I've been OUTED...by myself!

SPOILER ALERT: ROOKIE ERROR AHEAD

My advice for the "secret bloggers"out there...

Sign out of your "secret" account before you post to your public account. I am an utter ding bat! Just one little comment. Jut one. And it's over. Like that.

Seriously?
A slip THAT big?
AND it happened on the very day that my co-blogger decided to turn on the "moderate comments". Not ONLY that! Oh no. It was just after I published my very first "secret"post. So I leave my comment, and since it didn't just appear (poof), I didn't happen to recognize I was signed in under my new identity.

Perfect.

So we're moderating comments now. Harmless right? HA!

I've been had! I'm a rider.
My secrets out. Does everything happen for a reason? Is it Karma? Was it just one of those things? What is it?

After taking stock of my need to please and serious inability to tune out my audience in the real world, I've decided to take my lumps. I am continuing on with blind ignorance (kind of) to the fact that my private words are exposed to those I know (friends, family). That said, I'm staying the course. This is important to me and I want to finish it.

Inner dialog:

{{{Does that sound strong? Courageous even? I wonder if they'll see right through it? "Important" my ass! Sure, when I'm the ranter! NOT ME!}}}

What am I asking myself now?

I wonder about the nature of accidents. I struggle with going back & forth between believing in fate (and signs and everything that comes with it) and giving into the old adage:

Shit Happens.

With no fault to anyone, we have natural disasters, we lose jobs, people die. I don't believe success is measured by how seemingly easy or without trial your life is, just as I do not I believe God has a hand in everything we do. We have free will. All of us. Following that logic, God couldn't possibly know everything that will ever happen. I believe God is here and with us always. But as a support. A sounding board. The barometer. The guide.

Always?

It's scary to me to even right that word with a question mark. The truth is, I DO believe, but I don't always FEEL it. Does that make sense? Sometimes I really feel like a big fat failure in this messed up world...with no one to count on, no relief, no manual. I just want to know that it all works out...and I can't. I love information. I revel in the details. Do you see my conundrum. I want to know the unknowable. And I wonder why I feel unsatisfied?

That's a bit simplistic, I know, but we'll visit that another day.

Both sides have value- right? But, in my experience, subscribing to either one is a slippery slope. I'm the type of person who seeks out order and looks for patterns in everything. I want ot make sense of things. I like answers. I also happen to ask a shit ton of questions. Yeah. I said shit ton. I'm from a hick town, originally, and some of my inner hickness comes out now & then. I'm bringing shit ton back. Try it. It's way liberating, & trust me, you'll get some serious laughs. At least a reaction any way : )

So, back to the free will vs. shit happens debate. I'm kind of a tandem believer, and currently, it's working better than the alternative. I'm the first to scoff at these modern folks with all their take a little from here, a little over there & lets dream up a religion (philosophy, etc.) that works out best for me. I don't lump myself in with that lot, but I do see the inclination. But you must also know that I am open. I am open to new ways of looking at the world...myself included. New ways of learning and thinking. I push myself whenever possible to try on different ways of being to see what I can see.

I believe we are here as many (not 1) to build community. It is in the essence of building community that we are forced to look at ourselves. All of it. We are confronted face to face with our flaws,our humility, our limitations, our gifts, our strengths, our egos. We need each other in order to be the best version of ourselves and to continually do that inner work that keeps us humble, fresh, and always learning. I see God in my life. I see glimpses, in the moments that are timeless, of what god wants for us. I also see how the suffering, longing, and poverty are completely unrelated to the will of god. There's this deep inequality on so many sick levels in this world, and no one did anything special to deserve that place. Just because you pray diligently & go to church regularly, that's not the reason you have a huge house & kick ass trust fund to boot. Ya dig?

This is my dime store guide to the cosmos, I know. But this is how it works for me- and I struggle. Struggle with feeling isolated, feeling alone, and just left...left by all my elders.

I'm an amateur. Just a girl really.
In the words of Juno, "I am ill equipped."

I have this creeping feeling that I am doing it all wrong. Nothing is really going to work out the way I want it to. I'm scared to death that I will spend the rest of my life waiting for the day when...and all the while trying so hard to be grateful for what I do have. I often say to myself, "How do you want to remember this moment?", and sometimes it helps me to rise above.

I'm gonna say it.

Do you ever feel like you've been dealt a bad hand?

There. I said it. God, it looks so pathetic in print.
Here's my unrealistic fear, yet, I feel like it's actually real...some of the time. The people in my life that have gargantuan sums of money seem to have the air about them that it all happened as a result of their positive thinking and openness to it. OK. I'm trying to wrap my head around that one. I even practice it. But what then do you do if it doesn't happen? If in fact you work your ass off for very little money and don't have the financial mobility to change your circumstances in a big way? Does that mean if I only willed it stronger, tried harder...I'd be in your shoes now?

Hell NO!

Inner voice:

{{{God I hope not? Is it me? Am I closed off? NO!! Well, am I? NO!! Could it really be me?}}}

I feel compelled to soften my earlier remark. I am pretty lucky to have the things in my life that matter. The things that you cannot buy or create by having all the things around you that look the way they should that make up the recipe for a perfect life. But a little farm- a house even for my kids to grow up in, sure would be sweet : )

I hope to have a little piece of land to call my own one day. A garden, a hobby farm in the country, and a place for the kids to play. Will I get there? And who can tell me where I am now? Trick question? Yeah yeah. I guess I'll have to get to work on that one. Seriously, where are all the mentors with the sage ass advice?