a sustainable lifestyle?

My first blog post! Yay.

So as you all know by now, NAASCon was this past weekend at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Your very own AACC Chair sits on the national board as one of the communications chairs [y'all should think about applying to be on the '09-'11 board!!]. Anyway, this whole weekend was kind of a reminder of what's been on my mind lately: is community organizing something I really want to be doing ten-twenty years down the line?

Yes. Of course. But to what extent? The reason why I've been thinking about this is because the last few years I've been doing this, since the start of my freshman year of college, I haven't been able to find a healthy balance between doing this work and working and going to school and then still trying to find some semblance of time for myself and a social life. Last night, I had what felt like the millionth breakdown in the span of about two weeks. Granted there were other things at work that more or less exacerbated the feelings I was already experiencing, but it really made me reconsider everything.

As activists, where do we draw the line between pushing the 'movement(s)' foward and taking care of ourselves? I feel like being an activist means that you really do have to sacrifice a piece of yourself in order to make things happen.

Maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. I don't know. I think my problem is that I keep taking on all these new tasks, thinking that I can do it all, but it's become increasingly apparent that I can't. I keep forgetting that different people have different limits and that I can't keep pushing mine too far.

Anyway, life stops for no one so I've just gotta keep on chugging and hope things will get better. I mean, all this work, all this stress, all this insanity, it's all for the movement....right?



p.s. i apologize if this made no sense whatsoever. i'm still in the process of trying to recover and i don't think my brain's ability to make coherent thoughts has caught up yet.