The Courage to Be ImPerfect: Blessed is the flame

I haven’t blogged in a long time but frankly I haven’t really had much to blog about. I mean my last year of graduate school was pretty much a blur of boxed wine, long talks, new folks and working every day to make it through to graduation. This that and the other thing and now I’m here in Seattle. A friend gave me an amazing opportunity and I couldn’t pass up the chance to start a new life. That is exactly what has happened. In the short time that I’ve been here I have started to change. I am learning to trust. The main thing I need to trust is that what I believe matters. I know what I need, want, deserve and I’m ready to expect that from the people in my life. I feel like there was a flame in me that I had let die. I smothered it to protect myself. It has been lit and I’m going to work every day to make sure it never goes out again.Keeping it lit means opening myself up to trust, believing in what I deserve and reconnecting with my body.

Lighting my flame led me to a new job which I will begin in December. I am going to put my degree to work and be a case manager at an agency downtown. It’s more social work than is my "wheelhouse" but I know I’m going to learn a ton. Lighting my flame lead me to find a new place to live which was sorrowful but necessary and no not because I was sad to leave that fucking huskerwiener (please tell me about the drug induced doggie key party where a husky and wiener dog created that little allergen producing, shit machine with a whine that sounded like something climbing out of a well in a horror movie.)

Lighting my flame gave me the courage to reach out to everyone I knew and post an ad on Craigslist to see if anyone would let me live with them for free. I had a few offers for short tern space from friends and acquaintances but go figure there was a family that saw my add on CL and called me up. Now I live with them as their housekeeper in exchange for room and board. It’s a pretty sweet room actually and the food is delicious.

Love the chalkboard walls

I was nervous at first because the mom described the family as conservative Christians and I am a liberal socialist queermo who loves to drink and say fuck like it is an integral part of every sentence. It turns out we get along just fine I wouldn’t say we are going to be besties but it’s good. Mom is a stay at home mom and Dad is a police officer. They have 6 children (5 months, 3, 4, 6, 8, 14) and an exchange student from China. That is a phenomenal amount of laundry, dishes and general cleaning. On Tuesday nights I watch “our” 6 children plus about 10- 15 more depending on how many show while the adults are upstairs having bible study. Thankfully I was a camp counselor and have an endless knowledge of games and tasks to keep them busy.

Today I used my day to clean and organize the laundry room which is where I spend the majority of my life so it only makes sense that it isn’t full of cobwebs, mouse poop and clutter. CLUTTER!!!! My space can be chock full o’ tchotchkes the more the better gnomes, Pez dispensers, rocks from important places love it all..but I fecking hate clutter. So I cleaned…. This may sound like hell for the average person but it is something that I love. Take a bunch of crap and make it useful again amazing. Who says anxiety isn’t can’t be useful? I had 10 solid hours organization therapy and I am tired enough to hopefully sleep through the night, I need a back rub and am very pleased with myself.