Thursday, January 21, 2010

The next phase of the journey

What an incredible year 2009 was. I made a personal declaration at the beginning of last year that 2009 was going to be the greatest year ever. Only at the time, it was just a feeling that I had. I wouldn't even know where to begin in describing all of the amazing places my life went in 2009. Most recently, I finished grad school. I then spent 12 days in the Cayman Islands with 6 amazing women, flew home to Montana for Christmas, had an amazing weekend with some amazing people in Vegas, partied like a rockstar, saw Garth Brooks, and then headed back to Seattle to begin packing everything up to move to Spokane with Danielle so I can be close to family before I ship out for the Peace Corps at the end of 2010.
Upon my return to Seattle, I found out that the new mayor was doing a hefty amount of laying off, and all the contract positions were frozen. My contract was supposed to run through March, but will now end on January 27th. It wasn't a huge upset, as I was preparing to leave in March anyway. But I wasn't quite ready to leave Seattle and the many many people that I have gotten to know and love here. I have also expressed before that I want to actually be able to live in Seattle, as I have been going to school full-time since my arrival in 2005. I have done my fair share of exploring, partying, adventuring, urban hiking and 'running the rat race' (please don't think that I think positively of this concept)... but in the last few days, I have decided that I'm ok with leaving Seattle, and am really very excited to retreat to a slower pace of life for awhile. I think that I'll be back eventually, but maybe not... who knows after PC.
I've been going to school since I was 4. Literally. I honestly don't remember a time when I wasn't thinking about homework, and then eventually which college to choose, what books I needed to buy for the next quarter/semester, registration, FAFSA, and all the other things on the checklist of madness that comes with post-secondary education. Meanwhile, working full-time through all of it. In the last 4 years I've been in the hospital with exhaustion, dehydration, a civil war going on in and around my uterus, and a nice ovarian surgery to top it off. And of course everything that comes with day to day life. Please don't misconstrue any of this as a complaint. That isn't my style. It was worth every second, and I live in gratitude daily for the opportunities that God has given me. But it has taken awhile, and a lot of repetition by the people around me, to admit that I need and/or deserve a break for a bit.
Being this tired, combined with a lot of new-found spare time to think about things besides school, has left me increasingly frustrated with the state of the world as well. I have spent the last 6 years of my academic and professional career building my knowledge and awareness in order to be a productive, progressive, competent, articulate and positive representative and advocate of humanity and the potential that each of us holds in our soul. I sobbed for pure joy on election night, as did most of the world. And now more than ever, we can see how truly greedy and determined the opposition is.. and what a horrible impact such a small group of evil people can have on an incredibly large and positive light. On days like today when I am already irritable, the frustration can get quite overwhelming. I weigh a few of the options: 1) Hang our heads in defeat and relinquish the world to greed, selfishness, power and materialism; 2) Continue the battle through the red tape, bureaucracy and technicalities with our heads up to progress by mere inches in a whole lifetime; 3) Keep envisioning the kind of world that I want to see, the kind of world that we could live in, the kind of people that we could all be, and the kind of love that we as humans are capable of giving and receiving... and embody it completely. Forge on, doing my very best to 'be the change' and inspire as many other people as possible, and know in my heart that people are only going to change when they see the light themselves. As the idiocy and disgusting neanderthal behavior continues, I become very inclined to stick with 3, and pray that soon the generations before us that have corrupted and destroyed this place so intensely will retreat to one of their many homes, sit the fuck down, and let us fix it. What happened to the mother-effing Golden Rule, people? It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
People keep talking about 2012. The theories are endless, the opinions are varied, the scenes they paint are ones of asteroids, floods, disasters of biblical proportions. There was similar anticipation for y2k... which means what? Absolutely not a fucking thing. My opinion? It is a theory I read about years ago, and am still looking at... but seems to make some sense to me, as well as provide some hope. It is believed by some that in 2012, there will be a large shift in awareness. In my terms, the people that 'get it' are finally going to outnumber the people that don't. Which would imply that my hope from before would come true, and the peeps that fucked this place up are going to finally be overpowered in number by those of us who DON'T have our heads shoved up our asses hunting for oil/gold/cash/whatever other form of profit. If this happened, it would make sense that we would be able to progress much more quickly in a direction that is not towards the greed-driven black hole that has been slowly growing larger for a few decades now. Do I think that we're going to 'notice' some epic change on some certain day in 2012? Probably not. Of course it would be rad if everyone on earth got to simultaneously share in the experience of some amazingly intense aura/energy induced light show... then who wouldn't believe in God? :) But who knows? All I know is that right now, on this planet, some horrible horrible shameful shit is going on. People should NOT be without shelter. Children should NOT be hungry and in pain. Families should NOT be being destroyed by medical bills. Senior citizens should NOT be forced to work, unless they really want to. Straight people should NOT be dictating the love and commitment rules of gay people. Men should NOT be dictating women's reproductive choices and rights. And that is just in our country. I would hope that I don't have to go into the atrocities and indescribable situations that our brothers and sisters in other nations are facing today. Our problems and struggles in the states are meager in comparison.
So onward we go, fighting the good fight, maintaining hope that we will prevail and there will be no more suffering at the hands of greed and ignorance. Join if you will, and at least wish us luck if you don't. At least your children will thank us.

With endless gratitude,
Emily Jo

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