Grrr....thoughts!

I have a barrage of stuff in my mind. As usual, I need to spill them before they explode in my brain.

1) Joy and comfort from hearing my parents' voice, even from afar.
The knowledge that this may not last forever.

2) Anger, deep anger and resentment of the nursing program.
Specifically, anger about the racism and classism within the program, including the obvious withholding of knowledge from CNAs in nursing homes. 1 quarter of being a nursing student, I feel I have more knowledge of my patients than 2 years of being a CNA. I am resentful. Also pissed about how nursing school is educating a whole generation of nurses to be punked on and to punk on CNAs. Reproducing the hierarchy of white supremacy, division of labor...etc etc

3) Sinking realization that industrialization and capitalist division of labor is primitive and backward. That a generation of industrial capitalists came up with an idea one day and disseminated it wholesale everywhere in a powerful way and this has changed our earth, our living, our bodies in ways unimaginable. In ways that made human life unworthy and equivalent to the products that we handle -- whether it be hogs, or cars, or in the case of caring labor, people with disabilities and the elderly. Industrialization and capitalist law of value dehumanizes in such a complete, unbelievable manner. I can't believe it. I rememeber not being able to believe when I was treated SO MUCH like shit, and again it's that whole feeling of incredulousness...

4) The pace of the movement -- D/OS, alongside being a student, a child to elderly parents, a friend etc - is unsustainable. Needing to rest, as I am right now, but also to figure out an involvement that is more sustainable. Understanding that this, is now, my new reality. Needing to figure out how to absorb this mentally, emotionally so every moment is not a crisis or a dilemma.

5) How to integrate all the energy from D/OS into workplace organizing -- or is workplace organizing obsolete at this point??

A Xmas day note

2011 is coming to an end.
Xmas day doesnt mean much to me except as a landmark. The week before the end of the year, a reminder that some things, tasks or mental notes, need time to wrap up for the new year's welcome.

I believe in new beginnings. Resolutions are a way to initiate them. I have collected lists of resolutions, and kept, only a mere few. Yet a mere few that has meant a lot to me.

The same time last year, I was not good. This same time this year, I am doing better. I would say much better except that I believe in jinxing myself. So, officially, I am doing slightly better :)

I feel like there's a lot in my head that needs to come out. Thats how I process and make real in my head the experiences my body takes me through.

Uncharted terrain

Writing has always brought me back to myself.

Since the Occupy movement has taken off, I have been gradually losing touch of myself. It is an irony, because it is precisely this moment of potential mass upheaval, the expansion of possibilities, that I feel that I, and many others around me, have sprung into, that coincides precisely with me losing a sense of myself. Where every work of creation begins with a work of destruction. It rings too true and I can't handle it.

I am afraid of the power that I simultaneously have and dont have. I am suddenly shocked by how much power this democracy offers me, and people around me. We have the power to make the powers that be, throw down their weight on us. We have the power to smash on their ideas. I have no illusion about the somewhat weak position we still are, and the challenges we confront. But for regular people like me, and everyone else around me, the sudden power we have is both beautiful and somewhat fearsome. I don't know if I have the mental, emotional resilience, stamina, and most importantly, the compassion of heart, to handle these moments.

I have felt myself become patient with emotions because, emotions are rough and tumble unpredictable things that throw me off my rocker. Does it build the revolution? No. It distracts me from the tasks I need to do. I know it's the wrong way to feel. It's a baggage of capitalism, a baggage that I have fought to resist, a baggage that my entire upbringing and schooling has trained me to be. But in moments of stress, I run auto-pilot and distance from that which destabilizes is wise.

And strange.

And strange because it has never been how I have seen myself. Strange because I have always been that emo kid who cried too easily about dolphins and laughed too loudly about inappropriate shits. I don't know. I just feel lost.

Or burned out.

I feel so nervous about the upcoming actions. the last time we organized something big like this, it flopped on us and all the relationships around us burned. Burned to a crisp that tore my heart, lost people whom I thought I loved. So, what now when this fails?

And the voice of the bureaucrats whom I had shut out for a while, relishing the new found joy, freedoms and sense of power that my community and I have struggled for, suddenly came back. Suddenly I heard their voices again that reminded me of  what we slide back into when this movement, if this movement, dies.

I fear my loss of inihibition. I love my loss of inhibition. I love the visions of a new world and I fear losing it and what awaits us if we do.

Days like this I realize that dreaming, actually, as cheesy as it sounds, takes a hell lot of strength, and super super thick skin.