A Million Mothers.org

All the way to the internet cafe, I was writing in my head.  I sometimes wish my head was a keyboard.

Today was up and down.  It’s just never any one place long enough to feel any one way. Truly.

And that makes this work exhausting if the chips land a certain way at the end of the day.

Everything is so compressed here.  2 births this morning by 7 a.m. followed by an essential document that had to be sent by 1:00.

This will be a bit self-indulgent, and I apologize for it in advance.

Writing is the only way to relate on my own terms when I work “out” like this.  To come here or any of the places I do require that I voluntarily give up every bit of my personal life, personal preferences, personal needs (outside of basic ones, of course) in order to do the job I consider to be true service.

What that looks like, and what I’m really good at, is being able to drop and run, change gears, do things I hate to do with NO indication that I hate doing them, letting go of virtually anything that I could possibly take personally, even though it may hurt like holy hell.  And be willing to do my work as well as I know how, without complaining a bit.

Because to be “personal” in that way is a luxury.  I come to do service…not to need relationship, although my relationships here are dear.

But they aren’t mine.

I get some of my most personal and beautiful work done inside myself in these circumstances.  But it always takes a toll.

Tonight I’m deeply lonely to talk, and writing is the best company.

Context:

I’ve been here a week. As should probably be expected (except by me, of course…naive as I am), the mediation of the difficult situation in a very fair and balanced way resulted in my being an easy target for each side to take aim and fire because I refused to “take” sides.  Or divulge confidentiality.

No good deed goes unpunished.  I remain neutral, able to see all sides, in the strengths and weaknesses, holding to compassion for human frailty. On every side.

And refuse to back my own integrity down and “get into” the exact conflict that sought my help.

And because the “sides” have folks to confide in, I’m feeling full of arrows AND lonely.  Sympathy-seeking is not the most attractive of features.

This work has such an essential nature.  I could say it a million times.