Don't Tell Me Not To Be Afraid (11/14/16)

We have set the clock back hundreds of years this time around. Anyone who disagrees has not yet realized the full impact of their decision. They ignored all of the warning signs. They ignored the racist and bigoted remarks. They ignored the misogynistic remarks. They ignored the call for violence against those who disagree at rallies. They ignored the blatant ignorance of the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, yet they are against the very notion of amending either to exclude the electoral college which is responsible for the election of not just this pussy-grabbing tyrant, but the election of others who should also never have been in office. How can we call this a democracy when the popular vote, the voice of the citizens, is largely ignored time and time again? I have heard the arguments in favor of this elected person whom I will never refer to as my President or Commander in Chief. None of these arguments is as strong as the reasons he should never have been given this opportunity. When all is said and done, his erratic and immature behavior, and his inability to properly run a business let alone a country, will have grabbed us all by the pussy, even if we don’t have one, and raped us with utmost violence.

Perhaps these people feel that this rhetoric does not apply to them. Perhaps they are completely blind to the hate crimes and violence that has already begun to take place since the election and which actually began months before. Perhaps they figure that it will be like the 1950s when it was just certain groups of people, whose power for retaliation was severely limited at the time, that were being targeted, not them. Perhaps they wish to go back even further to the time when it was legal to hold slaves. We still have slavery, and many of those slaves are women. If you are a woman, or have a mother, a sister, a girlfriend, a wife…this applies to you.

I left Facebook four days ago because I just could not handle the plethora of stories about Blacks, Mexicans and Muslims being targeted and women being quite literally grabbed by the pussy by boys who, thanks to Trump, consider this to now be acceptable behavior. I stopped watching the news. Yet, despite this, I am still aware of what is going on in the world. You would have to lock yourself in a closet to be completely oblivious. So, assuming that these Trump supporters have not locked themselves in a closet, they are not oblivious to the things that he said or the ways in which he is ill-suited for the office of President. They have just chosen to ignore all of the above in favor of what they perceive will be different or better about this person. They tell me to not be afraid of what I “think” will happen. I say to them, I am afraid of what is already happening.

I used to enjoy the advantage of a white-privilege bubble; not because I am white, but because I look white. Women used to enjoy the advantage of living in a world where it was still largely frowned upon to hit or be violent towards women. I am not so dumb as to believe that violence toward women never happened – I know it did – I have experienced it – but it was not socially acceptable. Now it is. Trump has legitimized it in much the same way he has legitimized racism and bigotry. I was attacked at a bank by a white male who felt it was fine to just cut in front of me in line, nearly taking off my front bumper in the process. I was somehow out of line for honking at him and flipping him off. His thinking: I am a white male in a big truck and I am entitled to do whatever the hell I want. My thinking: you entitled piece of shit. His words: “I don’t care if you are a woman. That doesn’t mean shit to me.” You, your wife, your mother, your sister don’t mean shit to people like this. I had a knife on me this day, but it was buried in my purse somewhere. It can’t protect me against angry white men buried in my purse somewhere. I have carried my knife on my person every day since.

Just about every day, at some point during the day, I can be seen in public with a Mexican at my side. I will not change this, not even now. I want him there. He has every right to be there and I have every right to be with whomever I want. We get dirty looks. We experience people walking away from us because they don’t want to be near him. He hears a lot of stupid comments by ignorant people. He has recently been stalked by a group of people meaning to do him harm. I was told by a former co-worker that I should stick to my own race and age group. He was shocked when I told him I did. I am so white that I am vitamin D deficient and probably should spend a little more time in the sun. My father . . . my biological father . . . is even darker skinned than him and many of my extended family are different shades of brown. I fear for the safety of every single one of them.

