Today

Dear Friends,
I've puzzled and puzzled and my puzzler is sore in trying to decide how to approach this blog. I give up. I'm just going to write and see what happens.

Graduation is looming large, even though it is a year and a half away. What am I going to do with my graduate degree and my empty nest? Shall I move to Michael's town, serve a church there, and see if we can make a life together? Shall I stay right here, keep my disability and my little church, keep my public housing apartment as long as I can so the kids will have "home" to come home to, and maybe write a book or start on a doctorate? Shall I start applying for a PhD program now and write a thesis to complete my master's degree? Where is the "hide under the covers" option?

Mike is working diligently toward applying to the police academy. He should be ready to apply next summer, but who knows how all the timing will work out. If he gets in, he should be finished with the basic school stuff by the time I graduate, but of course there are a couple of years of riding with someone and all that. He is building his life in his town and the whole thing assumes he will rely on his parents every single day to be there to help raise N. He is not designing a family life for the three of us. He thinks he is. Maybe he is. I don't know. I don't know how to sort through all of this. When he kisses me it is electric and I never want it to stop, but can I/should I move away from my kids to leap head first into his world where his mother is the center of all things?

I love writing and reading and doing research. A friend sent me his thesis yesterday and I need to read it soon and send him my notes. I love it when people trust me like that. This thesis is for his Doctor of Ministry degree and he apologized to me that it might not meet my standards! Ha! I haven't even finished my master's degree yet. He has the degree I'm working on, plus ten years as senior minister of a growing church. Yes, a growing church! That is very rare in our denomination!!! Still, he thinks my standards are too high for him. Wow, that blows my mind.

I wish I knew how to get into a job that pays steady and requires me to read and edit and comment all day. What degree is needed for that kind of work? Does anybody hire editors? I see that title around. How does one get that job? Would they want me? Would I be good at it?

I know about poverty, food stamps, medicaid, and housing. I know about disability, illness, weakness, and being blamed for one's own illness in our society. I know about rejection from family for not being Republican, marrying the right guy, owning a house, and loving the Lord ~ oh, and being healthy. I know what it is to lie on the floor completely helpless hoping someone I trust will come along and help me and also hoping most people will ignore me and leave me alone. I know that life is messy and hard and wonderful. I know that making meaning in certain moments shapes our lives, so I am able to do a wedding for a couple I already "know" will divorce. The wedding is a part of their story and it is valuable even if it is not the beginning of a whole life together. It may only be for a brief season of just a few months, but it is significant to them and should be blessed. Similarly I know how to do a funeral for an alcoholic man who abused his family and could not hold a job. I know how to sit with that family and help them make meaning of what it is to love someone like that, and to say good-bye with a certain sense of relief that it is finally over. I know how to listen to an immigrant who has been disrespected by the same police officer that rescued my neighbor's little girl from a very dangerous man once. I know how to appreciate that officer while not excusing his racism/classism/patriotism.

What can I do with my particular experiences, education, and gifts? All of my interests seem to point toward the abject and forgotten of society. There is no money in working with or advocating for folks like that. I have debt and I've been poor for a very long time. It would be so much easier to take a church position somewhere for a $42,000/year package and just live. But would it really be life for me? Or do I need to remain among my hardworking, heart-breaking, poor peers?

I don't know.
Thanks for reading, y'all. I do appreciate you making room for me in the blog world. I hope to post more frequently now. Life is good, if confusing and difficult at times.
Be well and happy,
Mary