A new world, can I change with it?

It is Tuesday, a week later. This morning I woke up late, its like 80+ degrees already, and I am trying not to be crabby. Trying not to fall into drama. 
I am thinking about all the things that have happened in the last week, and how my mind continues to process and reprocess things without conclusion.
I wrote the bottom part of this (in pinkish) last Friday. Over the weekend I donated money, went to a protest, hung out with friends and supported folks who I know are on the front lines. I also checked in with family and supported their needs.  By the end of the weekend, I felt more myself. More confident. More of a voice. More sure of who I am... and yet, it doesn't seem to last. 
Maybe because it is all just ego. 
I am full of blame, guilt, confusion, shame, loneliness.

When I first got back from Central America I was hanging out with a friend who I hadn't seen in years. I needed to vent, to decompress. She listened to me and was supportive, and then on the way home she tried to touch me in ways I didn't feel comfortable with. I stopped talking to her. I didn't say anything. Years later we had lunch together, and I still didn't bring it up. I didn't want to hurt her by telling her she hurt me. 

This morning I am thinking of the parallels between her actions and my own in various situations. It is hard not to blame/defend myself. I want to know if I fucked up, and I want forgiveness. I want to know why the other person did the things they did, and I want to forgive them. There doesn't seem to be an easy line. 

I think on a societal level, we have the same issue. We can't talk about change because we can't acknowledge the hurt. It is too painful to recognize that we have hurt each other, that we are capable of that. I think this is part of how trauma becomes so prevalent. We never heal, even when we desperately want to.

In my work, I often have to give people the benefit of the doubt. Have to assume positive intent. Its exhausting, but it is the only way to heal and work through. Shame and blame rarely lead to change, and yet, we need to acknowledge what is happening. What happens when we are angry/hurt when we acknowledge? We often spread our hurt. We make the other defensive, tell them to back off rather than join us. This cycle isn't healing.

I try to bring this awareness to my relationships, it is difficult to balance. I often end up supporting others, while they cannot or choose not to support me. I end up resentful sometimes. I end up blaming others for "taking advantage of me," when it is just as much my responsibility to ask them for what I need, to hold them accountable for the little boundary violations, etc. 


Unreality
Lately I have been aware that I lose myself easily, in part because I am not grounded in anything. My foundations are not settled. I started a job and then was sent home. Quarantine has separated me from my friends and family. I don't attend church anymore. I read and write. Watch youtube. My sense of reality has been grounded in other folks, who are equally as unsettled.  My routine is set, but it is not life giving, merely sustaining in a sad way. Hard to know what's what, everything is just thoughts in the breeze, sometimes they linger, sometimes they fly away.

I have found myself most settled when I go for walks, or read a book.
I could so easily see myself slipping away right now if I didn't have a job. 
The justice stuff right now, is also a weird unreality. For many people it is impacting their foundations (stores, homes, neighborhoods, family, body), but for me I am on the periphery enough that it is like watching a really unnerving tv show/movie. I hear the sirens and the helicopters, but I don't feel the impact except in my mirror neurons. My empathy, which I choose to extend but can pull back if need be, like shutting my eyes at the scary scene.

This is not mindful non-attachment, this is hanging by a string, this is being forced into the present and fearfully acknowledging a loss of control over the future. Hard to hold anyone accountable to anything, hard not to have all the underlying things pop up over and over and over and over and over and over. 




This was written last friday.

On Monday night a man was murdered by the police in Minneapolis. His name was George Floyd, and he will be remembered.

This week I've gotten to go through plenty of emotional reactions.

Protests, vigils, marches, and community organizing are all taking place and it is inspirational.

I have felt like I can't do enough, don't know what I "should" do, that I am part of the problem.

There are helicopters flying over my apartment.z

I have felt proud of the people I work with, proud of my friends, former students and of the community in which I have gotten to live.

My little brother is about 2 miles away, cars are on fire, and the national guard has been called in.

I have felt so isolated. So lonely. So unsure of who I am and what I am about, struggling to reconcile the idea of who I have been, with what I have become.

Stores I've shopped at in every neighborhood I have lived in during my adult life in MN have been burned to the ground or looted.

I have felt afraid. I have felt hopeful. I have felt grief. I have cried in my car, my home, and in public.

People are gathering supplies all over the cities and distributing them to those affected. Water, food and medical supplies are being given to protesters without question.

At night I can't sleep, I watch live stream videos of riots. And then jump at sounds during the day.

Im losing perspective, gaining it, losing it again.

I feel like this is deserved, and my response is meaningless, trivial, and anything I could do would be ineffective.

I see people making change. I am not going to be part of it. Or maybe I am?

I don't know.

This is all soooo weird.