Endure.

There has, as always been a lot happening lately.

I know that this constant upheaval is what defines a full life, but I keep hoping, in vain I might add, that there's going to be down time. To be honest, I'm sure I do have down time, but it's so precious and short lived that it gets forgotten between the big earthquakes that abut them.

In the last two months I've gone to my cousin's wedding in Monterrey, my friend Milla's graduation in Santa Cruz two weeks later, and then on 4th of July weekend I got the scared text from Mack, my foster mom's granddaughter, that she was having emergency surgery that Friday night. The outlook was bleak, because of medical conditions she has, so I decided to drive up Saturday morning and be there for whatever happened. Luckily, it was me sitting in a hospital room next to the woman I love with the ferocity of a child for four days, being a go-fer and making her take her medicine and watching the hole on her leg slowly close.

It took 20 hours to drive home. I stopped to see Jim in Merced on the way, to hold his hand and eat a meal and sleep, like the wanderer I felt like. He is my new beau, and I'm thinking he'll be my last one. Most adults don't date someone unless they feel like the other person is worthwhile and permanent though, but things happen, so I'm invested but not fully. It's so soon after Steve...after giving my heart so fully and, well, it wasn't crushed or crumpled...it was dismissed. When I look honestly at myself, being dismissed is probably the treatment that enrages and confuses me the most, pulling on scenarios from childhood and the resounding gong that you.don't.matter.enough.

Oh, that word. Enough. To be considered satisfactory or worthwhile is why we do everything. Get educated. Get pretty. Get witty. Get creative. Sure, rare people only need their inner voice to consider them "enough", which I am lucky that I can consider myself among them most of the time, but since a relationship is between TWO people, it's key that the other person agrees.

I remember listening to this song on a drive down from San Francisco while Steve and I were dating or ending...the two seem intertwined for most of our relationship. I was crying, and started replaying it, and was screaming the words as bitterly and sincerely as I was able.



And then here's Jim, all of the things described in this song. Who adores me for all the right reasons. Who doesn't dismiss me. Who cares so much that he drove 5 hours just to be with me when I was sick, when Steve couldn't drive 20 minutes. I am a priority with Jim, a concept I never knew was so important to me until the failure of my last relationship due mainly to it. So I am hopeful and hesitant. Jim is one of the rare men who loves to be committed and recently got out of a very long relationship, so it's important that we go slow, because I don't want to feel like the emotional rebound, the rubber band effect, a dis-genuine devotion.

My wages just got garnished at work. I'll be filing paperwork on Tuesday at the court when I'm there for Jury Duty, so hopefully I can get some relief. Working 50-60 hours a week for $6 an hour is one of the most devastating things that could happen right now...the timing is almost cosmic.

If I felt there was a design to the random chaotics spiraling around my life, I'd say that it's because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. God wouldn't put me through it if it didn't know I could survive. All of this emotional pain and anguish is just weakness leaving the body.

They all sound so empty though.

One word is screaming loud and clear. It's what my grandmother did, my foster mother, all the people who dealt with loss greater than mine and were more graceful than I.

Endure.