How do you spell discombobulated?

Because that's how i'm feeling today. Not bad really. Just a little rushed and hurried and unorganized -- you know discombobulated....

The Wonderful World of Words

There is always a story. There is not one person alive on this earth that is not fascinating or at the very least interesting. Everyone has something hidden inside them that makes them and their story brilliant. Some people are very willing and open in sharing what they go through and how they get through things. Others are very closed and reclusive. But the thing about words is that words grant a release. Words are therapeutic, cathartic, healing.
My life is entrenched in words. I began talking at a very early age and pretty much haven't stopped since. Growing up, i always new that i would have an oratorical profession. Words bring things to life. In Africa, a child's' name is not spoken until it is spoken by his father. The words of the father seal the fate of the child's' identity. The words of one person to another can change the fate of a situation. I seek to see everything through the power of words. That old adage of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me" is so not true. Words can speak life. Words can speak death. Words can make a person who they are meant to be and who they were never meant to be.
Today, i am feeling the positive angle of words. Today i am encouraged by words. Every positive word that has been spoken to me runs through my mind today. Every scripture that has helped to move me along is scrolling through the screen in my head. Today i am feeling the blessing and the burden of being a positive person. Today, i am feeling the urge to hang on to the things that God has promised me. Not by any material accounts. But the growth, the maturity, the spiritual guidance, the mentor-ship, the encouragement of being a spiritual sister to anyone who needs it -- anyone who seeks it. It always strikes me amazing that i can talk a jumper off of a ledge, but sometimes can't seem to do the same for myself. I'm still not sure why, but i'm getting there. I pray that my words will continue to be positive. I pray that the things in my head will continue to stay on the good side.
10For, "Whoever would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from deceitful speech. 11He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it. 12For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." 1 Peter 3:10-12

Mi Familia

I am 31 years old. On both sides of my family i am the oldest girl. On one side, i am the oldest grandchild. This comes with great fun and responsibility. My family is HUGE. My Mom has 12 brothers and sisters. Between them all, i have about 45 or so first cousins. My dad has 5 brothers and sisters. Between them, i have about 30 or so first cousins. With big families comes enough drama to sustain a week day soap opera for years......truly. Steeped with murder, adultery and extortion this is the kind of stuff that Danielle Steele dreams about.
One sibling is always mad at another sibling for something ranging from serious to trivial. Both families have a black sheep or two, but certainly at least one. Both families have mother issues and anger issues and father issues. It's amazing that any of them have sense enough to survive.
One side has college grads. The other side has high school grads and many, many out of wedlock children. Ironically enough though, both sides have very good relationships with the people in the communities in which they live. Not much bad blood for anyone, and most of the children stay out of trouble.
Our holidays were always eventful. Ranging from fights that must be broken up to laughing so hard your belly literally aches.
What it all boils down to though, is that my family is pretty awesome. I can think of way more good times than bad times, though being the grandchild, there is probably still more that i am completely unaware of. But we love each other. Even in the times when the siblings hate each other and won't talk for months, i know that if they were staring into a casket, they would feel badly and miss their brother or sister. How do i know this? They bother to express their feelings one to another. I read somewhere that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. I tend to agree with that. If you hate someone, you're still wasting an emotion on them. But if you don't care, truly do not care whether they exist or not, well that's a different kind of feeling.
My family is not yet indifferent about anyone. My father's anger with his mother says that he still cares. My mothers disdain of my father means that she still has a connection with him. I'm hoping the indifference never comes. That we will always love or hate one another.
After all. In all of its psychosis, they are still my family.

Red and Yellow, Black and White...

At the risk of too much disclosure, there is a story that must be told. I work at a private, majority white university in the south. Most private schools are pretty high on the socio-economic ladder. I happen to be at a school where the students who are, know it, and don't mind in their own little way letting their counterparts know it. Twenty year olds drive $50,000 vehicles and have no job.
I recently received a phone call about a student who found out in a rather uncomfortable way that her roommate did not want to live with her anymore. My student is black and from the state, the roommate is white and not from the south. My student wanted to know why. What happened and why didn't she say anything before now? The resident assistant let the student know that it was because of "cultural differences and family differences" that she didn't want to live with her anymore.
Even as i write this, i have to take deep breaths and slow my heart to a reasonable rate. I am the only black in my office. I am one of two blacks on my floor and three in the whole building of about 100+ people. If that gives you any ideas as to the demographics of the school, let me make it a little more plain. There are 14 black faculty members out of a little over 800 on campus. Getting the picture?
My coworkers (a few of them) want to say that "cultural differences" do not mean that this girl did not want to live with a black person, but that they were just different. Well, then, why wouldn't she just say that instead of using the word culture? She said what she meant and she meant what she said.
I'm sick and tired of people thinking that just because we aren't hanging from trees and having to use separate bathrooms that everything is ok. They think that we are always playing the "race card" and make everything out to be more than it is. This could not be more blatant to a person of color.....Could it?
Today we are faced with quiet bigotry. It is so much harder to fight than out right bigotry. I know that when Dr. King made his famous speech, he wanted what we have but not what comes with it.
Everything is so overt now and can be easily explained away by someone who is not of color. My skin color means that i will have to fight this fight for the rest of my life, no matter who ends up in the white house.