Right now the White House, the Senate and the House are ruled by Republicans, many of which have legitimized a climate of white supremacy. These white supremacists have a rude awakening coming. Right now they feel legitimized. Right now they feel safe. The time will come however, when those groups of people they seek to oppress (persons of color, the LGBTQ community, women) will rise up and strike back. Do not mistake my warning for advocacy. This is the reality of the situation. They will strike back and then NO ONE will be safe. The only way to change this is to be part of the solution and not part of the problem. We cannot continue to legitimize a social climate of hate. We need to stand up against those people who embrace hatred and let them know that it will not be tolerated. Hold each other accountable. In the meantime, while we seek to reverse this massive setback in our progress, stay vigilant, be safe, defend yourselves and one another and love deeply.

A New Perspective on Mistakes

Everyone makes mistakes. This is a given. Hopefully we learn from some of them. A thought that came to mind today, and which has surfaced a few times in the past, is that sometimes we’re not the only ones learning from our mistakes.

My kids do not sit back on the hind legs of their chairs. Really, you ask? No, because I told them about the time I did that in the kitchen and fell over backwards, hitting my head on the refrigerator. I also told them about a girl at a school where I once taught who had a fortunately hilarious experience falling backward out of a chair. They are also cautious around the stove and do not play with matches. I have stories about that too.

My girls are still virgins. They are waiting until they are older; not because of any religious reason, but because I taught them to have respect for themselves and be selective of their partners. Choose people who respect you too. Be careful. Be responsible. Wait until you’ve lived your life a little before you have children. Finish your education and make a life for yourself first.

I finished high school, but I got married and had children before I finished college. I was too young. Now I am divorced, have more student debt than I would have had if I had stayed in school and I probably struggle more than I would have if I had waited.

As a result, my oldest doesn’t want to get married at all. She wants to be a doctor and boys and kids will get in the way, she says. My other teenage daughter is going to at least wait until she finishes high school and figures out what she wants to do with her life. My son thinks he’s going to stay at home forever I think. He has a bad case of Peter Pan Syndrome. Thankfully, he has some time.

Experience is a good teacher. I have no desire to ever remarry and my kids are at best cautious about moving too fast in that direction. As I tell them often, there is plenty of time for those things. Be you first.

My mistakes creep up often and sometimes bite me. Up until this point, this blog had been written earlier in the day and, in my opinion, had a positive tone. My evening was not so positive. Rather, it was filled with sadness, regret and a general dedication to kicking myself for my mistakes and a strong desire to escape from it all. We can’t do anything about our mistakes, other than accept them, try to learn from them, hope maybe our kids will learn from them and move on. I guess the Serenity Prayer is most apt in these situations, whether we actually pray or not: Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. 

What About Me?

Well, it has been a week and a half since my brother said he would give me money to help with groceries and buying things for my parents to eat for lunch. It has been two weeks since their caregiver has been paid. It has been three months since I had a single day in which I was not responsible for taking care of my parents. My birthday is in a week and one day and the original plan was to go to Santa Barbara, but I cannot afford to do what I would like to do because all of my resources have gone into caring for my three children and my two parents all by myself.

Meanwhile, my brother is living it up on the river, riding a boat, enjoying some R&R. Must be nice.

This is the type of thing that breaks families apart. When you have parents that need constant care as ours do, it is the responsibility of all of the kids to pitch in and see to it that their needs are met. After all, assuming that once had halfway decent parents, they did the same for us at one point. The entire responsibility should not fall upon one person, particularly when that one person is a single mother of three. My brother is not being fair in this matter.

I plan to go to Los Angeles next weekend instead. Santa Barbara has not been cancelled; only postponed. To be fair, I have gone to Santa Barbara for the past three years running. Missing it this year is not the end of the world, and I do like Los Angeles, particularly Little Tokyo and the Arts District. I will have fun there. He will not ruin this for me. I will cut him (j/k).

Follow Your Passion

Back in high school, my dream was to be a professional musician or actress – though I preferred stage work to film. Being an A-List actress is the dream of many, and while this would probably be nice, I would have been on the moon with being a Broadway actress or content as a stage or off-Broadway actress. Being a professional musician would be even better and being both a professional musician and a stage actress would be perfection. I even had Berklee College of Music interested in having me come check out their school. I was so tempted . . . yet, in the end, I decided that I probably would spend the rest of my life hoping for some big break and I would be the quintessential starving artist. I decided to get a B.A. in English and go to law school instead.

