Real, Actual Politics Aside

Back when we were leading up to the election of Barack Obama, I thought I recognized a readiness of U.S. citizens for something entirely different, and Obama had the face and the charisma. Politics aside, as I still would have been impressed with us (somewhat) if he had been a hardcore Republican loyalist, I knew the idea of "change" was a big part of his following. I stayed up late the night of the election, and I don't mind admitting I got a little choked up when it was announced. We had done it-- not elected another democrat, but voted for change. I have a soft spot for underdogs, and... well, people who looked like me used to own people who looked like him. Go, you, man. Go, you! I was raised to believe in exactly this kind of country, and we did it. I was disappointed and frustrated with Obama sometimes; I was disgusted by the obstruction he faced. I couldn't think of a single job I would still have if I had steadfast refused to work with my boss-- and I am not talking about disagreements or whatever any person would use to completely oversimplify the point-- I'm talking about losing all decorum, turning my back and putting my fingers in my ears like some childish asshole.

Anyway, eight years later we went from decorum and diplomacy to... dumpster-diving for idiocy.

I'm still just all... Fuck... about that one.

Why You Will Absolutely See Me With A Safety Pin

I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That is to say, I have experienced sum. shit. and it blew my mind, quite literally, in that it physically altered my brain. Anyone who has read just about anything I have ever written knows that I poke fun of it; I embrace it to the point I consider my hypervigilance one of my superpowers.

A person experiencing this symptom of PTSD will be motivated to maintain an increased awareness of their surrounding environment, sometimes even frequently scanning their settings to identify potential sources of threat. What Is the Definition of Hypervigilance?

 I let "Beastie" out to play, burn off some energy, sometimes in the form of slightly over the top humor inside my own truth. She wears me out otherwise, and she's capable of provoking laughter anyway, while on a leash, of course. It's a sort of multifaceted advantage. I do it because at one point and a few others, I knew I was going to make peace with Beastie, or Beastie was going to take me out-- one way or another. Out.

So, how does that relate to me and that safety pin? Because, yes.

-- via Snopes.com

Have Y'all Lost Your GD Minds?

"..."

Can we just... not?

Protesting in the streets is about as American as it gets. Riots, vandalism, violence, and other bullshittery sucks for everybody.

I can't even.

Between that and the ever-so-naive, "You should tolerate opinions different from your own," some of us are left shaking our heads, trying to find the words.

Um,.. yeah. See, the thing is not all opinions are tolerable. At all. If you're standing next to a man who suddenly turns to you and says, "You know, I think we should lower the age of consent to 10," then... I hope like hell you get what I am saying here!

Signed, One Embarrassed American

Really, Washington? Really?!

The Ultimate Facepalm.

My Blue Eyes Can See That Black Lives Matter

First, if you just can't take it without all the PC, move on. Sometimes, you just have to keep everybody on the same page. Everybody understands "black," "white," and "red."

I am pretty sure I am as white as European mutts come in this shade of skin color. I was born blonde -- I am still blonde, but I work at that-- whatever. I have some Dutch, German, and Irish. Rumor has it that some time way back when, someone red "jumped the fence," and made me a little pink. I doubt it; I am also pretty sure most white American families carry the same rumor, "We're actually .7689378328929856th Native American."

Yep.

Fighting the Stigma of Mental Illness: Your Language Means More Than You Think It Does

A Clue.

Personally, I don't deal with a lot of stigma around my mental illness. I will explain things the best I can to the sincere, but I just do not have the patience for the willfully ignorant-- and it is intentional dumbness since information about not only mental illness, but the myths and stigma around it is everywhere. However, I have had it long enough, and have known others with it long enough to not only know it exists, but to understand how the smallest seeds, such as everyday misuse of language, grow into the darkest, thorniest, and scariest forests. People suffer.

Dear Mama

Mama, 9 years old

It has been two months and one week since you left. I know you taught me everything I need to know, except how to live without you. I know you would frown upon that, considering your own fierce independence and that of which you expected of me.

I am sure somewhere within me, you have left all the tools I need to now be the matriarch, but right now, I feel like the bumbling fool. I tried on a pair of your shoes, and they were a bit too small. How funny, I overfill your shoes, but fill them not at all.

Some nights, your five year old grandson tells me he is sad. I ask why, and he tells me he misses his grandma. "I miss her, too."

And we snuggle a little closer.

There are so many things I would like to say, though I thought I had said everything once your health was clearly failing. Still, some things to tell you about hadn't happened yet. I've kept every voicemail. I listen to them sometimes, when I think I am strong enough to breathe through them. 

