Learning .. Healing Hearts. A Journal Out Loud post.

 

I don't quit, I try to learn from all the experiences in my life. I try to understand the whys on how I landed where I did, where I do. I've beat myself up for being sensitive, intuitive, and not trusting myself enough to listen to the glaring red flags my gut was screaming. Yes, there is no one in this world who can destroy my soul more than myself and the insecurities we pick up along the trails of life. 

Survivors of any childhood abuse (emotional neglect, physical assault and/or sexual abuse) are skilled at eating away our own innocence with self abuse after a trauma, yes, we're skilled at it and we do it with an ease that you'll never see our steps. 

Perhaps one of the reasons I spew out this stuff in this online journal of mine is because I am trying to understand the deeper whys - not just the ones that have left open wounds, but why WE harm so easily and debate Care and Empathy as if is a cherish reward saved for few. 

Healing Hearts - when I started writing about that I actually had someone on X contact me asking me if I was accepting donations as personal support for the effort...in other words was I making an income. The response was NO. They then responded with they knew donors who would support something like this, and that is when I decided to see if that was true and made the Go Fund Me for Healing Hearts - with funds going to the effort, not me. The effort was to provide support in a community and show that when you build from the bottom up on a sturdy foundation of care, children flourish and future generations concentrate on evolving, not just existing. Call me quirky..a dreamer...I really do not care. 

I spent almost two decades of my adult life in Juneau County, Wisconsin - and while it was pure chaos in my personal life, my professional and volunteer life allowed me to skip easily over the classism tracks of division and sit at any table in that community. What a position to be in, huh? 

I heard and saw a lot. There wasn't a day that gossip didn't fly at me where ever I went...grocery shopping, getting gas at Bobergs or Kwik Trip or even sitting in court at that county building filled with whispers. I had to discern what was true and what was not, what was worth my time and energy investment and what I needed to pass by....what was news and what was small town gossip. Every day for almost 13 yrs and while, for most of those years, earning a poverty wage. 

Yes, I was in a unique position. I didn't grow up there so I didn't carry any of that kind of baggage. My family wasn't from there so I didn't have those worries either - this allowed me to have a perspective in a small community you don't often find. 

Knowing, seeing, hearing all that I have, over the course of all those years, the only conclusions there have been made is everything we experience in this world starts at that local community where our foundation as a child was made. It is born behind those closed front doors and it doesn't matter if that door is on a shack or a mansion, like some of those properties in Mauston on Tremont Street. They literally stand on a hill overlooking the smaller, simpler homes nestled by those tracks. So, Yes, even those homes ...behind their doors, too. 

As a survivor of many childhood traumas the pieces of the puzzle were glaring once I realized it all...glaring. 

Classism - that's our problem as it provides the mask to the true evils, family violence (physical, sexual, and/or emotional). It is used in urban areas AND rural WHITE conservative areas....we divide by class, while those generational cycles of trauma play out - churning out dysfunction for future generations. 

For those reading this and are from that area, do you know that the only reason we were able to provide shelter to a family or individual in need was because Mike at that motel which no longer exists, was an extremely generous human being?

Being an immigrant from India Classism was a way of life for him since birth...until he came here....but, then he witnessed here as well. That is why when Lend a Hand or Circle of Hope was out of funds I could provide shelter to people...it was because of Mike, that immigrant so many in that community were not nice to, would extend to me time to fund-raise while he opened his doors to our clients. He did that through the Great Recession and when that motel was struggling with unpaid taxes and more....he opened those doors to our clients on a promise of payment, which he reduced his weekly amount for us to afford to house more.

He was the only motel in that entire county I could count on no matter what our finances were at the time...other than Jennifer out in Necedah who housed our clients a couple of times on a promise. 

You see I knew all of that as comments against Mike were plenty because of him being an immigrant, because of his cultural differences and because of ignorance - comments made by the outside community who had no idea of his healing heart ways and then even from our clients who slept soundly the night before, in safety, because of the man they were now making racist comments against to a volunteer who dedicated time and energy even as they were struggling - me. 

I've seen it from many angles. How it starts at home, all of it. Juneau County taught me a lot about life and even myself. There are many good people in that county with hearts of gold. Political divisions sometimes keep their generosity behind the scenes because if it was open their incomes would suffer. That is what we have become. 

Our hearts weren't born with campaign slogans but now we divide our care for one another ....

Anyhow, long story short, that is why I aimed at Juneau County for the first Healing Hearts effort. I watched those kids grow up, took their photos...shared their Letters to Santa Claus...all those years in the paper, while I also volunteered to help their parents not become homeless or provided a roof when they needed it....

Family. I saw that community as my family. I told and raised my children with that belief  -  they were our family when we didn't have our own rallying around us. 

Anyhow, I'm rambling--perhaps it is because since I was unable to pinpoint an org there I could give the money to and trust it would go those in need without judgement of who they were and in strict confidentiality, I was unable to give financial information of those people/org to Go Fund Me and those who have donated were refunded their money, or should be within days. 

As promised I said I would not touch those funds as this wasn't about me....it truly was about Healing Hearts in Juneau County and hopefully, one day, beyond. 

Those who know my long, rather roller-coaster life, and dreams will understand....

Those who don't, well, read this blog/journal...or just ask me...

Long Story...very Long Story ....short...

Healing Hearts...

Back to the drawing board because I do believe that's where we need to begin... at home...Healing Hearts

As always, ignore typos, I'll edit them, eventually ;)  ..the humidity is not helping these fingers...

And ....

BE WELL

PS #centene, the Medicaid Giant, still sucks and those PAC donations/bribes/whatever, both the #gop & #dnc (SHAMEFUL ..my own side) consume are tainted, literal #bloodmoney  #greed. Ask me how I know.