This back-up plan might have actually worked, had I actually followed through with it. Instead, however, I decided after a few years of college that I wanted to have a family. This plan works for some too, but not for me apparently. I have my family – and I find myself taking care of this family all by myself because now I’m divorced, like so many others. Except that I didn’t get to take the house, because there wasn’t one to take. I didn’t get to sue him for alimony because I was the so-called breadwinner by virtue of the fact that I was the ONLY breadwinner half of the time. After a while, having a family wasn’t enough; I wanted to finish my education. I was hoping that things would be better if I had more education, except what does one do with an English degree? Whether I would have pursued law school like I had originally planned, or pursued a Master’s degree so I could become a professor (which is the route I chose), or pursued a teaching credential to teach high school English, I still would have been in student debt. I would have had considerably less student debt had I pursued music and / or theater. And maybe, just maybe, that pursuit would have taken me far away from having ever met my ex-husband.

I know my life would be different had that happened. I know that I wouldn’t have my kids, or I’d have different kids. I know I might have still ended up divorced or whatever. My IQ test and my degrees indicate that I am intelligent. When I look at the fact that I will be paying off my student loans for the rest of my life for an education that I am not currently even using to work at a dead-end job, I don’t feel so smart. When I was working as what I went to school for (a professor), I was even worse off. I at least have some of my debts paid off now and a little bit of money in the bank. I am in a better position now than I was four years ago when my ex-husband and I split up. I have to keep reminding myself of that. Things have improved and things can improve still. I may not like my current situation, but it’s better than it was and someone has to be here for my parents.

Additionally, my life is not over yet. I can still do music, even if it never plays on the radio or wins a Grammy. I can still do theater someday. Someday the cares of today will no longer be what troubles me or the excuse that I have for not having time. Someday I will look back on this day just as I am now looking back on my decision in high school to not pursue music or theater and think, “Why the hell not? What truly did you have to lose? Is your life truly better now because you chose the more noble path? Was it indeed a more noble path?” The longer I live, the more I regret not following my passion into whatever abyss it was going to lead me to. I am glad that I have a degree in English. I enjoyed my time as a teacher and a professor. Now I need to find a way to merge that which I am passionate about with that which I have been trained to do. Wish me luck.

A Lesson I Should Have Learned A Long Time Ago

So, yesterday I wrote on my other blog "When Parents Grow Old and Get Crazy" about the struggle of having enough money to take care of six of us (three children, two parents and myself). Money is going to be even tighter now. After two years of waiting and hoping, it seemed like my place of employment was finally going to bring me on full-time and give me benefits. Just yesterday, they pretty much said they would by giving me information on their insurance programs. They have had me working full-time hours for quite a while now, but have once again decided to screw me over and cut my hours. This is not the first time, and I have reason to be confident it will only be the last time if I make it the last time. They owe me a raise. They owe me a full-time position. They owe me benefits. They owe me a reasonable, logical explanation as to why they keep passing me over. I feel like I have been abused and taken advantage of and if I were to choose to sue, I might have a case.

I have worked very hard for them; harder, in my opinion, than almost all of the admins in the company. I offer to do any work that needs to be done or learn new tasks. I take the places of people who leave or are absent. I do good work and I make very few mistakes. If I do make a mistake, I own it and fix it. I have even come to work and did my best when I was terribly ill. I am almost never late. I almost never call in sick. I have never taken a vacation. Until recently, when I read the employee handbook, I didn't even know I was entitled to one because I was always part-time status, even when they had me working full-time hours. I have never been given a raise in the two years I have been here. I almost never complain, and when I do, it is always professionally. Also, I am the lowest paid employee in the entire office.

Despite all this, I am also the most educated person in the entire office. I almost feel stupid admitting that because I should be smart enough not to take this abuse again.