Daughter, Mother, Grandmother

I miss you every day. Sometimes, I think to call you --and not that I wish I could, but I think to pick up the phone and talk to my mom. Then I realize I cannot. A friend of mine, one you adored, one who adored you, and one who lost her mother long ago, said that never really goes away.

There is so much of you I will carry on, but I know more of you will spread through my daughter, your granddaughter most like you, once she grows into herself, and even a little now.

There is much of you I might not have gotten the chance to know, though I listened to and recorded and often retell your stories. Yet, it was not until toward the end that I think I might have caught a glimpse of you when you were younger, before you were married, before you were a mother. Once you were widowed and began to somewhat heal, it was so fascinating to watch you pursue new interests and embrace new experiences for all they were worth. It is such a shame your life was cut short before those things could fully form. I suppose I just wish I could have seen more of it.

I don't want to end this, Mama. Maybe someday, I will write more, and I think I probably will. However... 

Fun With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Don't be a simpleton and take this all wrong because that would be stupid, and you don't want to be stupid. You want to be kind and supportive. Or you want to fuck off, whichever keeps your underwears from a'creeping.

Derp Is A Choice.

The Decade That Got Real

Shortly after my 36th birthday, I was walking across my deck when I had a thought that literally stopped me in my tracks and took my breath.

"I'm getting to the age when people I know are going to start dying."

A few weeks later, my husband was killed when a driver made a left hand turn without looking, or looking twice.

It Was The Cost of Having It All, And I Don't Want to Pay

Only in the mirror, okay?

Understand that I am aware we are not all made the same. My experiences, my thoughts-- they imply nothing about any other woman or any other mother.

I have been a married, stay at home mother. I have also been a married working mom, a single working mom and student, a single working mom, and a widowed mom, working and not. I have lived paycheck-to-paycheck, paycheck-to-minor-miracle-to-paycheck, and I have had some disposable income. I grew up in an era when women could "have it all," and it was taken for granted that we all wanted it "all." I could never figure out what was "wrong" with me because I was never really happy. I was tired, and I had hit 40 before, looking back on my twenties and thirties, I saw a pattern, and following that pattern was an epiphany. Gasp! I never wanted "it all."

My Mom Is Still Gone

I am on the horse. My mom is leading it.

Just a few days short of six weeks since my mother passed, I still feel this is the strangest grief I have ever experienced. I was widowed at 36. Three years later, I lost my stepfather of 30 years. Then I lost my grandfather. Then I lost a good friend who was far too young to die. 20 days after that, my mom was gone, and just like that. When my husband died, many people disappeared from my life. There is a saying that widowhood rewrites your address book, and that happens because... reasons. Still, the people who stayed with me never expected anything from me, but they did understand I was still grieving months later. A precious one or two who have never lost a spouse understand my grief, while far less intense, will never go away.

Why I Am Voting Against Trump

I do not believe a third party candidate will win this election. I hadn't heard of Gary Johnson until supporters started the hashtag, "Feel the Johnson," and that stuck in my memory because I am a child, I freely admit it. In my mind, he is the "Hey, Touch My Dick" guy, and I will need a few minutes to recover from my childish giggles. Hold on.

Really?

So, let me otherwise start this by telling you why my vote is not for Hillary Clinton, (but against Trump). All conspiracy theories aside, Clinton seems to be an extremely divisive candidate. Some people seem to actually hate her just because they do. Republicans have, for decades, attempted to bring down both Clintons. Although they have yet to find the smoking gun which brings them success, they keep coming at them, no matter the funding and time desperately needed elsewhere. I lost count of how many taxpayer funded investigations were conducted for her email scandal alone.

A Message About Combating Your Prejudices

Turn off the news and get to know people.

That is a message I can't stress enough, and is something I wish everybody would do. I hear people say things, and I read about incidents involving racial and religious hatred, and I feel so bad for people-- not just victims, but aggressors as well (sometimes). The media are perpetuating a very skewed reality, and the only way to inoculate yourself against hate and the kind of prejudices that cause harm is to get to know people. The only way to understand just how different people living right next to each other experience different worlds is to engage with families who are not made up of your own skin color and do not follow the same religion and include members of various sexual orientations and gender identities. I am grateful that I have had these experiences for almost as long as I can remember because I know people are people first, and I know that skin color, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and gender identity make people different, *and that is okay.* I know that we are all in this together, and I know that a powerful few benefit from our failure to realize that.

