Feel the Burn

And here I am, sitting in front of the computer in the middle of the night, trying to keep myself awake for my overnight shift at the shelter. In all honesty, for the first time this season I’m feeling burnt out. I find myself feeling apathetic about things that happen, which isn’t a great place to be when you are in my line of work. Giving a shit is basically in the job description. But the season started in October…five months ago. I have made it through five months of freezing temperatures, snow and subsequently, a full shelter night after night. I have made it through five months of learning lessons the hard way and seeing people scraping the bottom of the barrel. I think it’s pretty good that I made it 5 months before reaching burn out.

It’s a little strange that just as I can feel the season winding down is when I feel the burn. Finally we are not filling up and having to turn people away anymore. Up until now I couldn’t see the end so I had to just keep on going, blindly, but finally the end is clearly in sight. Don’t get me wrong, I love the job, but let’s be real, it’s exhausting-- and the overnight shifts are just the beginning of it.

As exhausting as it is, I like to think that I have learned a thing or two in my time here so far. There is no doubt in my mind that it has opened my eyes to things I had no understanding of before. I will not claim I understand homelessness, for it is an issue built upon other issues, but I will say that I better understand people. I better understand the human condition and really, what more is life about?

A Naive Heart

Since October I have been thinking about writing about work at the Shelter. Material is abundant and the things I have witnessed seem like they could be important to take with me into the rest of life. Several times I have sat down with the intention of telling the story of one or more of the interesting, and sometimes challenging people I work with, yet when I get down to it, I haven't been able to do it. I haven't been able to put down in words any of the things that I have experienced in this strange, tragic and often humorous world I bear witness to.

Every single time leave the shelter I have a story I can tell, yet the interesting thing is that I no longer do. I did at first and I got a lot of pleasure out of it but somewhere along the way I stopped. Somewhere along the line the pleasure I got was counteracted by the fact that I still went to work each day and saw people who were literally at the bottom of the barrel that is society....and somewhere along the line I realized that by telling my stories I might just be perpetuating the stereotypes about the homeless that I hate so much. For me, laughing about the things that have been put in front of me is a necessary coping mechanism. In order to go to work week after week I have to be able to laugh at the woman who is so mentally ill she accused me of stealing her identity even though the truth is that its not funny at all, it's tragic. Its tragic that she is so mentally ill she talks to people who aren't real and so paranoid she thinks everyone around her wants to steal her identity. Even more tragic is that we as a society have failed her and this mental illness has rendered her homeless. I have found humor to be essential to working at the shelter. It helps me cope with the most difficult of situations, but this week something happened that I cant find any humor in, no matter how hard I try.

As my overnight shift was wrapping up Tuesday morning, with no sleep and weary eyes I was witness to a violent assault. I wont get into the details, mostly because I have already shared them over and over this week in an attempt to perform some sort of exorcism of the toxic energy I carried away from the experience, but suffice it to say it was by far the most violent thing I have ever seen. After dealing with the aftermath, getting the victim on his way to the hospital and putting up with the infuriating Boulder Police I walked away barely able to keep myself together. My heart felt like it wanted to explode with anger, an emotion I wont even admit to feeling most of the time.

How is it that bearing witness to something that was over in less than 3 minutes and didn't even involve me could make me feel something so intensely? It was so much more than a fight to me. I wasn't just angry about the fact that it happened, I was angry about the fact that the world that we live in could create this situation. I was angry that everything in the assailant's life had brought him to a place where beating another man seemed like a solution to his problems. I was angry about the fact that the victim's developmental disabilities made him so vulnerable. I was angry that the police chose to take their frustration about the situation out on me and that their prejudices against the homeless were so blatant. I was just angry. Period.

And then suddenly I wasn't angry, I was sad. It makes me so sad. For me, anger and sadness, maybe its all the same.

The fact is that much of the things that happen in the world make me feel this way, but when it happens in front of my eyes, with people I know, its a game changer. It makes injustices such as this so much more real in my mind. I may not be able to find humor in this assault and by telling this story I may perpetuate stereotypes about the homeless community, but by experiencing it, and telling the story I am gaining a better understanding of the world.

But it doesnt change the fact that I am sad and I am outraged....and right now, that's exactly what I need to be.

Authenticity and Gratitude

I have found it difficult to write lately. In the past, writing has been a special and intimate thing for me. It has allowed me to process the things my body, mind and heart have experienced. It is often through writing that I have found myself articulating the things I have tried tirelessly to express verbally. Yet lately, the space created when sitting down to write become a scary place full of treacherous twists and turns that I wasn’t sure I was ready, or able, to navigate. Writing meant being brutally honest with myself, facing the parts of myself I had been turning my eyes from for so long.