I had a job once before, working for the County of Riverside, in which I tried my hardest, came to work after falling down the stairs and hurting myself pretty badly, stressed myself out immensely for this job, and still lost it. Why do I push myself so hard for employers that will never appreciate it? Apparently the company I work for now likes people who shop online and text most of the day, who do sub-par work and are of average to below average intelligence. We even have an admin who thought Indonesia was in Japan and didn't know the Navy was a branch of the military. The VP's son, who makes a lot more than me doing work I could easily do, cannot spell and has minimal education. That's OK though; he's the VP's son.

So, the lesson here is take a giant dose of "fuck it all" every day. Realize that people will never appreciate what you do for them and no employer will ever value you as much as they should. Call in sick when you need to. Take vacations, even if it's just sitting at home playing X-Box. Do your work while you're there, Do your best. But never kill yourself in the process. No one will ever be worth it.

Shirking Parental Responsibilities

Parents these days often shirk responsibility. They are so quick to blame everyone but themselves for everything that goes wrong or they perceive to be wrong. They blame the school or the teacher because their child is failing or not learning. They boycott Target because they are inclusive instead of being narrow-minded bigots. If you are worried about your child's education, supplement their learning yourself. If you are worried about something happening to them in a Target restroom, accompany them to the restroom yourself. Personally, I am more worried about my kids encountering these irresponsible bigots than I am them encountering a transgender person.

The truth of the matter is that this has nothing to do with an actual fear of something happening to your child. It is a homophobic fear on your part and a desire to press your agenda on everyone else. It is not the school's or teacher's responsibility to teach your children everything. It is your responsibility to make sure they attend school, that they behave appropriately while there, that they respect their instructors, that they do their homework and that you supplement their education with what you feel they should know. Likewise, it is not Target's responsibility to supervise your children in their restroom or to push your socially intolerant agenda. This isn't about you being stripped of your rights. It's about you attempting to strip others of their rights. Get off your high horse! Shop at Target or don't. I, and many others like me, will appreciate not having to wait behind you in line.

Relaunch

I get many book ideas. Sometimes I even start these books. I might write a few chapters, and my brain might “write” a few more, perhaps even the ending, that never actually makes it out of my brain and into writing. I haven’t published anything in quite a while. I used to be very prolific. I used to actually transform thoughts into actions and share my work with people, be it music or poetry or academic writing. To a large degree, being in the wrong types of relationships with the wrong types of people has silenced me for many years, almost completely silencing my music, muffling my muse and giving way to a phantom academic at best. Academic writing was a welcome addition to my writing abilities, but while I wish to continue to nurture this ability, I also wish to revive my muse and start making some beautiful noise again.

I have invited my muse to come live inside my head again, and we have begun making some beautiful noise together and doing a little bit of creative writing. I have also begun to get rid of some of the garbage that has been holding me back. I am surrounding myself with people who inspire me and who do not let me get away with making excuses, which brings me to the purpose of this two-paragraph preface. Another book idea entered my brain today and immediately the other side of my brain, which I often referred to as the practical side, shot it down with: “How many books are you going to start that you never finish?” “How many book ideas can you possibly entertain at once?” “When are you ever going to have time for that?” “Don’t you think you should finish your last piece of academic writing first?”

My muse has apparently been taking lessons from my almost constant companion who generally discourages excuse making, offers solutions to obstacles and who often channels Yoda by saying “Do or do not, there is no try”. She retorted: “No excuses! This must be written! This is important! And yes, she needs to finish writing all of those things and she will and this is how. Blog it. Write it. Edit it. Commit to doing at least one of these each day, even if just a little. Write! Other people share these same experiences and they need to know they’re not alone. You need to know you’re not alone. Write. Throw on your proverbial Nike’s and “Just Do It!” ®

Do what, you ask. Write about what? Everything. But, in the process of trying to relaunch into writing this blog again, I accidentally opened up a new blog, which launched another brainchild. Create a different blog for each topic. So, without further adieu, may I introduce you to my newest book idea about to get its own blog: When Parents Grow Old and Get Crazy.