Wingless Vultures Ride The Current of Death

I smell vulnerability.

My stories are neither new nor uncommon. I know this because between support groups and happenstance, I have heard too many variations of them to say anything but they are all too common.

When someone dies, the wingless vultures, sensing the current, come swooping in to scavenge whatever they can. These people act like they are at some sort of end-of garage sale give-away. The practice, and all that it implies, all the nastiness that comes with it, disgusts me on a visceral level. I have taken the high road on this particular avenue, not because I am some kind of saint, but because I am exhausted; because I know the best thing given to me by those I have lost cannot be taken from me -- the love and memories, the legacy of people themselves. However, when I know the deceased had wishes to be carried out, do not get in my way as I see to exactly that.

When my late husband died, a couple of his out-of-state family members showed up at my house. I had never met them, and that was intentional, as my late husband didn't really want to cut them out of his life completely, but he didn't want them around his wife and children, either. Just to say how close he was with them, my late husband had an entire previous marriage of which they had no knowledge. He traveled for a living, and when he ended up in their area, sometimes he would visit. He always had his dog with him, so these family members knew her, and just as everyone did, loved her. My late husband was killed on his motorcycle when a driver made a left turn directly in front him. I don't think I will ever forget the call I got from one of those family members, pissed that she had not been able to obtain many of his belongings, "If you really loved him, why weren't you with him that day?"

Picked Dry.

 And, as if she had no understanding of the immediate legally binding contract of marriage, "You're living in his house, using his truck, and keeping his dog."

It turned out, they were after his truck and his dog. My late husband had spent years building that truck with a stepson from a previous marriage, one he was still in contact with up until his death. He wanted the stepson to have the truck, and so that is where it went. As for the dog, she came with the man when I married him, and then she quickly became family.

For The Secrets and Untellable Stories

"The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice," (Mark Twain). 

"History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon," (Napoleon).

History is written by the winners, we have heard. However, sometimes it is written by the losers, and I mean that in the pejorative. Some history is never written at all, and that can be due to laws meant to protect the innocent from malicious and damaging accusations, but often insulates those with the most resources or leverage. Some stories are never told, as those involved would rather let them die a quiet death. Despite the romantic notions generally taught as fact to the young and still naive, justice can be illusive; the truth can be believable but not provable and thus rendered useless; and sometimes neither justice nor truth are worth the inevitable injury in the brawl. The universe is not always as clever as Hollywood, writing in that eleventh hour twist that saves the day.

"Mommy's Crying Again": Grieving With Young Children

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My five year old son walked in on me doing the ugly cry. That's the heaving snot-fest, if you've been blessed to never experience it, or just didn't recognize the description.

"Why are you sad?"

"Because my mommy died, and I really miss my mommy."

"You really miss your mommy?"

"Yes."

"That is sad."

He left the room, and I heard him tell my husband, "Mommy's crying again." For a second, I smiled, because he knew his dad had this; in his little mind, dad would make it better.

And Then My Mom Was Gone, Too

Three days ago, my mom passed away. She was the last of my family above me in the tree. Really, she was the last of those I didn't choose. I have no parents or grandparents now. I have biological family out there, and I even interacted with them during her final week, but once everything is done regarding my mother, so are we. The relationships are not worth describing because they are not worth having, and some people will just understand that. Don't come at me with inexperienced rose-colored lenses on that one is all I am saying. It is difficult to explain how alone I feel now although, I do have my children and my husband, all of whom I love dearly.

My daughter nicknamed my mom "O.G." for "original gangster." She also said my mother was a warrior, but she was the sweetest. People who made it into my mother's inner circles adored her, and she was kind to those who did not, but one would never cross a line with her and not know it. When I brought someone new to her house, she would offer the niceties (drink, food), but she would also say she would show them where the kitchen was "one time." In other words, I've accepted you. Act accordingly, and get your own drink. She was assertive and she had a way of putting people in their place with few words and class. My daughter and I will never forget the day Mama shut a woman down with one simple but unambiguous "Okay."

What It Is Like To Live With Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

The following is a compilation of notes and posts I made while in various states of mind. Therefore references to time shouldn't be read as if this was written in a single day.

