not have used that exact phrasing. It was through this time that I saw a drastic change in my photography and that people started to say that I really capture people as they are and that you can see something deeper within them. I fully admit that this is not me at all and that I can barely set the settings on my camera, it is all God and his eyes.

So now I find my judging self being challenged again in entirely new ways with an entirely different set of people, I am learning compassion and understanding on an entirely different level than I have ever experienced it before and I hope that my world view is changed through this.

Really you needed to steal my orange?

Someone stole my orange right out from under my nose! I have been trying to be economical and healthy. This means I am bringing my lunch to work. I believe they used to call it brown bagging. But I have a cute little bag that doesn’t add to the land fills, come to think of it; it’s brown! Totally beside the point I apologize for the environmental diatribe.

Anyways I started to reheat my lunch. Simple process: Remove lid, put in microwave. Put stuff on empty table. This included an orange, plastic lid and fork. A coworker was scoffing at some left over bagels and bright pink strawberry cream cheese left on a table that should have been a clue to guard my orange with my life instead I decide that I would leave it on the table and go to the ladies room. When I returned my orange was gone!!!

What kind of freak steals an orange that is obviously part of someone’s lunch? I thought I was back in American where you don’t need to guard your food.

Whether it was one of the kids or a coworker I always have to remember to never leave things lying around. After all poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.