As for me, my world was completely different. I walked with a four toed cane unaware I had broken my hip some years before. I was about to move everything into a storage unit and myself intoan office to write and sleep in my car. I had already spent three years in a life threatening situation with an unhealed angry, violent alcoholic I was too poor to move away from. I’d slept in a pool house for a summer using an umbrella to go to the bathroom in the shower house when it rained. Life seem d very desperate.
My faith remained strong. I had wonderful client families I served. Good friends encouraged me. I did meaningful volunteer work. I believed against all practicality that my present was not my future.
Today is very different. The country is a mess. Hate and division abound. Rich and poor grow apart in an ever widening gap with no middle ground. Me? I’m in a cozy, light filled apartment. I have all my things around me. The laptop I once thought I couldn’t live without sits by the piano and my desktop remains silent mostly while I live on my phone.
This morning I had oatmeal I ate on the Big White Couch with Too Many Pillows.
And I have an ‘old lady table’ , as I used to call it before I realized ‘old’ is a relative term.
And I have the luxury of a footstool,courtesy of my BuyNothing club, and can casually journal about hitting the ‘fresh start’ button in my life.
With a rudimentary understanding of uploading and selecting and adding, and the ability to have somehow, with my daughter’s help six months ago, get into and create a blogpost in what was once the space to transfer twelve years worth of columns.
Soon I will be switching blog hosts and creating a new one called “Old Enough to Know Better”, but I’m ready to start blogging again, so I will tack on these last few before moving into the new.
What is significant to know is that I have survived being hated. This is an era of acknowledging hate crimes by white people and I have survived some of the finest efforts.
It’s also important to know I am a woman of faith. The intersection of being hated and having faith means the view from my phone has been mitigated into exhaling that hate rather than internalizing it. Why was I hated? I told some truths some people didn’t want to hear or have known because they were making money off of certain situations.
What made the difference for me along the way? Kind, ordinary people. Those are the people who change the world. Are you a kind, ordinary person? You’re changing the world right where you are. You’re doing the small things that make a huge difference.
It’s time for me to get on with my day. I have a couple of books to write and some music to make. The sun is out and the noises of the neighborhood declare that it’s ‘make it so’ o’clock.
In front of you, from your own heart ♥️- you are making a difference.
Love,
Deborah