Occasionally, I read what other people have to say about living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I love them all, I do- every one of those strangers. I don't know that I can describe it myself because I don't know if people can imagine being both betrayed and so aggressively protected by their own brain.

freedigitalphotos.net

PTSD is a demon that hurts me or snuggles me depending on too many factors to list. While we are snuggling, I have the opportunity to explain some lovely features, because it gets kicked around so much, and it deserves it, the demon, but sometimes it's not all that bad. You see, in an emergency situation, having someone with PTSD in your corner is almost always a good thing. Our brains idle so high when there is nothing going on, that when circumstances rise to the level we are already on, it actually calms us down. I suppose I could say it like this: I'm good in an emergency because I am always ready for it and when that rush of adrenaline and other chemicals throws someone else into shock, I'm still good because that state of being and me-- we're old pals.

Of course, the bad part in all of this is idling high all the time taxes my system (heart, lungs, digestive, immune, etc.), but we're not going down that road today. Today we're snuggling, after a 6 day full-on assault. For 6 days, me and my demon have kicked the living shit out of each other. Now, we are exhausted. We are wayyyy too tired to fight anymore. So, we give in to each other. We snuggle, and the demon throws a veil over me, and suddenly, the circumstances hurting me take on such a surreal feeling (dissociation). So while I am good taking care of my son, and I know he is real, and I'm not a danger to myself or anyone else, I feel a slight high, and the hardest conversation I have ever had, with my mom yesterday, doesn't feel real. My demon and I exchange acknowledgment when I say don't mind me for a while. I'm in an episode.

The Fight To Raise Minimum Wage, The Race To Create More Jobs. Actually, We're Just Broke.

There are two things that bother me in the national conversation about working and getting paid. First is the pushback against raising minimum wage, and second is that our answer is to "create more jobs."

The U.S. Department of Labor put out this information on Minimum Wage Mythbusters which is an interesting read, and there are certainly many other sources for information presented to support one side or the other. I am more interested in understanding truth by observing the world I live in, the reality I share with other people. I have heard people complain that millennials are lazy and entitled and should work every bit as hard as the generation before them to reach independence in whatever life they want to create. "Why should it be easier for you? That's not fair!" It's kind of childish, but okay, I get it. When I was 18, I got a job in fast food. It paid barely (cents) above minimum wage. I got an apartment, and it wasn't fancy by any means. No joke, visitors would toss a pebble up to my second-story window to let me know they were there. (Yes, there was a time of no cellphones. It was as rough as you could imagine.) The outer doors of the building were kept locked, not a well calculated security feature. The quick is this: My place wasn't the best or the worst, but it was mine. I wasn't eating steak-- some days I hardly ate at all. I had to save, save, save for new shoes, and my car-- holy shit! I kid you not, I parked on a hill always because sometimes I had to push it, you know, with my hands, to get it rolling so I could jump in the driver's seat and "pop the clutch" to get it started. This is how Americans get initiated, and hey, it builds character. It also builds muscle when you have to force your car to cooperate like that. So yeah, I get it. The problem is this new generation isn't getting the same opportunity I was given to start out on one's own. They actually can't do what we did.

The Mythical Grief

If you have delicate sensibilities, leave now, because there is nothing gentle about grief and I refuse to pretend there is.

Nearly six years ago, I found myself in a support group for young widows. After learning so many of their stories and frustrations, all the while living my own, one thought kept occurring to me: human beings have dealt with grief for as long as human beings have been human beings. How on earth do we not have this down by now? How is it that so many family members and friends and employers and oft visited grocery store clerks have no idea what to do with or say to someone so shattered by a death?

I don't have that answer, but five days before the sixth anniversary of my late husband's death, a friend of mine was killed under circumstances so similar, any description is beyond words-- even for someone who loves to weave them together in their most effective form. I didn't get to grieve only my friend because his death ripped open a still very tender scar, and so many stored away memories oozed into the center of my focus. When my friend's widow posted a raw response to the well-meaning, I felt her pain, her torment, and I felt again my own. I remembered, why? Why? Why don't people understand this?

Let us look over this Mythical Grief, and let us not flinch.

The Letter To My Twenty Year Old Self

Hey You.

Recently, I have seen this question going around the Internet: What would you tell your younger self if you could?  I've thought about it for a while, and at first, I was pretty sure whatever I would say would depend on my mood at the moment. When I let myself imagine it, I imagined I would grin, pat you on the back, and then walk away. I imagined I would sigh, hug you tight, kiss your forehead, and then walk away. It occurred to me that no matter my mood, I always walked away. Why? I wondered more about why I always walked away than I did about the things I would say. Then I realized the best thing you will ever learn to do is find your own way.

I couldn't see myself saying that to you because nothing is going to teach you this lesson, and all that it implies, better than the day when you are made to understand your only other option is to lay down and give up on life and all that it is. You won't choose that, I know, so I don't really have much to say.

