Ohana Means...

A long time ago, in a galaxy far away...

I had a group of friends, we called ourselves the Ohana. A group of people with pasts, with baggage, who chose to make a family.  We started out just me & James, Brittany & Phillip, Kim, Andrea, and three kiddos.  We got close, we worked together on my house and made crafts with mod podge and did Bible studies and shared sex tips and I learned about a ton of music artists I hadn't heard of and would up tattooing small children with sharpies and playing in rain.

I trusted them. I loved them. It was intense and amazing and probably some of the best times of my whole life.

Somehow, 9 years later I still can't tell you how, everything shattered. And somehow, though were were all a bunch of grown adults, I have shouldered the weight of the broken Ohana. If I had been better, stronger, prayed more, been more spiritual - somehow, in some way the Ohana would still be whole.  It's all my fault.  Since then, I have resisted connection with anyone and everyone - surface friendships. Walls,  I don't want anyone inside, because they will be worse off when they leave me than when they started.  

That wound has never healed. I've never forgotten what it was like to have an Ohana, and never forgot how deeply it hurt to lose them. I don't hang out after work with coworkers, I stay on the fringes of church, because I know interacting with humans just brings me that much closer to connecting, and connecting - well, you see how that went before.

This week we lost an Ohana member forever, when a drunk driver hit her car.  It was unjust, and unnecessary, and unfair to her three children. The broken remnants of the Ohana gathered together today, at a funeral home. 

New Year, New Life

This year I decided to make a new goal set: Every day this year (aside from possibly during sickness, vacations, etc.) I will complete one goal from each of five categories: Spiritual, Physical, Mental, Social and Creative.  Why five categories? Because I remember someone, long ago, describing your life as a table with legs - strengthen one area while neglecting the others, and everything slides off of your table.  I am a person who gets SUPER overly-focused on one thing, ignores all of the others, and life kinda falls apart. I'm hoping this system will prevent that - even if each "leg" only gets 5 minutes of attention, that leg won't die? (Using this analogy, I have 5 legs, and gangrene in at least one. This is a bit disturbing!)

So what are my goals for January:

Spiritual - Read my Bible every night
Physical - Exercise each day to strengthen my core (even if it is literally one exercise, done once.)
Mental - Watch one ASL lesson per day
Social - Log on to Interpals each day
Creative - Sew each day (even if it is just one stitch.)

Why did I chose these?
I chose sewing because I always look at sewing as a task that requires SOOOO much time and focus - if I'm going to sew I wait to have a long block of time (like, a vacation.)  It really isn't that deep though, so I'm hoping this will help me see sewing as more attainable on days when I don't have 6 hours of time blocked off.

I chose my physical goal because I heard that if your core muscles are weak, it completely screws up everything.  I know this month I will be short on time (scary court hearings coming up) and motivation (snow and cold and yuckiness get to me.) so I thought some exercises I can do here and there between tasks would be perfect!

I chose my social goal because I know that if I log on to Interpals, the penpal replies I have will rope me in and the next thing you know, I'll have replied to all my pals!  I feel like this is a bit of a cop-out, because the social area of my real life is consistently neglected and by far the most likely to fall apart - but I just don't feel like I have it in me to do a goal that requires more of me this month. This area is such a struggle for me - an area where I have absolutely no confidence, and always feel like I'm inadequate. So this month I will start with something fun, and next month maybe I will move on to something with the real people in my life - intimacy with my husband, keeping connected with old friends, communicating with one family member per day, etc. Right now though the thought of any of those makes me so anxious I feel physically sick.

I chose my mental goal because I really would like to take my ASL 2 class again, for the 3rd time, and finish it feeling like I'm ready to ASL 3.  I've tried watching an ASL video each day for the past 2 months, and invested a lot of time and energy with literally no gains. My vocabulary level is so low that I can't actually get anything out of the videos yet, so I am just spinning my wheels and getting frustrated.  I'm hoping that if I go back to the basic videos, I will be be learning more words in the same amount of time each day.

Spiritual... I honestly struggled with this goal more than the rest.  Why? Because I wanted it to be something reasonable, attainable, and daily - not "pray until I feel right with God" (that could take five minutes or hours,and I might not have hours that day!) or "go to every church service available" (that's not daily.) or even "read a devotion each morning." (Sometimes I wake up late, or the cat vomits on the throw rug, or I completely forget a morning appointment, or....)  I'm not really feeling like I got that goal "right" but I have 30 days to figure out a new goal, so... whatever.