I had a bit of a personal conflict early in the week. It's been a tough run emotionally, and I was pretty much spent. While I am making progress on working to fight CPS, progress has been slow...too slow, at times, and there's a lot of infighting among would be activists. Couple that with the facts that CPS is one of those government agents you don't dare criticize without being branded a fringe radical, and the fact that the natural instinct of a family who has been falsely accused of abuse or neglect is to withdraw, rather than move towards activism, and you can easily see why this has been a VERY difficult struggle.

And so as I sat in my room the other day, the thought crept through my head that I don't HAVE to do this. That I know enough about the law through what I've learned to properly protect my family, and that things would be a whole lot easier if I just set about doing what I had to do and gave up the idea of being an activist. It's certainly an appealing prospect, as it would be understating it to say that it is a thankless job. And an equally compelling thought came to my head that I didn't want to be defined by my opposition to CPS.

But then I wondered, what DO I want to define me? When I pass, what legacy do I want to have left. Sure, I can hold back these goons from my door, but what will my children do when they have children of their own? What about my children's children? The fact that I AM so isolated in this fight is itself a compelling reason why I must continue. I see a wrong that too many others don't see, and I have the resources to fight it. When I ask "Why me?", the answer keeps repeating itself: because I am here, and I am willing.

Once upon a time, I had an ordinary life, an ordinary family, an ordinary job. But that time seems so distant now, so alien, as I devote more hours per week to activism than I've ever devoted to anything outside of gainful employment in my life. I have boxes full of case files, of manuals, of books, and I'm slowly beginning to accept that, as reluctant as I am to be defined by this one issue, this may well be my own life's work; my opus.

But, for now, it's a lonely road I travel.