I Care

 

I woke up this morning realizing that yesterday shouldn't have happened. I realized that I'm still grieving, I still feel loss and lastly I'm looking for that next thing to care about. 

 

I've always been a man of service. I took care of my friends, when I had time I spent it not on myself but helping others. I took care of my mom and granny. I could have left home and set out to make a life for myself but I stayed close to home and looks after them. I don't know if they saw it that way. Hell, I don't know if I really understood. I cared for them both until they passed. 

 I care about the school I graduated from and the people that graduated from it. I first got involved with a group of graduates that wanted to connect and bring people together. Later in 2011 I found out their was an alumni association that was formed and attempted to join, hoping that I would bring in everyone and we would have a alumni community that would have fun together and serve together in assisting students from the school and the principal in delivering the best experience for those students. Right now I'm the President of the association. At first it wasn't my choice but as time went on I grew into the position. Now I'm attempting what I wanted to see when I first joined. More participation, a stronger association and to help the students and the principal in any way we can. 

I care about my neighborhood, I went to chamber of commerce meetings in South Shore and South Chicago. I stuck with South Chicago because of the Bowen connection. The South Chicago Chamber is no more but I still try to work with the SSA #5. I also am part of the Bessemer/Schafer Park advisory council. Again the connection to Bowen is one of the reasons I'm part of this PAC and not Rainbow which is closer to me geographically. I have ties with everyone their also. I connect to any project that is in the community. I might no do much in certain places but I want to be in the room and hopefully if I find someone that in interested I can point them in that direction. I want to see a strong community. 

I care about my work. When I came out of college in 2002. I came out right when the dotcom bubble bursted. So with not resources to help me land a tech job I just worked at UPS and did IT on the side. At first it was ok. I really wanted to have a job with a company. As time went on I got attached to working residential and small businesses. I don't know if the feeling was mutual. I had my ups and downs, I had times where I tried to apply for jobs to no avail. So I continued to work my side hustle and work until I made a choice in 2013 that I would go into business. It was great I had clients and now I can make a formal business. I didn't have full understanding about running this as a business but I bootstrapped and had fair success. I wanted to get to a point where I could grow my business and hire. I saw my business as my retirement plan since the previous 13 years were spent in jobs that really didn't have that plain in sight. I cared about my clients taking that extra mile to get this squared away. Sometime my caring was enough sometimes it wasn't depending on who I dealt with. I worked my business until the care of my mother and grandmother superseded it. 

I took care of them until my granny passed in 2018 at 100 years old. It was her choice as she was on dialysis and decided she had enough and was happy to make 100 when she saw other pass from the complications that were far younger than her. When she passed there were people that spoke about her caring. Which I had no idea she was doing. I guess that's half of where i got it from.

I care about my mother as fell ill as my mother was in hospice. What I didn't realized at the time she cared so much for her mother that she sacrificed her own health. She had be suffering for a while and I didn't notice. So when I got her in an ambulance to the hospital. I played the balancing game of dealing with both of them by myself. I reached out to a few people but when they declined to help I just went on with it. 

I shared what happened after that in another blog post (I think?, I write from the heart so much I don't even remember if I don't look back and see the actual post). But anyway, 

After they passed. I spent the year trying to figure out do I want to stay or go. Do I care enough to move on and what is next for me to care about. I spent the entire year thinking about it. Truthfully, I still am and its probably the reason I'm writing right now. I had a emotional blowup yesterday because I'm at this job and I want to learn the processes I need to service the office. I'm having issues crop up and instead of reaching out I clammed up and turned inward. I walked out that office after my shift without a smile on my face and I didn't say goodbye to the staff that are always eating their lunch when I leave. I know they noticed that. I spoke to my onsite contact on how I felt about trying to learn this process and how I want to be helpful in the office. All my emotions from everything I've been through came to the top and I was ready to just leave and not come back. That was a foolish thought but in my head I'm a fuck up and don't deserve to be there. I said shit yesterday I which I could take back. Nothing bad about anyone else but I showed my insecurity on my sleeve. I showed how deserted I felt overall. Something that they never did to me. Damn I wish I could tell my contact I about this but it probably would make things worse. 

I care about my family, my late uncle Maurice got me into looking at my family tree and where I came from. I became interested an reach out to family online after I went to the family reunion. My cousins here in Chicago have always been here, for me I really only see them on occasion, but I helped start the family blog, Facebook group. I wish I had been closer when we were younger I don't know what happened I was just a pedestrian in the situation. Hopefully thing get better on that front.

Sometimes I beat myself up for caring so much. Sometimes I think I should just not care and try to talk myself into it but I just fall back into caring. Because I care and I've been hurt in the past I tend to proactively protect myself, some people call it over reacting. I'm working on that a lot, most of the time I don't respond to certain things right away. To allow my rational thought to take over. Its a process and something I felt I needed to talk about. I'm glad I have friend that protect me. I've had them all my life. Thank you to them for keeping me safe from people who might prey on the fact I care.