Reflecting on life is easy when life is full of rousing adventures. When there are new things at every turn it is easy to focus outward, observing the world with wide-eyed curiosity. That curiosity has driven me for the last several years, making my current, stationary position difficult to stomach. Being stationary in the place I grew up means I can’t fight the inward gaze. There are no thousand-year-old buildings or millions of New Yorkers to divert it any longer. It’s just me. So what now?

Now, I have to figure out who this girl is and how she fits into the world. I need to take what I have learned and somehow integrate. I need to practice being me, in the most authentic sense, even when that person is selfish, or naïve, or scared.

Today, my attempt at an authentic self includes a morning of yoga that made me want to collapse onto the earth in exhausted surrender and a sunny afternoon alongside a chai tea with just the right amount of spice to awaken my mind. In this moment, I have much gratitude for everything I have been offered.

Settling into Perpetual Transition

For three years now I have been in a state of perpetual transition. I have barely had time to settle into anything, instead bouncing from one new thing to the next. On one hand it’s exciting. I have experienced more in the last 3 years than I ever imagined I would. But quite honestly… it’s freaking exhausting. I often wish I had a place to be that was comfortable, familiar surrounded by people of the same qualities.

When I moved back to Colorado last August I imagined this as a comfortable, familiar place where my effort could be directed inward in order to figure out what my next step in life is. What I found is something so unlike what I imagined, some days I feel as though I am in an alternate universe.

In New York, when asked why I was moving back home (the Midwesterners couldn’t understand the concept) I repeated what became a mantra of sorts to me, “I have things for me there, there is nothing for me here.” By this, I meant, my support system is there in a state that I love. How could I turn that down just for the heck of it? I looked at Colorado and the people in it with my cute little rose colored glasses, ignoring the elephant standing right in front of me.

That elephant was the fact that I wasn’t going back to the same circumstances I had left. What I had left was a Colorado summer when my support system was conveniently split between two towns only 45 minutes from one another. What I had left, was a self who was unconcerned with most everything, floating through life somewhat effortlessly. I should know by now that time does not stop when I am not present. The Colorado I was returning to still wowed me with this 14,000 ft peaks and abundance of microbreweries, but much was different in this state that I love when I returned. My friends had scattered, both literally and figuratively, across the Front Range (for those who were even still in CO) and into different places in life. Some had settled into jobs and partners, some had settled into graduate school, some had simply settled for less than they imagined their lives would be.

The only thing that brought me consistency was my family. I feel unbelievably fortunate for them, but lets get real—At 24, a woman needs more than her family, for support and even more, for social satisfaction. The consistency of watching Jeopardy before dinner every night is nice…yet somehow doesn’t meet the criteria for a “healthy” social life of a woman in her early 20’s... at least not in my book.

It’s been a rollercoaster, this time I have been here in this comfortable, familiar place. But I am finally feeling as though I have my feet on the ground. I have a job I love. I am making new friends who challenge and inspire me. I am back practicing yoga…. By no means are things perfect, but things are, at least, alright. Some days are good. Some days are great. What life has in store is as up in the air as ever, but I am working on being comfortable with that.

Others can settle into jobs and school and partners…I will settle only into the uncertainty of the perpetual transition I place myself in.

Brave New Me

“Window by window you try and look into this brave new you that you are.”
- Spring Awakening


It’s possible that I have been foolish, which is a lot for me to admit, since I tend to spend a significant amount of my life attempting not to come across as foolish. But I think its true. I have been foolish.

Looking back, I was so ready to leave New York. I felt as though it wasn’t mine. Whatever that means. I was ready to get back to a life in a place that I love with the people I love. Shouldn’t be to difficult, should it?

Wrong.

I have lived in another country. I have moved to a city where I knew not a soul. I have been to the funerals of friends. I have conquered everything that life has thrown at me thus far, and yet this…this being in the place where I should be the most comfortable, is draining me.

Across from me in the coffee shop tonight were two girls, obviously home on break from their first semester of college. As I eavesdropped into their conversation I remembered what that was like… Trying to communicate with old friends this brave new you that you are. Trying to catch up, but also testing the waters to see if the ways that you have grown and changed are compatible with the ways they have grown and changed.

At first, witnessing this interaction made me feel good about the fact that I am no longer 18 years old trying to navigate my way through college. That is certainly one of those times in life that I can look back on with fondness yet have no desire to return to. Then, as I thought about it, I realized that in a way, I am in the same place that they are. It’s true. I may be more familiar with myself than they are and I am certainly past the point of bragging about the parties I went to and the tattoos I got (everyone knows I am a badass by this point, its futile), but when it comes to trying to fit this “new me” into the old world…it’s a struggle.

