True Love is Inexhaustible, the more you give, the more you are given...

I went to Africa with my University as a part of an "immersion" to learn about sustainable and innovative solutions to poverty. We traveled to Uganda and Rwanda and saw beauty and horror going hand in hand. I came home with no explicit expectations but now that the inherent expectations I had for the people I love have not been met, I realize that I anticipate too much from people. You see, I saw tombs, graves, memorials, skeletons, slums, AIDs, poverty, hunger, sadness and yet was overpowered with a sense of hope and joy and came home expecting people to understand.

NOTE: This is another post found in my drafts - I continue to have high expectations and am not sure if they have been met by those around me. I have begun to be a bit of a cynic but at the same time I recognize if I could experience the hope I did where and when I did on my 2009 journey to Africa, then I know we here, with our marginal problems, can find true, endless, burdenfree joy.

Quarter Life Crisis?

I'm sitting at a desk in a room where I'm fairly certain no one knows what I am doing. I greet people with a smile as they come in and most of the time they greet me. I can feel the judgement they pass on me. I am an outsider to their world with really very little desire of fitting in. It seems they can sense it on me. I feel as though I am masquerading as something I am not. I am constantly yearning for something different, something more me, it's just that I don't know what that might be.

I am happiest when I am in school. I excel there. I'm a good learner. I'm a good presenter and I enjoy academics. Having no true desire to teach I am worried that the lifestyle I have lived to this point of "perpetual student" will have to come to an end. So I wake up each day and convince myself I am excited to go out and do what I do. I convince myself that despite the apprehension I feel I am doing something great. It is a constant debate in my head. One to which I cannot assign a winner or a loser. So it remains a circular discussion that I am hoping for an end to.

NOTE:I foudn this blog in my drafts and chose to publish it as is. Some things have changed - I LOVE TEACHING. I am working on a phd and love my students and my school. I excel at school still and think it may be one of the many avenues I use to make change. I have a new found resolve in what I do.

Just sitting here

It's funny to be just sitting here, no one around, TV on, computer, phone, ipad, thoroughly connected and yet engaged with nothing. Confronting my health, listening to my body, being in tune with myself. It's just a bit funny.

I sit here with chills running up and down my body. My good ear (see my blog Living With Herbert for details on why I have a good ear and a bad ear now) throbbing strangely, inciting the fear that what remains of my normalcy may disappear. So I sit here and think, what is normal. Who gets to decide? I certainly don't, at least not for myself any more.

Then I realize how perfectly fitting my blog name is for me now. I am perfectly imperfect. There is not a thing about me that is not tragically flawed, and that is me and I am okay with me. I'm just sitting here, surrounded by stuff, surrounded by things that cannot fill the void in my heart. A brain tumor. I have a brain tumor. WTF. How did this happen? None of the stuff makes it better. It makes life seem that much more urgent. I think of my friends - do they know I love them? Should I cut those I don't? Worse yet, do I cut out the friends who I loved fully and never returned my joy, my love, my friendship? Will he commit to me? Will I end up alone? Will I have the strength to walk tall and alone? Will I even ever need to have that strength? Will I stand alongside those people who share my beliefs and stand up to those who don't? Will I stop being such a door mat? I'm not a door mat. I'm just me. I'm okay with me.

It's weird, to let the clutter fade and just sit here, alone, with thoughts that arguable don't make any sense. I am regularly contradicting myself. I consistently, even here, in this place and moment of expression, shield my thoughts in anticipation of judgement or backlash. I'm the doormat on the inside of your door, the one you walk on so your feet don't get cold when you take your shoes off on the cold tile. I suppose that is better than a regular doormat. Who knows. What the hell am I even talking about????

Peace - Samira

Working on good

I don't often post to this blog anymore. It seems as life has transitioned for me, so had my need to write and in which venue I choose to do so is an indication of where I am, in my mind and in my heart.

Recently I have been stricken by some health issues and my tolerance for so many things have diminished. I am less patient, less forgiving but also so much more loyal, quick to smile, and ready to laugh, joke and love. I have been relying heavily on the people around me, often not even realizing that is what I am doing. I have found some semblance of normal in the face of transition but I know that my focus has diminished, my work suffered and my heart often hurts.

It is in these moments that I remember a lesson I learned from one of the most amazing women I have ever known, Kimra. She once asked me how I was doing and I said fine. She looked at me and asked again how I was doing. With tears in my eyes I uttered that I was fine. She told me it was okay to be honest. That is was okay to want to be fine or good but not be there yet. It was okay to be working on good. That's what I am now, I am working on good. I am not there all the time but I am so close on so many days. Often times I am GREAT and those days push me through the less favorable ones.

We live in a society where appearances mean so much. Who we are is so tied to who we portray ourselves as. Our persona is almost as important as the true honest personality inside. In this society it is often hard to remember that we are infallible. That we are always learning. That we are pushing through to new levels of growth, love, respect and accountability. We are walking along side one another on a path to understanding. So it is okay not to understand it all right away.

In past posts I have talked about love, life and death and I have talked about my work that focuses on change and progress for women around the world, but I never was okay with having a down day. I was always so intent on the optimistic point of view that I rarely recognized the healing process. Here and now, I recognize that the journey is beautiful even when it is hard. As Kimra always says, joy for the journey. As I continue on my journey I am working on good but in every day, every minute and every second I am finding more joy than any one journey should allow. This is how we work on good. This is how we make it to tomorrow, by loving what we have in front of us today.