Service

If you're into metaphysics, or imagine yourself to be on a "higher" path (I don't mean to judge, but we sometimes have these moments), then the thought may come up once in a while that your life should be about Service. "How may I serve?" may seem the (necessary for inner peace) mantra or building block for all of your endeavors.
And, if you aren't, then mayhaps you're laden with guilt, and self blame.
I've been pondering this lately, though perhaps sometimes on the back burner, and not at the forefront, where it's obvious.
"How may I serve?"
Groan.
I am selfish.
I'm imbalanced.
I'm easily riled.
Perhaps I shouldn't be a mother.
Perhaps I shouldn't be a wife.
Perhaps I shouldn't be a member of society, but a recluse on a hill (somewhere relatively warm) where I can grow my own plants and commune with the ocean Every Day of my life.
Service? I know what it means. Or should mean. I don't have it.

But then, wait....

A thought comes to me, that service of one kind... might be different from another's.
Someone like Me.

My servitude might not look like teaching at a library for Women's Literacy (which I long to someday do). It might not look like donating time at the hostpital for AIDS patients. Or organizing blood drives. It might not be a 10% tithe to a church.
But that doesn't make it any less.
My time is offered to home educator's. It's giving others resources. It's connecting those in my community. It's speaking my mind. It's offering an alternate opinion, lending my ear, speaking my truth, and putting my heart on the line, and laying it bare for anyone to step on, condemn, or judge. Again and again.

It's something I can do.... I've never been one to need the approval of my society at large. That's not to say that it costs me nothing, for that isn't true. Sometimes it costs me the esteem of those I would like to call friend.

But my contributions are different. They're more.... me.

I live my life according to my own truth, and raise my children while being conscious that I want the world to be a better place.

I spose we all gotta do it the best way we know how.