the continuous thread

it's going to be a different kind of writing today.  i'm going to log my yesterday, but there really wasn't much to it.  but i have thoughts that are important to me at the moment, and i'm going to process them in my own space, here, so that i can get to some resolution and some change.

this picture is Heather.  i consider her a friend, though she is not a friend to herself.  some might find it strange that i have friends that wear the orange jumper, but i've got many friends who have, many who will, and i just may myself one day.  who knows?

i've known Heather for about 11 years now, since she was eighteen.  we worked at West briefly together.  she was there after i got there, gone before i left.  she was a good person.  it would be easy to label her as spoiled, but that isn't it.  she was hurting, abandoned by her father, her mother was a heroin addict through most of her life up to that point (and, in fact, died of a heroin overdose not long ago), she'd been in and out of the system as a child, including a stay at Rosemont in Columbus (unpleasant association for me, but i believe in honesty), and she wound up a young woman with lupus, on a bunch of meds, with a lot of down days.

i met her as i was trying to transition back to myself.  i was still bitter from my relationship issues and was not opening my heart to anyone.  i did have a dalliance with her, but it was brief, and it did not involve my heart.  it did, however, involve hers, and that was not cool of me.  especially since, 11 years ago, i was 38.

Heather will be 29 in seven days. she'll be in jail for another birthday.

i say she is my friend, but i won't reach out for her this time.  i won't because sometimes, you have to accept that you can't help someone.  i have descended through roles as a person in her life.  from a pseudo-boyfriend to a friend in need, to a contact person, to the sucker she could use to get out of a longer prison stay, to the only person who would visit her in the city jail, to the 12 step working person trying to help her get clean.

isn't life wonderful?

and i got to thinking...Heather, when i met her, was a bright and beautiful soul.  i wish i had a picture of her from back then.  oh, of course...the internet.
  This is Heather, as i knew her when we met.  11 or so years ago, probably not quite that long, this picture.  as i said, she was a good person, but a lost person.  and i could not foresee what was to come.

and maybe that's what this is all about for me right now.

it is a pensive morning.  i didn't know about Heather's recent arrest until a few hours ago.  local news pops up on my computer, and there she was.  and there i am.  and there you are.  because we are all connected, whether we like that truth or not.  we are all threads that are woven together to create the human tapestry.  and, as a real-life tapestry, one thread depends upon another.  if you compromise the integrity of one thread, the entire tapestry is compromised.

i think about people i've known who have had pain such as Heather has.  some have gone on to do better things.  some have taken much longer to figure out that they needed to change.  some have learned to wear elaborate flesh-masks and pretend the world is exactly as they want it to be, while their pain resonates like whale-song from the deepest part of their ocean of despair.

and it's all part of the same tapestry.

i was thinking, when i was younger, there was a saying in the program, that 'the dog you feed is the one who wins the fight', in connection with our positive and negative selves.  but as i grow older and think more, i wonder about that.  a hungry dog, needing to eat, will fight with a savagery and ferocity that a satiated dog might not.  it's definitely true with humans.  what is it that makes one person say 'i don't want to be like Heather', but then prey on people like Heather?  what is it that makes an individual know, beyond speculation, that they are on a bad road, but keep walking, hoping that the farther they go, the sooner it will turn out okay?  there are no answers to these questions, but they are things that i wonder, as i think about Heather, once again in the county.

if i'd been able to love her, would it have made a difference?  i don't know.  i'm not her daddy, and i am not her mother.  love for me is not a replacement for their love.  only self love can undo lack of love from those who are supposed to love you.  i believe that.

yesterday i did nothing.  i rested.  i ate, went to lunch with Lonnie.  i did the meeting, thank heavens, because the secretary didn't show up.  i cooked fish for dinner.  i did as much nothing as i could.  i feel pretty good today.  just pensive.  and that's not a bad thing either.

thank you, Father, for your grace.