WordArt

A Hero Deferred...

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

Today, I thought I would share the gift of life by donating blood to the American Red Cross, as is my every so oftenly tradition. I have it to spare and I can save 3 lives, so if you know I'm a superhero this all makes sense.

So I roll down to my local donor center this noonish and sign in and do the tests and get my under the tongue and around the arm and out the finger and gently on the wrist and the list of bizarre and nearly perverse questions... finally we review the questionarre and I am ready to start gushing blood into the bag.

Then the nice lady gets to the part about having been out of the country within the last 12 months, and I'm like yea, I went to Costa Rica, what's the big D? And she starts asking me parts that I went to, and apparently a couple of them are high malaria risk locations, which is a bust because they told us there was almost no risk there. The even bigger bust is that I am now "deferred" (not allowed to donate blood) until July! This officially sucks, no?

So, what I need to ask of all of you, is to carry the torch for me. I will have missed approximately 5 donation cycles before I am able to give in July... and these are like guaranteed life helping/saving opportunities! If even just 5 of you could support me in my innability by donating blood between now and July, (or even every couple months between now and then) I would really appreciate it. If you haven't done it before, it is a relatively painless and incredibly rewarding experience. The people are kind and you always get snacks and juice when you are done. You're helping people, straight up, plain and simple, handing over some life juice.

Please take this opportunity and check the American Red Cross website for local donation sites and drive dates.

Much love, and thank you for your support. It means more to me than you may expect.

Courtney

Thanks giving to God, and to my fellow human
A rambling tale of my heart at the moment:

I suppose in every choice I am thankful for the freedom to choose it
I am thankful that while God could be anything, that he is Good
There have been deserts and tropical islands and cement shoes at the bottom of the ocean
Thanks for every place you've taken me
I think of every simple thing that I am thankful for
And they all become manifestations of God
When I hold them to light
And I am thankful for some clarity of vision
In that sense

Today I became accutely aware and anxious
That my choosing to follow the essential passion
The ticking in my soul, the God in me
It leaves me out of control, not like wild
Rather out of control of myself in a fearfully constricting way
And then I remembered that it is okay,
Because it isn't like I'm giving it up to someone else like me
I am giving it up to the one who knows both the plan and the person
That I can actually do best what I am best suited to do
If I continue to commit to this

So the universe is returned to order
Lucky for all of you
My anxieties subsiding in appropriate ways
As I recognize my lack of control as a gainful-loss

So I am thankful, at the moment, for the God whose nature makes me as I am and makes that alright at the same time.

The other things are great. The gravy. The house the cars the food the job the family supporting me the friends the senses. And I am thankful for them in many ways. But to me a prayer of thanks is like an exhaling. A joyful acceptance of things as they are, in and out. If I had none of the gravy I would be as thankful. I am sure of it. I'm not proud, I just want to be honest. That's all.

I am oh-so overwhelmed,
While remaining ever-so underwhelming.
I am tired of working so hard.
But where are the fruits of my labor,
For me to eat and be sustained?

Empty girl, are you unfilled?
Is there a leak, are you a sink?
Or are you simply a vacuous wasteland:
Take love, take love take love take.
Return nothing.
It is burning a hole in the pocket that you do not have.

You had some
Resources, we call them.
You came with some and picked others up.
You put them in a backpack for later use,
Then broke the zipper.
What a fuckin waste.

Cry yourself to sleep again,
Wake up anxious and angry with yourself,
Have them tell you not to be so hard.
Don’t ever tell them that you know what you’ve wasted,
Because you know;
Better than them, you know.

Waste another minute.
Just one more, one more one more one.
Every time your heart beats, every tear breath nervous twitch second wasted thinking of a better word for this and then there is that thing over there you need to stop this stop this stop this stop


Breathe deeply,

Slowly,

Know that God forgives,

(How kind)

Fall asleep believing you have done all you could.

Wake up tomorrow,

Stomach sinking, teeth grinding, leg twitching.
What a shame, what a pity, what a waste.
A criminal to your own supposed system of the Right.