What an amazing week. It’s times like these that almost (almost) make me glad for the struggles of life. It’s times like these that reaffirm my belief in love, friendship, the basic goodness of humanity. I struggle a bit with being on the receiving end of such generosity and I have to take a deep breath and kind of distance myself from the experience. I think if I really let myself be completely in the moment of what is going on in my life right now, I would be so overwhelmed that I would be unable to function. As it is, I am randomly bursting in to tears at inopportune moments anyway--swinging wildly from anxiety to elation with each new donation or act of kindness. Even though I had strong conviction that I would receive the support I needed, it is still hard to fully embrace it. I have to remind myself that to everything there is a season. A time to give and a time to receive, a time to cry and a time to rejoice, and all that other good stuff about the worth of a soul, and balance and karma. You know.

With everyone’s help, I have the money that I needed to make my appointment and feel confident in going ahead with my plans for treatment of my eye condition, Keratoconus. Here’s the plan. My initial exam will be November 14th. If everything still looks good to Dr. Brian Boxer-Wachler, then the procedures will be done the 15th and the follow up exam will be the 16th. I feel like the Clampett’s, headed to Beverly Hills with unexpected money to get all fancied up. “So they loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimmin’ pools, movie stars”… eye doctors. Yee haw!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 The other thing that’s been on my mind is this. The people that have helped make this happen for me are so varied, it’s wonderful. I've received donations from relatives, old friends I haven’t seen in 20 years, new friends I've just met, strangers I've never met, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, Mormons, Jews, Methodists, Baptists, agnostics, atheists and non-theists; poor people, rich people, in-between people, anonymous people, married people, divorced people, white people, black people, brown people,  straight people, gay people, artists, doctors, housewives, janitors, writers, musicians, lawyers, teachers, cops, nurses and builders. What is it that allows such a diverse group of people to come together to support a single cause? Well, whatever you believe, I believe it is Charity. Not charity, like “hey let’s do some charity today”, but Charity, the pure love of Christ. The basic kindness and love for people that every human has inside themselves from birth which stems from the divine source from whence they came. That’s what I believe.

This is why, no matter how horrible life gets, or how crazy the world, wars, or politics get, I can’t completely close my heart to anyone. This is why I can’t let myself be judgy towards people or shove people in to categories or allow people’s individual views to destroy my love for them. Because all these people were able to overlook things about me and the way I live my life that they may not agree with and help me, many of them at great personal sacrifice. Isn't that amazing? I think that’s amazing. I think you are all amazing. Great, now I’m crying again.