Years and years ago--I'm talking years--my ex-husband sent me to a psychic for my birthday. Scoff if you want, but the psychic, Michelle Whitedove, went on to win the psychic challenge on national TV and become a celebrity psychic who now charges, according to her website, $1200 an hour. Maybe you're one of those people who thinks reputable psychic is an oxymoron, but if you're not a disbeliever or if you're on the fence, Michelle Whitedove is pretty much as reputable as psychics get. Among other things that Michelle Whitedove told me, like that I'd get divorced one day despite trying as hard as I could to save things, she told me that my totem animal was a turkey, just like Mother Teresa.
People with a turkey as a totem, according to trustedpsychicmediums.com, "have a lot to teach others" and need to use their voice to "empower others." Also, the turkey "points to adversaries," people who "challenge you to grow, make you feel things, and make you truly see the world that you live in." People with the turkey totem also give whatever they can to people in need.
Maybe you're reading this, seeing my name and Mother Teresa's in the same sentence and scoffing at the thought, but I have to tell you, if that's the case, you don't know me at all. Giving and making people happy is absolutely my thing. Other than my quirky cuteness, my mildly-on-the-odd-side personality, and my tendency to veer toward all-consuming, obsessive behavior, it's the biggest part of me.
Why do I bring this up now if I saw Michelle Whitedove so many years in the past? How is it relevant to today/tonight?
Well, you know from previous posts that I went to a new school this year after 18 years, but unless you're my Facebook friend or somebody I talk to on a regular basis, you don't know that it's been one of the worst experiences of my life. Like I've told a few friends, in descending order of the biggest bad I've gone through, it goes like this: divorce, rape, my new job. Pretty much nothing else compares.
I could give you a list of reasons my job makes me get into bed earlier than I've gone to bed in my entire life because I don't want to spend my time awake, talk about how the school surely must have been built on some sort of Hellmouth or ancient burial ground that's turning people evil because surely students and teachers alike can't have been this horrible their entire lives, but I won't. Instead I'll tell you about a conversation I had in the last couple weeks.
I was talking to a friend of mine after attending a yoga class that she taught, a friend who I wrote about several years ago, about her love and light. This woman is the epitome of what I want to be. Like I am, she's a strong believer in fate. When we were talking about the hell that is my new school and what I've been going through, she said she wished she knew why I was there, what it was I was supposed to do.
Well, today I figured it out.
Today after the peer counseling teacher--the peer counseling teacher, for fuck's sake, the person who's supposed to be guiding students' behavior--in an incredibly odd chain of events hid behind my door and weirdly ambushed me and then proceeded to bully and berate me in front of a hallway of her students and classroom full of mine, I realized why I was there--well, after I spent the rest of the day sort of shellshocked, the afternoon crying, and tonight feeling sorry for myself, anyway.
I wish I could say this peer counseling thing was an isolated incident, and while in its blatancy it may have been, the sentiment certainly wasn't. If teachers aren't busy searching for me on the Internet, printing out my entire 107-page thesis, and giving it to administration (seriously, what's worse? The attempt to, I don't know, what I can only assume is somehow ruin my life or the callous disregard for the environment?) or badmouthing vegans for no reason at all while I'm two feet away in the bathroom or students aren't writing statements about me for telling them kangaroos have three vaginas (I kid you not. High school students took the time to go into the office and document the fact that I told them how many vaginas a kangaroo has) or parents aren't complaining that I have a painting of a uterus in my room, well then, it's just not a day at my new school.
And that, people who read my blog, is intolerable. The intolerance of the people at my school, the judgment, the Crucible mentality, is one of the farthest things from okay that exists.
I have never in my entire life experienced an environment like this.
I have never encountered such human beings.
And Jesus God, Christ on a bicycle, god mother fucking dammit, is my purpose in that straight-out-of-a-movie-about-an-interloper place.
I'm there because these people need to learn, not about literature or rhetoric or the anatomy of a kangaroo, but about life. About love. About good and bad and nuance and the truth that there is no one truth and that there are no absolutes.
I'm there because small town minds stay small.
I'm there because from rides in the middle of the night to phone calls to parents that kids have been afraid to make themselves to the handing over of my credit card for college application fees to the empty rooms in my house being temporarily taken, I do whatever I am able.
I'm there because I take in strays.
Like I told my best friend tonight--like I cried to him--it's an insurmountable job, too much for me to do by myself, but I have no choice.
I'm there because more than anyone I've ever met in my life,
these people need my light.
Now, do I think I'll illuminate their darkness?
