Still I Rise

Interesting how things get away from us, isn't it?  I started out my 30th year full of optimism for the future and promises to blog more consistently.  Here I am approaching my 32nd birthday and I haven't blogged since I turned 30 and have become more cynical and bitter than I ever thought possible.  I've had such difficulty finding a job I can enjoy...that pays what I'm worth...that uses my degree and/or teaching certification...that will allow me to be the best mom I can be.  I've worked a string of dead-end, low-paying, back-breaking jobs in these two years.  I've been more broke than ever before.  Still, I rise.  That's Maya Angelou, you know.  Smart, strong, classy lady if there ever was one.  Right now it feels like I'm in the middle of the darkest tunnel ever built...and there's no light at the end in sight.  Which means the end is really far away, right???  That's not very inspiring.  I'm at what may very well be the lowest point of my life so far.  I know it could be SO much worse...people are dying, losing loved ones, serving in the military oversees, starving, homeless.  I'm none of those.  I have an amazing family, great friends, an awesome kid, a roof over my head and food to eat.  I'm ok.  But still...  Hard to be thankful when you're in the midst of so much turmoil and your head feels like it will explode any second.  When you've heard "no" (or not heard at all!) for the 5,402,345th time.  But still.  I rise.  I didn't even know that poem would serve as inspiration for this post until I started typing.  The words just appeared on the screen as if typed by someone else.  Fate?  God?  The ghost of Miss Angelou herself?  Who knows?  I do know this.  I'll be printing it out and taping it beside my bed for everyday reading. I think Maya teaches us with that that it doesn't matter how people treat you. What trials and tribulations you've been through.  What your station in life may be. Whatever this is...a tunnel, an abyss, a black hole...somehow, some way, someday...I will rise. Thanks, Maya.  I'd almost forgotten.

Still I Rise

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

Maya Angelou