But I think seeing me and hearing me speak might make one era or another a little easier if only because even absent of why or how, you know you will survive. So, I think I will say this, something maybe inconsequential to you finding your own way, but something you won't see coming: Some people are going to place your value in your looks, and you are going to know who they are in singular moments, when you realize they like you, maybe even adore you, but they don't even know who you are. You will pay attention to that, as you should, because in exactly this same way, you will also discover those who value you not for you, but for what they believe they can take from you.

You are also going to grow up in a culture that persistently reinforces the idea that your greatest value, sometimes your only value, is in your youthful appearance which will never be good enough not to need something more. You will not know just how much this affects you. In fact, one day, when you catch a glimpse of age in the mirror -- the new lines in your face, the new location of your girls, the way your knees look a little odd, and the way, now, you wave with your entire arm -- the affect it's had on you is going to take you by surprise. Your sincerity is going to make you both a little sad and a little nauseous when you wonder if you are as attractive to your husband as you used to be, and will he love you every bit as much, or better yet more, when he can catch a glimpse of the girl you once were only occasionally in the light in your eyes.

Though it won't last long, or maybe it will come and go, you will go through a phase when you are almost daring him not to notice the new dress, the new hairstyle, or whatever effort you've put forth, and when he fails, you will disappear in a huff to emerge in sweats and a T-shirt. By now, you realize yes, you will always be a little absurd, but don't worry -- you will learn to love it, or to at least maintain a sense of humor about your own foolishness. You will remember it is unfair to them and no good to you to look to others to confirm or deny your own strengths and insecurities. You will remember that your value could be naught but an illusion if it isn't what you have found and cultivated within yourself. One day, when he doesn't know you are watching, you will see him put your needs first in a way you were not sure you could have been so selfless, and you will remember what you value most in others, and especially, that man. You will not only let go of the trivial, but you will embrace age and all that it is. You will even hope to grow very old and very shriveled because as your 42 year old self writes to your 22 year old self, somehow your 82 year old self looks on, knowing those lines around your eyes-- they mean you loved and you lived alive.

I love you, girl.

Us.

For the Love of Prince

Someone at my local store gets it.

And I love this person.

How to Be the Same Breed of Asshole as Any Westboro Baptist Church Member

In the last month, the United States has issued some crazy news stories.  Actually, I suppose that is nothing unfamiliar. Moving on.

June news reported a shooting at a gay nightclub which killed a lot of people and injured more. (I refuse to rate it among all of the others and others and again more other shootings as if it is a fucking goal, Jesus Christ.)

OF COURSE, members of the hideous Westboro Baptist Church showed up in the city of Orlando to protest at funerals. To protest. At funerals. Like cockroaches to crumbs, this group of downright nasty crawls all over very public tragedies to hold up signs blaming homosexuality and all who condone or support it for every death and catastrophe. They also yell. With unseemly wide mouths. At funerals. As close as they can get to them anyway.

AP Photo/John Raoux

Angels of the real kind, members of Per American Theatre, the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, and the Angel Action Wings Project wearing, I must say, creative costumes (with wings designed to block view) showed up to form a wall between the grieving and The Waste Matter of The Westboro Baptist Sphincter. Because decency. Because you do not harass the bereaved. Because you just do not pick up a fistful of glass and shove it into the bleeding, gaping hole in someone else's chest.

... Do you?

There Really is Only One Way to Parent

Kiss My Naked Baby Ass!

I believe I am a bit entitled to a claim of expertise in the area of parenting. I've raised babies in two different generations. How do you do that? Well, you get near the finish line with your oldest; you get so close, you can see it, smell it, almost taste all of the expensive meals on what will be your new Fewer Mouths to Feed Weekly Menu. Then you stop. Then you turn around. Then you walk back to the start line, exactly like a dumbass does it.

Doctor: "The only test that came back positive was the pregnancy test. Congratulations, you're pregnant."

Dumbass: "No, I'm not. "

Doctor: "Yes, you are."

Dumbass: "My youngest is almost 15 years old!"

Doctor: "Very cool. You are still pregnant."

I should tell you, I am so in love with that little guy. You get what I'm saying, though.

Religion and Women: The Short Straw

All attempts not to generalize aside, women tend to get the shaft in major religions. I don't think it is too complicated -- in an of course kind of way.  Any consideration of a creator demands examination of how women experience life.

This Is Not But A Test.

Testing! Testing!

This is a test post. This is only a test post. Do not panic.

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