Sunday 2 August 2015

2nd August 2015

Love: The grief hit me again today. I'd just finished helping facilitate the LGBTQI Circle and it just came at me. So I excused myself for a few minutes and went and sat and let it do its thing. I can speculate why it came at just that moment but I'd rather reflect that I handled it very well. I'm learning to surrender and swim with the tide these days. It seems to work better for me.
Life: Today Big Love Sista hosted an afternoon at The Bluecoat for Pride. We had an exhibition of the goddess paintings, held a choir workshop and then finished with the LGBTQI Circle. It was a lot of work but well worth it. Then ten of us went and had a meal together at Kasbah. It was just the perfect way to de-stress after quite a hectic weekend. Also, today was another day I reflected on all that Clare Campbell does for us. It's wonderful to be friends with someone who just seems to have magic pouring out of her! However, as like Tony Griffin, I wonder what will happen when these people have gone? Who will step into their shoes? Because I look around me and I see no contenders, which is highly worrying!
Career: I was told tomorrow was a bank holiday. It's not. So back to work I go.
Judgement: This morning I reflected on judgement. It happened because a friend announced that they were in a polyamorous relationship. This was not news to me, they'd told me before. But I admired their courage in going public with the news. Because to go public with news out of the ordinary like that is to open yourself to judgement. However, that's what pride is - it's opening yourself up to public judgement. It's saying 'this is who I am. Deal with it'. That's also what LGBTQI Pride is - it's saying loud and clear who we are and being defiant to those who would have us live in the closet or worse. However, I'm also a firm believer in questioning the judgement that arises within us. For instance, when my friend came out as polyamorous, it was so tempting to try and ascertain why they would be so. But the far more important question I asked myself was 'why am I not polyamorous? Why would that not work for me?' and through that I recognised my insecurities in being in a relationship with someone I love. I think the right way to live life is to literally keep our judgements to ourselves.
Train: The final thing I want to talk about today is the fact I had to talk myself out of walking in front of the train on the way home. I don't know why it happened, I just had a moment when it seemed the perfectly natural thing to do would be to walk in front of the train. I'm not suicidal and I wasn't even depressed at that moment so I really don't know what was going on in my head. But, obviously, it has shocked me that it could seem perfectly sane to do that and that's what I want to put on record.