Mentally and physically.
My candle has been being burnt in multiple spots for a while now and my FMS is starting to feel it. My brain is starting to feel fuzzy, my mind is feeling numb, my muscles are starting to scream at life.
I know that if I could simply find/make time to walk the pains would eventually subside, but my weariness is overwhelming lately. Each minute that I can sleep feels like a precious gift from God.
Stress is my enemy. I know it is the biggest cause of flares. And for over a month now the entire city of St. Louis has been a powder keg of stress.
If this small but determined group of people is intent on being heard, I think they are doing that. Now I just wish the message made sense. I wish that I could fully understand and that there was a path and plan out of the darkness. One of my B's keeps trying to help me understand my adopted home. It's idiosyncrasies, the under currents, the root of the problem so to speak.
I am still struggling.
People are hurting and suffering. That bothers me greatly. But my outsiders brain cannot wrap around what I am witnessing.
As they blocked a highway the other night, my heart hurt. Not for the protesters, I'm sorry, but no. For the innocent people that were stuck sitting there. For the imagined people that were blocked from the hospital exit - yes I am very aware that the chose a spot further east from that exit, they didn't deliberately block that exit. But did they consider the ripple effect? Did they consider how quickly traffic at dusk would back up and quickly block off that route?
I understand the point that they are trying to make. I think. That they have been made uncomfortable and they have been trapped by things out of their control. I think that is what I am hearing and seeing. And it seems that they are wanting everyone to feel their particular pain and suffering, real or imagined.
Here is where I struggle. I ask questions, it's how I understand things. I am the original "stupid question" person.
As I packed my lunch for work today, I added an additional few items. They aren't the most nutritionally rounded items - because I do not know what the person I packed them for likes and can eat. He's a member at my Y. He's a veteran. He's homeless, pencil thin and goes sometimes days without eating. He's in the process of having an entire mouth full of rotten teeth pulled. Yet every day, he comes in, he's currently sporting the sharpest suit and dress shoes I have ever seen! He's clean shaven, neat as a pin and works out - currently in that suit. If you saw him without his cart of worldly belongings you would never know he was "unhomed" (is the current PC phrase). This sweet kind man, that put his life on the line for us, is always kind and helpful. He always has a soft word or prayer for everyone he encounters. He's quiet and slightly unassuming.
I know that he sometimes goes days without eating. Because his pride will not let him ask us or anyone else for food. Usually it's about the third day when he is getting weak and struggling a bit and the cups of coffee he is drinking are not fitting the bill that he will casually mention that it has been a while since he's had anything to eat. He's not begging, nor is he asking for food. Just chatting with friends.
Today, I deliberately packed some items that I know he should be able to eat with his sore mouth. Things that will fill his tummy and give him a feeling that he is cared for. As I was doing this, I felt ashamed. Ashamed that I didn't give it a conscious thought until this morning. Ashamed that it took me a few weeks to realize that his casual comment was actually a cry for help.
It wasn't until I was sitting at my dining room table this morning, eating the incredible breakfast that my sweet hubby made for me while I slept staring at the gorgeous bouquet of flowers that he brought for me last night, knowing that I'd had a bad day, that it occurred to me.
During a casual conversation with Hubs about the protesters, their message, my thoughts, reflecting on the conversation I'd had last night with my B, that my sleep addled brain, on little coffee starting to work.
I don't know that it is a black, brown or white problem. I don't know that it is even a male or female problem. I don't believe it is a democrat or republican problem.
I think it's a human problem. A humanity problem.
Am I privileged? Yes. Is it because I am white? No.
I work very hard for everything I have in life. Yet, I am just one major disaster away from being that sweet man.
Are there many times that I should do more and get too wrapped up in my own life to see what is before me? Absolutely. Do we all? For the most part.
A few months ago I was helping work on a grant. We were trying to improve a school playground in an area that these protesters are yelling about. It was HORRID! I was shaking for days after seeing what these children were dealing with. In my heels and dress I was picking up handfuls of broken glass, needles and other items that make me shiver. I wasn't there to do a clean up detail. I was there to take pictures, to say why we needed the money.
My heart was shattered.
Made worse by the fact that as I walked around doing that, the members of the community were sitting on their front steps, some with the very children that play there, smoking cigarettes, sipping on their cold beverages, watching me like I was crazy. Or like that is something I should have been doing for them. They were washing their shiny new cars, listening to music blasting from stereos. Yet none of them saw that there was a problem. Or maybe they did see, and didn't figure it was their problem.
Too many times lately it seems that too many people say I didn't do it, it's not my problem.
I was stunned. These children deserved better. Those community members are in complete control over what happens in their community, but if they are willing to turn a blind eye, then nothing changes.
Gandhi wasn't joking. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Pick up the playground, provide food to someone that cannot provide it for themselves (note I didn't say will not - HUGE difference), be the person that someone can lean on and support each other as we ALL move forward on this journey.
Today I will have a conversation with my member. I will determine what I can do to help him as he works though this horrible spot in his life. Not enable, help. I'm not rich, not even close, but I can always pack an extra lunch for a bit. And this weekend I might go in search of some workout clothes for this sweet man.
At no point am I doing this because of his color or mine. It's because it is the right thing to do.
Maybe instead of blocking highways, yelling and intimidating others, breaking windows and causing fear... maybe we could all start by using that energy to clean parks, listen to quiet voices, build up our communities so that the bond is stronger.
Maybe we can start to change the root cause of all of this when we stop trying to be right, when we stop thinking that any of us can change the past and we all start living for the future. When the first instinct stops being to call someone a racist for not being able to see things through your eyes. When we all take a moment to treat everyone we encounter the way we want to be treated.
Start small. Pack an extra lunch. Have a conversation. Open a door. Carry groceries. Move that needle.
My exhaustion is feeling overwhelming right now. But I will put on a smile, and unless you truly know me, you won't see it. I'm good at putting on that mask. All of us are hiding our hurts, fears, challenges, disappointments, our battle scars.
Make a difference today, please...
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