Today I gave my personal trainer 2 letters. One letter was a conventional recommendation letter he asked me to write for him for graduate school. The other was an unconventional letter, the letter I really wanted to write, explaining to the school that he really didn’t need them because he already had the skill set they were going to teach him.
I secretly hoped he would love the unconventional one so much that he would crumple the bullshit/conventional one. But although he was so grateful and touched by the things I said about him in the unconventional one, he will send the conventional one.
Which made me think about poverty and how poverty makes people cave and do things that they wouldn’t do if they had money.
Like when the gas people came and offered all the poor farmers money to sell their land. If the farmers had been making decent money they might have told the gas people to shove it, but they couldn’t because they were poor.
So they sold their land and now all this dangerous environmental stuff is going on that is probably going to eff up the water and the air and the aquifers.
The same thing with my friend and grad school. It’s a shitty program at a crummy university but he might be tempted to do something bolder if he didn’t need money.
But since this worthless program will fund him and house him, thus allowing him to cut his current expenses in half, he will do it.
It’s not that he won’t learn anything—he will. It just won’t be the kind of things that will launch him into a whole new sphere. He is doing a version of what high school kids around here do when they are clueless: They enlist in the Army. What else are they going to do?
And that’s what makes me kind of depressed.
And I also know that I too, would probably do exactly what he is going to do. Because I, too, am afraid of the leap into hard, and scary, and unknown. He is young. He feels rich in time. What’s two years, right?
Me? I am much pickier in where I invest my time, and get much angrier when I feel I am wasting it.
Changing the subject…
The blogging 101 assignment today was to pick a tag line for your blog, something that describes what a reader is likely to find when he/she lands here.
What I want to say is that an “Inspiration Location” is something am looking for; a destination rather than a place I have already found.
And these posts? Mostly a chronicle of becoming derailed, side-tracked, and lost.
Inspiration Location 
I am REALLY struggling right now trying to live an authentic life; I’m at the tail end of a degree I didn’t want and it REALLY has been the final straw in a long line of stuff that I had to do in order to supposedly allow me to REALLY do what I want. And guess what? That REALLY thing? I’m still not making money doing it either (as prepping for my accountant informed me too!) but it’s certainly helpful to a lot of people… Which brings me back to this… I don’t think any of your recent posts are “derailed, sidetracked, or lost.” They are not pulling me down (after all you do not write from a victim stance); but in fact, they are keeping me afloat, because I don’t feel as alone in my slog to authenticity when I read it. And sometimes reading the messy process (and the struggle in finding that new solid ground) and the authentic writing that is coming from that process is inspiring in itself because it is a reminder that the way to truth isn’t one big nice, bubbly “happiness project.” Sometime it is, but not always. Inspiration isn’t necessarily clean, and I applaud you sharing all you have in these past weeks. Let it flow girl! xo
–Kim
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*little tears leaking from my eyes* Man. I really don’t know how to respond to this beauty and authenticity and love. Thank you. You have no idea… But maybe you do. Because you and I struggle with a lot of the same stuff. You know what I am flashing on right now, Kim? Sitting and eating lunch with you during trainings. What I wouldn’t give for one of those lunches RIGHT NOW. *whimper* Soon the damned PhD will be done. Soon I will be seeing your smiling face in beach from Wildwood. Hang on, darlin’ I am here for you.
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Hi I know you don’t know me, but I enjoy reading everything you write! I love your writing, you make me laugh, you inspire and you make me think!
A word came to mind as I read this post and I thought I would just share … Without truly knowing you, only what I know of the things you have written here…I would put you in a category, my favorite category to read, to reflect on and people to know… A seeker! Seeker …. That’s the word! You seem to always seek the good answers to everything! And then you write about… It’s cool! Just saying!!
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Oh, but I DO know you! I loved your blog! I just now hit your Gravitar and it said your blog didn’t exist anymore. (!!) WHAT??? Really? You’re gone from the blogosphere? Your comments really made me feel so, happy, and validated and like, flying! Wow. I AM a seeker! You nailed it! Your really did. How come I never saw that before? Thank YOU! You are so generous and wonderful to write this” amaceing” comment. If you are ever in northern PA, we need to have a drink or something, right? Love, Kath.
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