The part of me that never feels like it's enough has taken to feeling the abrasive scratch on my psyche when people assert that the people who showed up to march yesterday never did enough. I realize it's a collective critique, but since I find my brain misbehaving, I am seeing in this one more thing to feel like a failure about. Perhaps my struggling to survive in poverty, as a single mom with two young kids, doesn't impress a certain segment of the population. So be it.
I know my life, and what I did before things were difficult. I know I did what I could. It was the best that someone like me could do. However, no one can see it. Yet, I know the way I am. I will step out and do what I can possibly do in my situation. To some people, this will never be enough. But just as I do not accept the criticism that comes from the right about how my use of government assistance did not bring about the sorrows and ills in their lives, also my inability to personally change the world to the way I wish it were isn't bringing about all the sorrow and ills in other people's lives.
I remained witness several times. Sometimes to traffic stops and inquiries on the street, or as I stood among people after Timothy Thomas, only to later face a group of teens with baseball bats (I unadvisedly turned and yelled at them that I was part of them, and I lived there, too. They sheepishly walked away from me), I know I've done the only things one mom in poverty can do.
As my brain tells me that I should have somehow saved everyone, everywhere, of everything, by now, it isn't doing any good to listen to criticisms, right now. So I have to step away, while my brain works out its ills.
Have a good night.
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