Actually, I think it's a lot more likely I won't have a job not long after tonight. I'm well aware of the potential negative effect of my blog(s) on my life--MP, I'm looking at you with unflinching, unwavering eyes--but I also know if I don't live my truth, I'll die inside, and anyone who can't accept that--who can't accept me--doesn't deserve my light.
People with a turkey as a totem, according to trustedpsychicmediums.com, "have a lot to teach others" and need to use their voice to "empower others." Also, the turkey "points to adversaries," people who "challenge you to grow, make you feel things, and make you truly see the world that you live in." People with the turkey totem also give whatever they can to people in need.
Maybe you're reading this, seeing my name and Mother Teresa's in the same sentence and scoffing at the thought, but I have to tell you, if that's the case, you don't know me at all. Giving and making people happy is absolutely my thing. Other than my quirky cuteness, my mildly-on-the-odd-side personality, and my tendency to veer toward all-consuming, obsessive behavior, it's the biggest part of me.
Why do I bring this up now if I saw Michelle Whitedove so many years in the past? How is it relevant to today/tonight?
Well, you know from previous posts that I went to a new school this year after 18 years, but unless you're my Facebook friend or somebody I talk to on a regular basis, you don't know that it's been one of the worst experiences of my life. Like I've told a few friends, in descending order of the biggest bad I've gone through, it goes like this: divorce, rape, my new job. Pretty much nothing else compares.
I could give you a list of reasons my job makes me get into bed earlier than I've gone to bed in my entire life because I don't want to spend my time awake, talk about how the school surely must have been built on some sort of Hellmouth or ancient burial ground that's turning people evil because surely students and teachers alike can't have been this horrible their entire lives, but I won't. Instead I'll tell you about a conversation I had in the last couple weeks.
I was talking to a friend of mine after attending a yoga class that she taught, a friend who I wrote about several years ago, about her love and light. This woman is the epitome of what I want to be. Like I am, she's a strong believer in fate. When we were talking about the hell that is my new school and what I've been going through, she said she wished she knew why I was there, what it was I was supposed to do.
Well, today I figured it out.
Today after the peer counseling teacher--the peer counseling teacher, for fuck's sake, the person who's supposed to be guiding students' behavior--in an incredibly odd chain of events hid behind my door and weirdly ambushed me and then proceeded to bully and berate me in front of a hallway of her students and classroom full of mine, I realized why I was there--well, after I spent the rest of the day sort of shellshocked, the afternoon crying, and tonight feeling sorry for myself, anyway.
I wish I could say this peer counseling thing was an isolated incident, and while in its blatancy it may have been, the sentiment certainly wasn't. If teachers aren't busy searching for me on the Internet, printing out my entire 107-page thesis, and giving it to administration (seriously, what's worse? The attempt to, I don't know, what I can only assume is somehow ruin my life or the callous disregard for the environment?) or badmouthing vegans for no reason at all while I'm two feet away in the bathroom or students aren't writing statements about me for telling them kangaroos have three vaginas (I kid you not. High school students took the time to go into the office and document the fact that I told them how many vaginas a kangaroo has) or parents aren't complaining that I have a painting of a uterus in my room, well then, it's just not a day at my new school.
And that, people who read my blog, is intolerable. The intolerance of the people at my school, the judgment, the Crucible mentality, is one of the farthest things from okay that exists.
I have never in my entire life experienced an environment like this.
I have never encountered such human beings.
And Jesus God, Christ on a bicycle, god mother fucking dammit, is my purpose in that straight-out-of-a-movie-about-an-interloper place.
I'm there because these people need to learn, not about literature or rhetoric or the anatomy of a kangaroo, but about life. About love. About good and bad and nuance and the truth that there is no one truth and that there are no absolutes.
I'm there because small town minds stay small.
I'm there because from rides in the middle of the night to phone calls to parents that kids have been afraid to make themselves to the handing over of my credit card for college application fees to the empty rooms in my house being temporarily taken, I do whatever I am able.
I'm there because I take in strays.
Like I told my best friend tonight--like I cried to him--it's an insurmountable job, too much for me to do by myself, but I have no choice.
I'm there because more than anyone I've ever met in my life,
these people need my light.
Now, do I think I'll illuminate their darkness?
Actually, I think it's a lot more likely I won't have a job not long after tonight. I'm well aware of the potential negative effect of my blog(s) on my life--MP, I'm looking at you with unflinching, unwavering eyes--but I also know if I don't live my truth, I'll die inside, and anyone who can't accept that--who can't accept me--doesn't deserve my light.
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