It's hard to write when you're sad

I am probably the most impatient person on the face of the earth. I can handle here and now situations like traffic, two year olds, the elderly. It's the stuff that i have to wait years to realize that are the hardest to accept.
I want a functional degree now. I don't want to have to wait two years to do it or more. I want a job that i am perpetually happy with now. I don't want to have to wait the weeks or months that it takes to find anther one. I want to be happy forever right now. I don't want to have to wait for all of these things to come to fruition in order for me to be happy.
So in my impatience, i become more unhappy. And it is really, really hard for me to wait for the next best thing. Very hard to know that in order to get the job that i need to have and want to have, i'll have to go back to school. There is no way around it, if there were, i guarantee i would have found it by now as school is my least favorite thing to do in the whole wide world.
At the moment, i have a few, quite a few feelers out for changes of direction in my life. Most of them are things that will take weeks if not months to see results from. The waiting is agonizing, and being able to make more money and do better things hinges on waiting.
So the bottom line of all of this is that when i find myself in these holding patterns, i get extremely depressed. Unbelievably sad. It's times like that when i'm glad i have a dog that must be walked because otherwise somedays i may not leave my house. It's that bad.
I hold onto my faith and the fact that "All things work together for the good of them that love the Lord." Because it's true.
My life is constantly in transition, hence the name Turning Points, but i've learned that adaptability is a strength. It's something that i hold onto and that gets me through these waiting periods however long they may be.
I keep reminding myself that something better is around the corner. And most of all that i am not alone in all of this. My friends are great, but usually, honestly, not very much help. I hang my heart on the fact, the absolute fact that God loves me more than anything, absolutely anything in this world. And because of that, my life is worth something.

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

The Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain,
And the Itsy Bitsy Spider went up the spout again.

Don't you find yourself still singing those words? But that's not my point. My point is, this is one tenacious spider. You don't think about it at all in preschool and not much as an adult, but look.
That spider had more get-up-and-go than most grown ups i know these days. Lets break it down.
Here he is trying to get higher to be in a better place. Or what we hope is a better place or else why would he be so adamant about being there? But we don't know what's awaiting this poor little spider once he ascends to the top. Our nature, unless you're a real pessimist, is that good things are waiting for him. That in someway, he will be a better spider because he reaches the top. And then, the unthinkable happens; the rain starts and the spider just can't hold on any longer. Try as he might, he is washed all the way down to the bottom again. I wonder all the time how far up that spider was. Could he see the top? Was he just starting? Was he halfway? (And now that you mention it, why does the spider have to be a "he"?) Anyway, all of the rain stops and the sun emerges from the clouds. We've all seen it -- a day or two of just nasty mother nature mayhem ensues and we are left with a sky so clear and a sun so bright that for just a little while you're actually thankful for the rain. In this case, the water spout was no longer slippery and spider was able to try his trek again.
Stay with me here, i promise i have a point.
So this spider decides "what the hell. I'll give it another try". Do the visual math here. Spout vs. spider looks pretty daunting to me, yet he continues to make the effort.
I suppose i've been thinking on this lately because it seems like every financial hindrance that can come my way, has come my way. I get a quarter of the way up the stupid spout and the rain comes. I start over. I get half way up the spout and more rain comes. I start over.....and on and on and on.
I'm not even sure how tall the spout is because i have yet to be able to get far enough to see an end in sight. I keep thinking "keep trying. There will be an end soon. Just keep trying."
I am a tenacious person by nature. I mean, i have "fight or flight" just like anyone else and sometimes my flight kicks in before my fight, but i will keep going.
I just have to know what happens at the end. I know that my view will be different. I know that i will find a faster way to climb next time. I know that i will be happy with myself and proud of myself for finishing. I know that it will not always rain, and if it rains more than not, it may not necessarily be a bad thing.
Of course getting to the top makes you more visible to predators.......hhhmmm. I guess i'll have a long time to think about that in my climb up.

It's gettin' hot in here!

Well, well, well. The presidential race has decided to heat up considerably over the weekend. What did this weekends' debate do for me? It sort of made me wonder if i want to vote for either Barak or Hilary to tell you the truth. I am leaning very, very heavily toward Barak. I just don't trust the Clintons. I heard a few not so good "urban legends" about their time in Arkansas. My real concern (though it would not keep me from voting for him in the end) is that if Barak wins, that the "good ole boys" would do an excellent job of making him look stupid, foolish, incompetent and ignorant at every step of the job. I think they would want to convince this country and the world that the U.S. should never allow another black person in the office of president ever again.
Politics has never been something that i liked to delve into. It is very interesting to me, but very uncompromising at the same time. If you're Republican, you have to be pro-life or the party thinks you're crazy. If you're democrat, you have to be pro-choice or the party thinks you're crazy. These are just a few of the examples where politics makes you choose a side. I have chosen to go green http://www.epa.gov/earthday/. Apparently, that makes me a tree hugging environmentalist (D). I believe that rapists should serve life without parole terms(R). While i don't believe i could go through with an abortion(R), i don't believe i have the right to tell someone else not to(D). Furthermore, i don't believe that old white men should be the ones deciding such things for women(D). I believe we should leave "under God" in the pledge(R), but i don't believe in being forced to say the pledge of allegiance(D) (i've been boycotting the pledge and the national anthem since the 7th grade), and don't even get me started on the 4th of July.....
Anyway, off topic.
After having lived through a few Presidents, I find it funny....; the stuff they're arguing about won't matter a hill of beans for whomever gets into office. I want to know the issues. Frankly, I don't care that Hilary served on the Wal-Mart board. I don't care that Barak represented a slum lord. Where do these things fall now? How do they feel about the fact that teenage pregnancy was up last year for the first time in a decade? How do they feel about the fact that most of generation X will never see their social security? How can they assure that we won't be attacked again? Can they do anything about how one-sided t.v. has become? Everything pure has been deemed of the "christian right". Now we can see Holly Hunters butt on t.v. but can't mention Christ or God without it being in a curse context.
Yes, things are heating up. It will be an interesting 6 months.