Give it up

Everyone is grabbing at something.

Generosity, a/k/a the easiest way to feel screwed.

In business there are a lot of pressures.

Maybe you know that because you, too, own one, or maybe you don’t care because you work for one and they are bozos and hearing the “pain” is the biggest eye roll ever  - well, I hear that.

I really liked working at jobs - not that ‘they’ were not too bozos (like I likely am) but because they, by owning a business, took on the burden of bozoness. That is, standing before the public, however small or large that gathering might be, and doing their best to say and showcase the right thing  - while also  making a bomb ass fool of themselves. 

So I am that person, begging for cash, smiling like I am not, saying and sharing and praying to God I am being helpful in any small way at all AND failing and trying again AND likely being annoying and irritating as much as I assist. That kind of just IS what it is like on this side of things. One played by me here - and so it certainly has me cringing and also saying, ‘So what?’ It is a thing. I am a face which serves to represent a service, and have a pretty tough skin on the sharple that can come from doing so. The rejection. The being ignored. The being teased. The attention from the ‘bots’. And sometimes, touching people. Getting clients. And so on and so forth. 

Now that we are naked. You know where this might be leading - where I do the thing that is, I gotta say if I might, kinda meta as I present it - of doing just the thing I mentioned right here as well … which is … put my big fat face before you and yes, ask a thing.

Oh, and how well timed is this?! Is it not the very time of year when persons are out there and extremely LOUDLY getting on their knees and floating their promo to grab up the funds that remain in your coffers in our inflation-fueled era? Oh it sure is! BUT - more interesting because in this instance, it is not for me. No, influenced by me BUT not for me at all, well at least not directly, that I seek yourdollars. 

Nope. It is this.

RAINN; The Rape Assualt Inscest National Network. This organization is great - that is sorta an empirical fact. BUT for this year, they and their network of volunteers were particularly integral to my life in a way that came from ugliness but resulted in a sustainable after-the-fact and necessary bridge to getting care.

This Summer, I experienced a sexual violation that was one of those kinds of perversions that was both subtle and insidious in a sense, most particularly because of the situation in which it went down, that left me confronted and wondering (you guessed it) “Is it just me?”

No, I did not call my therapist. Funny, it did not occur to me. Or, more accurately, the shame was so thick I did not even want to speak of it to a person, any person, with whom I had any relationship at all. There was the deep desire to unpack and speak of it, but the ‘how’ felt too intimate in my current support network. 

That may not make sense. I get it. Like why would a woman who feels so good and close to her peeps not feel down with talking to them over a confronting and hurtful event? Well, good luck to you NEVER being in the space of being in a place that makes you feel jacked and illogical in an icky way. It can’t be argued or “gotten”, the behavior that follows such instances. It is just an is.

OK, so I did not talk to my knowns - BUT what I did was click on over to the resource I so often recommend - the RAINN free anonymous phone line and chat room. My choice was the chat. And after entering a room deftly facilitated by a therapeutic moderator who lead a consent-based conversation with three others. These groups are always kept small, and though there is a delay time in seeing your message live, it is because the moderator vets the messages per community guidelines of inclusivity, safety, listening, and support. From there, after sharing my story, hearing those of some others, and being validated and encouraged towards my own truth, I joined (upon my request) a one-on-one room with a RAINN-trained counselor that was there to speak with me, for what could have been a max of 45 minutes before I would then be moved to a call to speak directly with a clinician or matched with localized care. 

I have wept a lot in my life - who hasn’t?!  But this time, the tears hit my keyboard and the resolve of my reality being just that - reality. So yeah, it helped. And the day continued and though the wound was still a wound, I was able to enter back into my known resources - my fantastic therapist and personal persons who love and are there to do what loving persons do: love. 

There is no ‘cure’ but there are tools and things of value, so yeah: RAINN did very well by me and maybe too be of use to others, yourself, those in your life, strangers - everyone.

So we return to the start  of the writing where I am the body with the face and the ask and the hand out to say:

This harvest and Holiday time and turning of the year, I will surely be asking for your dollars - never fear. But too, if you are looking not for a service but for support and to be supportive in a charitable way and wondering about to whom and/or where  and give a shit about recommendations - there is mine. 

I knew it was a good thing and for me, and like many others, know it deeper and harder and faster that it is also a very necessary one.

Happy Thanksgiving - for whatever we might make of it.

Xo,

Tracy