Poem Alert: Keep Going

complex, tired, pushing, searching

I am complex, and have many dimensions to my wholeness

I am tired from the heartbreak of a world unfair

I push each day to make the world better

constantly searching for truth

to be whole is to be complex

to be whole is to be tired

to be whole you have to wake up each day fighting – pushing, searching

I might not care about whether there is a god, or is not a god

but I am for damn sure – I have faith, in the beauty and possibilities of the world we live in.

What to Blog about

Since sometime last year I have wanted to start a blog. I follow a lot of other blogs and hoped to emulate them. My blogging attempts have taken on several forms, but there were two main directions I saw my blog going – body image/fitness/nutrition and/or social justice.

I felt like I had to pick one. I didn’t know how.

Part of me feels like talking about my body image issues, challenges to living a healthy life, and the such is too frivolous. Who really cares about that stuff besides me. I guess the fact that I am the only person who would care about those things was exactly the problem. The premise was self-centered. That made me feel guilt, to be so self-indulgent. I also felt guilt because these problems seemed shallow and show in some way I am a weak person.

The places where we are weak, are also the places that make us human. Maybe it is nice to have those weakness. Also I find that when I feel guilty, it usually means I should give myself a break. Self-indulgence isn’t completely wrong, maybe just in excess.
I blog a lot about sexual health, culture, LGBT issues, and so on over at Amplify Your Voice. That blog felt more like my “work” as an Ohio Advocate. It felt wrong to blend something that was more part of my professional life with parts of my personal, very personal, life.

So what should I do?

I think the reason why I had a hard time piecing these two things apart is because they are both so deeply part of me, it is hard to see where one starts and the other begins. They are both me, and I want this blog to be genuine, so I guess all of me is the answer.

When you read about starting a blog they tell you to have a focus, a main topic. Think of your topic and your audience then write. They tell you to do lots of other things to.

I guess my topic is Ashley, and all the disconnected things that entails (training for races, constantly going to school, politics, sex education, unhealthy habits, culture, feminism (and other isms), healthy habits, worries about growing up etc …)

I guess my blog will appeal to runner-activist-health educators-feminist-20 somethings. Maybe not a huge net to cast, but oh well. In the end, this blog is for me, if others read and get something out of it, bonus. Just a little self-indulgence to help a giver feel refreshed is surely a good thing.

The Arc of the Universe

from here.

“I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will be still rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. There will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again with tear-drenched eyes have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. Difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future. ... When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.