I volunteered again yesterday, this time I brought my mom with me. I broke a bunch of nails again even though I got them all trimmed down. At least this time it didn't hurt. I could have just kept going all day the way I had planned, but after having been out there for 5 hours, my body started telling me that it's time to go ;u; I took a huge nap when I got home, then when I woke up, I went back to fishing on Toontown. Last week I had needed about 13 more fish to finish out my album, but with dedication I narrowed it down to 2 fish left, and then I caught those last 2 today. It's not easy to max things like that on Toontown so I was really pleased with myself for finally getting it done. K.K. Bun is 120 laff now, so just 20 laff left till I'm maxed at 140!!

When my mom and I got to the volunteering site, we were checking in with the other volunteers and the organizers and it turns out (of course) that my mom knows a bunch of the people there. I knew I recognized some people but I couldn't figure out how I knew them. Doing this sort of work in the nonprofit world, at least in St Louis, you end up meeting everyone as it is a very close-knit professional community I would say.

It was nice being relied upon from the start by the organizers and the other volunteers. Every time this one woman walked into the office, she'd ask a question about where some specific item was, and I'd always have the answer. She was so pleased about it that she complimented me for it. I have no idea how I was capable of recalling such small details as 'ponchos on the left window sill' or 'caulk in the corner under the duct tape'. I guess that's the product of facilitating the space? Something that also pleased me quite a lot was the outcome of when I instructed someone to go to Schnucks (grocery store) and ask them for plastic bags. We needed more and, from managing the food pantry for as long as I did, I could remember the boxes and boxes of donated grocery bags we'd get from Schnucks. I thought that if they did that then, then we could just go and ask them for bags and see what they said now. And it WORKED! They gave us a ton of plastic bags and we were stocked up for the foreseeable future!

I didn't realize how much I love managing and being trusted to lead, but it really does feel nice, and it helped me feel very confident in what I was doing. Especially when it's this kind of work, work where we are building community with our neighbors and showing up for them. This was how I felt when I was helping train the new hire at work, too. She'd ask a question, and I'd give the answer, and I'd think to myself, "wow, I really do know what I am doing." And it feels good that people can rely upon me because of my knowledge and my trustworthiness. I think it's also helping me feel more stable in my identity. I mean, everything in my life has been rather stable for the past 6 years or so, but I can feel it stabilizing even further.

Something I've always wanted was a more stable sense of my identity. Part of doing that is writing, like this, and observing myself, rather than judging myself. I used to rely heavily upon external validation, and it did nothing for me and my self-esteem, my identity. You have to learn how to trust yourself in order to even fathom a sense of stable identity. There are things about myself that I now know are true, largely because I know myself. If I don't know myself or let myself be known, I fear that my identity will be swallowed up by the everchanging nature of the flow of time. It helps to be taught by my loved ones the person that I am, and then reminding myself of what I've been told. Internal validation will always be more important than external. Who cares what people outside of you think when it's your life that's being lived? And likewise, why tell someone to do something a certain way when it's not your life to be lived? Food for thought.