I woke in an ok place this morning, after an ok night’s sleep. I’m feeling better, but…small things…I am struggling with small deviations from the routine, small chronic frustrations with every day life, minor mishaps and disappointments, more than seems appropriate.  I want to shrug it off as being ‘a little cross’ with myself, or ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed’, or anything at all that minimizes it and ‘makes it go away’, but those things are not true.  I’d rather be disappointed to the point of heartbreak that my brand new blow dryer didn’t work this morning, or irritated that my cell phone battery didn’t recharge, or anything at all that isn’t what is really grinding away on my consciousness, in the background.

I don’t know that I have the words, or the appropriate forum, to discuss what’s on my mind – rape.  For me to discuss rape honestly requires the willingness to face a level of information sharing that is ‘too much information’ on multiple levels, and possibly damaging to hear, for some people.  The internet is buzzing with it anyway, and that’s why it’s grinding away on my own consciousness –  I’m a rape victim, myself. How can I not be affected by politicians negotiating whether or not I can have an abortion if I get pregnant from a rape? How can I overlook that there are people who actually think the consequences of a rapist being convicted are worthy of more serious dialogue than the consequences of the rape itself for the victim? How can I overlook the horrible numbers, the statistics, the historical data – the strong likelihood that just about any woman, anywhere, is probably going to face some kind of sexual assault at some point in her life? I feel agitated and ‘trying not to be’. I feel fearful and struggling with a veiled feeling of hostility. I feel anxious.

How did we ever come to this? ‘Civilized’? Hardly. I could almost feel the smugness mingling with the horror of so many voices in the wake of one heinous Delhi gang rape in December…but Steubenville was already seething in our cultural undercurrent, it happened in August.  Where are the good guys? Where are the heroes? Where is the country where there is no rape?

I feel sad. I feel wounded. I feel lost.  I will fill my ‘now’ with the day’s work, and hope that the distraction from ancient hurts will ‘be enough’… I need to feel wrapped in love, in the arms of lovers who would never hurt me…but for now, fluorescent lighting and the low steady din of ‘busy as usual’ will have to do. I am learning more about living mindfully every day, and practicing meditation, learning compassion…but just at the moment I feel rather as if I am attempting to apply a small band-aid to a sucking chest wound…or gasping for air in a vacuum…or drowning…

…Wait..wait…am I missing this moment? Is there a lesson here, too? I will take time for me, before I move on soaked in fear, and just breathe…I mean, hey…it’s just a Tuesday. I’m certainly worth a few minutes of my own time and compassion…it hasn’t all been easy, and hurting sometimes is probably a given. I hurt right now, but I don’t always…