mmmmclxxxvi

Swimming to the Shore I’ve Stood Upon and That I Will Reach Again

I’ve never tried so hard to get someplace in my entire life. Never tried
for so long to get to one place, a place I’ve already been, a place I spent
so many wonderful seasons, prancing in the sand, watching the waves
letting the sun do a bit too much damage to my outer body, never tried
so hard to get back there, never, ever. Tried so hard.

I know that my work ethic is a bit unconventional, but I gave 85% (more
or less) to the one job that paid the rent, the one I’ve had for most of my life.
I built this “CAREER” and worked very hard on it.  I even, with no financial

support, put myself through six years of undergraduate and graduate education
just to be comfortable, financially, in my own unconventional way, utilizing
that career.

Secondly, I have another career to which I have also given at least 85%, if 

not more.  And this other career, to my mind, defines me more than anything

else has, and it is one toward which I have never been financially motivated. 

It is a career that is essentially non-monetary for me (I’ll tell you the story

about the choice I made that one time I was at the Vatican, if you ask me).
There is no outside financing of it whatsoever.  And as far as I’m concerned, it
has burdened me with no cost during its (thus far) run of a quarter of a century.

Two careers that have gone places, good places, great places. I would maintain

that I have a strong work ethic.  One that I no doubt inherited from my people.

So what could go wrong? you might ask. Or, at least I certainly do.

But if an answer to that question exists, it is predominantly irrelevant. There is

a primary relevance, though, regarding these two paths that I have made mine: 

I am still here.

I’ve never worked so hard to get from here to there, to get out of where I 

found myself. Toward this effort, I have given 100%. It has been over 8 years.
I lost my partner of over a decade by not envisioning that he’d disappear (and

worse) at year eleven. I lost every friend I had in proximity and most who were

not. This fact, it turns out, has by far been the worst of all of the misfortunes that

I have encountered in my entire life. I lost my home. The home that, with effort

and help, was made mine and ours, with an open door, with comfort. I could put

more energy into attempting to logically explain why, but it is, literally, an

impossibility to do so. And, as just noted, it is irrelevant.  But also, I’ve spent a

decade trying to become reemployed in a long-term fashion, the old-fashioned

way, perhaps unconventional today, but in the process have learned, very slowly

and very methodically, about trauma and invisible or unrecognized disability along

the way, so as to remove obstacles and reach my goals, unraveling that which is

unknown, that which is invisible, and that which is unrecognized, in ways that

seem to give me the confidence that I have made progress. But this progress

has been excruciatingly slow. Each week, I think about how much better I feel

than I did the year before. I have no idea when I’ll reach it, my solid ground,

nor when I’ll feel like I’m back at par, back at my game, incessantly improving

it, as had always been the case, but I do know that I am already so much better

(this is a thing that swimming non-stop helps to enable), and reaching that shore

has been the perpetual motivation and the veritable substance of all that is me.

All of this is to say that I have no idea how long it will take to reach that familiar

firmament.  The ground I still remember so vividly, wobbly as it sometimes was
beneath my feet. No idea at all. And I don’t or won’t allow myself the option
that I’ll never reach that shore again. It is inevitable. it will happen. It is the
willing it to happen that propels me in this way, and every ounce of me believes
that all of the movements I make get me closer to that once familiar surface

that I have taken such comfort in, that allowed my legs to rise against the

omnipresent and surreal and wounding force of gravity, to lengthen and

strengthen and stay standing. I suppose I took that stance for granted.  

Familiar land at times feels so very close that I can almost touch it, that I 

can but breathe it in. Yet it has not been reached. At other times, it feels as 

far away, or further away than it has ever been. It has not been reached. I have

yet to find it again. But I will. And I will never stop swimming until I get there.

And when I do, I will stop swimming long enough to catch my breath, and
will find my footing, however long that takes, and rise at whatever speed at
which I am capable, which will assuredly be the swiftest possible, on my behalf,
so that I may stand. So that I may stand. And I will stand. And in one way
or the other I will remain standing. Why would it be any other way? In the
realm of my peace and my comfort and my continued growth and those two
careers and so much more that is in store, some of which is going to be the
absolute highlights of joy and peace and contentment and adventure and
growth and engagement I will have experienced. This is fact. This is a fact
that depends on nobody but me, and I am the only person who has to know it.

All these things I will do until I am there. And then, what I do can also be for you.

Prayer of Submission, Humility, Motivation, Evolution and Fact.

To the Truth.