I saw this today on Workisnotajob.com:

One Spring night in 2008 I lay in bed, eyes shut tight against the persistent voice in my mind growling at me. The chatter grew from a whisper to a roar when I finally gave up on sleep, opened my eyes and turned on the light. This is what I scribbled onto a piece a paper:

My mission: To use my backbone and articulation abilities to gain knowledge of the hierarchical systems of my culture in order to bring them down. To use my survival of poverty, neglect and social alienation as a means of seeing in others what they may not see in themselves. To be a useful agent of change. To resist the expectation that success means subordinating another person based upon their class, size, race or gender.

Then I fell right back to sleep. 

Hard to believe that when I wrote it I was working as an admin assistant for a plumbing company based in the owners garage in the backyard of his house. When I woke up in the morning, I read the scribble then rewrote my mission statement on a the back of very large graduation card. I tacked it to my wall, then went to my job grateful for the $15 an hour wage.

Every Summer Solstice is important to me. Always. It’s as close to a religious practice as I get. This solstice I was told, “It’s good to remember where we come from.”

Where have I come from? Well, apparently the me I am now came from those words scribbled in the middle of the night, because I am doing what a part of me was determined to do. I didn’t know then that my way of accomplishing my mission would be through sexuality. But it is. I’m starting the research for my thesis this month. We’re finishing up the 3 part Dossie Easton interview on the Sex Positive Photo Project and I’ve got an Oakland Local assignment. My point is that I’m doing it. I’m doing exactly what I set out to do and I need to remember it.