The Face of Lace
A bit of the personal.
A lot of you have either written in posts or in private messages to me about the struggles that are barriers to their full engagement to this work.
I know, or at least I think I know, why they do that. They want me to know that they *want to* but that there are significant roadblocks to being the person they want to be and doing the work they know that they need to do.
Believe me, I understand. I understand level 10 depression and anxiety–I live it on the daily.
I understand crisis and chaos–this is the exact two year anniversary of my then husband’s violent suicide attempt on the property on which I still live. There are still, if you know where to look, small dots of blood that never were removed.
I understand lost love–as it happens the person who ‘rescued’ me from the immediate aftermath of that event became the person with whom I thought I would share the rest of my life.
I know money struggles. I have been alone for two years now, and have ‘made it work’, mainly by severely contracting what my needs have been.
I started Lace on Race with nothing, and to this day it garners almost nothing–this is not a venture I initiated to make money hand over fist. It was, to be sure, something I could do, provide a quality service that wasn’t happening elsewhere, and hope that people would respond by support.
As my therapy guy Peter says, I am better suited and of better use to the world at a keyboard and in a stack of books doing research than I would be at the fry station at Del Taco.
This effort has cost me though. Most months I subsidize the work; which shouldn’t have to happen, but it does. I can only hope that people will one day see the value and partner with me rather than my having to humiliate myself and annoy all of you with what feels like (but in actuality is quite rare) constant begging.
I know the pressures of full time work. I work full time, at a working class job where I am not always respected. I make posts at breaks and lunch and before I go to work, and wake up and make a post at 3am. I know about time crunch.
And then there is this week, this week where Wednesday the 13th would have marked my 25th year of marriage, had mental illness had not taken Robert away from me. In this week of flashbacks and intrusive memories; in this day of remembering where I was and what I was doing two years ago; every moment (right now I was in the hospital, and Bethany was strong arming a chaplain for information about Robert, after the chaplain totally blew me off), in this week, I have, after the chaos of last weekend, done my best to be fully present, and available. I have done my best to model our ethos.
All of this is the work, and all of this are tasks and responsibilities with which I charged myself a year ago, when I was still in the crucible of losing Bob, and then who I thought would be my last great love.
The challenges have not abated. Indeed they have increased in both frequency and in intensity.
I tell you all this not to furrow your brow. But to let you know that while I understand and have deep compassion for all of your struggles, I am living proof that one can do this work with intention and faithfulness despite whatever else is going on. I hold to that. I live that every damn day.
I want you to use my story, my depression which has not abated, my anxieties over, well everything, my loneliness, my fatigue, to know that if this working class girl can do it, then so can you. I say this not to shame or to lord anything over anyone, but to invite you to do more than you think you can–*because I know you can*
I have been walking with you this past year with a decided limp, and an albatross around my neck. It can be done.
And you can do it. Walk with me.
Show yourself what you’re capable of. Never stop walking.
Edited to add: no hearts or likes, please.