I struggle with self worth as much as the next girl, but when I think of the things I have done, accomplished, experienced in the last 5 years, I am damn impressed with myself. I have faced things I never imagined, and rather than coming out hardened and dead to the world, I seem to have created a “me” that is tough, yet tender and optimistic.

Yet here I am. I may have been foolish for thinking being here would be easy. But the thing I have going for me that these girls don’t is a couple of years under my belt that have shown me what I am capable of. This may not be ideal, but I can hack it here, just like I can hack it anywhere. I may not feel brave most days, but I have to remind myself that I am. And window by window I will try and look into this brave new me.

The Tao of the Uncertain

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Is There More to Life Than a Good Bottle of Merlot?

I understand what is so intoxicating about the city. Even beyond the fact that it is socially acceptable to order alcohol at any meal, the city makes it easy to be drunk, figuratively, with free flowing ideas, politics, trends, and philosophies.

In the beginning of my time here I fell victim to this drunkenness (of the figurative variety, of course). In a friend’s apartment in the Upper East Side we would sit with our bottle(s) of red wine, a block of Gouda cheese and spend the night philosophizing, and ranting about the downfall of American culture and politics. It was intoxicating.

I thought to myself, “This is what I have been missing in my life.”

Throughout my life I have had good friends with whom I had many good conversations but in comparison to this they all seemed childish. This was “grown up.” Here, we would solve all of the world’s problems with our bottle of wine and large vocabularies.

I would estimate that about 80% of the young people I have met here are from the Midwest. In getting to know many of them, I have come to realize there is one crucial difference between them and I… They left. I came. For them, New York is about escaping where they came from and this intoxication that is so easily found on every street corner makes it easy. You can get lost in the free flowing ideas, politics, trends and philosophies. But for me, I came. I came here for an opportunity, not an escape. I’m not trying to create myself; I am trying to be myself.

At some point during the year, I realized that maybe these free flowing ideas and late nights of philosophizing were something I was missing in my life. However, partaking makes me no more “grown up” than I would be at home riding my bike to a brewery and laughing hysterically when someone falls on their ass. These nights and conversations can be valuable in my life, but a balance between serious conversation and laughing with playful abandon is not only an ideal, it is a necessity.

So now, I must find a way to be drunk not only on wine and philosophy, but in the playful joy that we are so graciously gifted.

What makes you drunk?

Be Drunk

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.

Charles Baudelaire

The Tao of the Uncertain Traversing a Mighty Terrain

- A Year in NYC –

The end of my time here in NYC begs the question, what have I learned? Admittedly, there is still much to be processed, yet as I look back at my time there are a few lessons I cannot seem to ignore, try as I might.

This, the Tao of the Uncertain, will be something of a series, rather than a long, rambling entry that you would not have the patience to sit and read, nor I, quite honestly, to sit and write.

.001

Values Don’t Just Sit in a Vase on the Mantle

Why don’t we talk about values more often? Not in a “family values,” conservative ramblings sort of way, but in a more personal, less crap filled way…

“Hi, my name is Melissa, these are the things that I value in life and in myself and in the world....”

We introduce ourselves instead with where we are from, where we went to school, and what our family looks like. Sure, these things can reflect our values, but it’s clear that many times there is a missing link in assumptions people make about other people. (See: racism, classism, sexism etc.) So why can’t we make it easier on each other? Is it that we don’t think about what our values really are? And if so, why not?

Living in community with 6 other people this year made me think about values.

To some of us, fairness of the distribution of chores was valuable. To others, social time together and still others, accountability. To all of us, toilet paper. To me… cleanliness. Now, I am not asking that everything in this nasty ex-convent be spic and span, but I would appreciate it if the trash was taken out when full and dirty dishes not left all over the house indefinitely. When I tried to express this value, some of my community made me feel as though I was uptight for possessing this value, that it was their “right” to leave dishes unwashed in the sink and let the bathroom stink for weeks on end. The thing is, I am not uptight. Actually, I am a pretty laid back person most of the time. It’s not my demeanor or neurosis that cause a desire for a clean living space, it’s the fact that I value the environment in which I exist.

So if I value a clean living space, someone else values conservation of energy and someone else values fairness, would we exhaust our capacity to help others keep the things valuable to them? I don’t think so. I think, instead, we would grow in our own capacity to value. And be reminded that valuing others is the most important value of all.

Hi, I’m Melissa. I value:

A clean living space

Honesty and straightforwardness

My family

Good conversation

Good beer

When the previous three are combined into one

Well rounded people who challenge me

Myself

The ability to have fun, and also be serious

Education

Open-mindedness

Social Justice

Opportunities to experience a culture other than our own

The Astoria Bohemian Beer Garden (is there a trend here?)

Community

And so much more.

What do you value?

Think about it.