the Bitch in the house

A change is brewing and I don’t think it’s a good one.  I’m sad too.  It’s not even about us, we’re all fine – cross our fingers, knock on wood, kiss the blarney, or whatever works to keep bad juju away.  Living in this particular locale has had it’s struggles.  And every time I think I’ve got a handle on something good, something I can care about here.  It all goes to shit.

And the truth is nothing so really terrible has happened.  Oh, some bad stuff has happened.  But nothing so awful as to break the bank, just yet.  The bad moon is just now rising.  And the trouble is, I’m the one who sees it.  Right now is that unsightly and uncomfortable phase where everyone still wants to live and breathe in the status quo – get along like they had been getting along.  Things were fine until they met me.

And that kinda discomfort is worse here in this town.  This place that is known for providing refuge to the lawless kind.  People who are successful here, do so at the cost of innocents – and honest folk.  If there is a whacked militiafreak, a downandout bamboozler, a junked out trustafarian; why they’ve set up house right here in this hot valley.  People don’t talk much about where they came from around this town – mostly they talk about what they are runnin’ to.  Usually those that grow old here are the ones who got stuck here.  No one stays because they love the heat.  No one enjoys the baking tarpit shoppingmall scenery.  People are here because they got stuck.  And worse, being high on that hitlist of real estate meltdowns has not made the folks who are stuck here any friendlier to live amongst.

Like the other folks that live here, I am stuck too.  What makes me different is the manner in which I have chosen to live.  I haven’t turned in my lifestyle for the reigning (and lacking) moralities.  I remain strong in myself, despite having taken some significant blows. And I never really understood how my personal strength could make me so dangerous to others.  Because over the years I have recognized that trouble follows me.  With a sarcastic laugh – it is hard not to see the trouble that follows in my wake!  But the truth is, the trouble that persists preceded me.  There was abuse and malcontent and neglect and addiction before I came on the scene.  But in playing in my sandbox, in my yard, one has to live in truth, one has to act with integrity, one has to grow and learn and strive for better each day.  Why?

Because I say so.

I say so because where I come from, not too far down the road from here, I was raised badly.  I was harmed and I was broken and I was dejected.  And when I left for good I was determined not to go back there or take my (then dreamed of) children to that awful place I grew up in.  I don’t want to be around people who would willingly accept any less in their lives.  And trouble blows up in my presence because my very essence, my will, and my power of being will not accept anything less than to change my world from what it was, to something better.

I can say I have a good life now.  I can feel powerful and beautiful love because I have remained steadfast in my goal of making myself and my children’s lives better.  And I don’t want for any of the children in my life to suffer; so I work hard, everyday, to confront malaise, neglect and hypocrisy around me.  I’m not perfect.  I don’t have all that I want in this world.  I am overwhelmed at times.  I am even wrongheaded, on occasion.  Yet everyday, I get up remembering where I came from and everyday I try to enact a positive response to that formative experience to make the living of today a better one.

Livingloving amongst folks who don’t want better is dangerous.  And I will admit, I’m scared.