I have to first say thank you for digging so tenaciously at this, as it's giving me the opportunity to think and expound and process. If I disagree, it's solely in order for me to clarify and even, sometimes, find my own feelings about this? Nothing to do with anything you 'should' have or even, in some cases, could have known, and I'm very very grateful for you taking the chance to question me.
It's interesting because my emotional take on the risk and exposure wasn't quite the fear that regular people have. It was actually familiar, almost comforting to know where I stood and to have the freedom to risk what other people would never think to risk or want to risk. The homelessness was not just familiar but oddly comforting. I knew the ways to walk, not so much to keep myself safe, but to keep myself if that has any meaning to you. There are homeless people who are that way by choice and character, who find the binding and restrictions of having to maintain and be responsible for a place to be too much or something they simply don't want. They're very few, and they usually have no or few family ties, but they do exist.
I think the cornerstone of the emotional background was that I'd thrown myself away for a while, but I was coming back into being who and what I really wanted to be, and that included being able to determine what jobs I was going to take from now on. Saying it that way I now know how to tie it to my real life and the four years is significant that way. Interesting. Nothing like the safe brother who didn't even dare risk coming to get me from prison, but could safely pay the bills.
I often kick and throw off the ties of tradition and control. I am criminal in the eyes of the more judgemental, and there's a lot I've done that lots of people could condemn me for. It's just a part of who and what I've always been, and I carry that within me, perhaps more to the surface now as I'm getting more aware of myself.
But doing my time really does have some aspect of a guilt I've finally released, I think. And the only one holding me to it was myself.
Existential Dilemma is a good way of putting it. I don't really know what I'm *for*, and being free of work for quite some time, it's impossible to define myself by what I do anymore, and I'm coming to grips with that, especially since I do so much and for so many and in so many ways, now that I don't have one thing that I Am or any one thing that is my life's work. It's just my life that is the Work, I guess? That all of my art, my writing, my fiber work, my being a mother, my special need and take on violence, and my spiritual life are all... works that I have to be responsible for doing as I would do it, not as someone else might.
I do love what you point out, especially about the work... that I now HAVE to work. Thank you for that, and that imperative is very real, though the goal's less monetary than... well, the importance of just doing the work.
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Date: 2014-05-23 07:09 pm (UTC)It's interesting because my emotional take on the risk and exposure wasn't quite the fear that regular people have. It was actually familiar, almost comforting to know where I stood and to have the freedom to risk what other people would never think to risk or want to risk. The homelessness was not just familiar but oddly comforting. I knew the ways to walk, not so much to keep myself safe, but to keep myself if that has any meaning to you. There are homeless people who are that way by choice and character, who find the binding and restrictions of having to maintain and be responsible for a place to be too much or something they simply don't want. They're very few, and they usually have no or few family ties, but they do exist.
I think the cornerstone of the emotional background was that I'd thrown myself away for a while, but I was coming back into being who and what I really wanted to be, and that included being able to determine what jobs I was going to take from now on. Saying it that way I now know how to tie it to my real life and the four years is significant that way. Interesting. Nothing like the safe brother who didn't even dare risk coming to get me from prison, but could safely pay the bills.
I often kick and throw off the ties of tradition and control. I am criminal in the eyes of the more judgemental, and there's a lot I've done that lots of people could condemn me for. It's just a part of who and what I've always been, and I carry that within me, perhaps more to the surface now as I'm getting more aware of myself.
But doing my time really does have some aspect of a guilt I've finally released, I think. And the only one holding me to it was myself.
Existential Dilemma is a good way of putting it. I don't really know what I'm *for*, and being free of work for quite some time, it's impossible to define myself by what I do anymore, and I'm coming to grips with that, especially since I do so much and for so many and in so many ways, now that I don't have one thing that I Am or any one thing that is my life's work. It's just my life that is the Work, I guess? That all of my art, my writing, my fiber work, my being a mother, my special need and take on violence, and my spiritual life are all... works that I have to be responsible for doing as I would do it, not as someone else might.
I do love what you point out, especially about the work... that I now HAVE to work. Thank you for that, and that imperative is very real, though the goal's less monetary than... well, the importance of just doing the work.