There is No Team of 1

I know alone. The irony is how rarely anyone gives me space or peace. I have spent my life searching for where I belong, for my team, for a village, and I have come up empty handed with a more than full plate. Authenticity isn’t appreciated, valued, or respected and I fear it’s dying altogether. That makes freaks like me even more of an anomaly than I originally thought. Where does one reach who doesn’t fit in the puzzle? My edges are too crooked and lopsided and will likely frustrate the puzzler and will get tossed out with the other refuse. Garbage. Replaceable. Insignificant. Yep. Yep. And yep.

Fighting for justice and equality in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic good o’boys world is exhausting and disheartening. Why bother? Yet apathy is more disgusting and exhausting than anything. If you are an articulate, outspoken, emotional woman then you’re a bitch. If you are nice, and meek, and inauthentic you get by. But for what cost? Soullessness? I’m not down for that.

I’m an exhausted woman, but I’m whole. I’m an intact being that didn’t sellout, and thus far, I haven’t given up either. I’m solitary but I, at least, belong to me. Fake laughs, fake smiles, fake behavior, fake praise, unfollowing a FB friend but acting like they matter in your world….all bullshit. I’m not a BS kind of woman. To me, respect is telling you the truth when you ask for it. If you don’t ask, oh well.

I’m hitting a discouraging place and my work as a mother with so many, several of which needs will never end, is pressing. It may be too much. At that point I may have outstayed my welcome, but I take pride in the trying….

I have tried….hard…..to be a good woman, a good mother, a good friend, a good lover, a good advocate, a good helper, a good artist. Likely, no one will remember. That is a fact I have to settle with. I am all that I am and nothing more. I tried, with all I have, every day, to make a positive impact. I have tried to leave feelings here….emotions. I am the embodiment of an expression of feeling. Some may not care one bit but I’d like to believe that my little slice of impact may leave a mark that counteracts some of the evils I have witnessed. As Shawshank would say….I HOPE. Even when I don’t want to, my soul still hopes, even when I wish it would sink and drown, even when I want to slice out its light, even when it’s dark and the bitter winds are attacking with a viciousness that most only fear, it urges its way up to encompass the entirety of my soul, and so, I stand. I hold babies…..not just mine, but others that need me. I stand solidly and unwaveringly. It’s not a team. I’m alone, but I’d rather be alone than a mindless sheep.