Annoying Agnes: The Story of One Old Lady

Not Agnes, but the expression is relevant

When she was a little girl, her older brothers teasingly called her "Agga Bag-a Turnip Seed”. She didn't like it one bit. She knew they loved her, but she was the only girl and the youngest child in her family which meant they could pretty much call her whatever they wanted.


Hers was a family that worked. In the huge cotton fields of South Carolina, even as a child, she ended up spending many of her days in the sun working (mostly playing) along-side her brothers. She was a cheerful little girl who dreamed of becoming a mother as she played with her dolls and pretended to keep house.


 When her own mother passed away, Agnes, who was only 9 or 10 as she recounted the story to me, was lost. Her father had no idea how to raise a girl and soon remarried. I'm not sure Agnes ever realized that, most likely, her father remarried just to have a woman around to raise her. Agnes and her new mother got along very well. Back in "her day", people didn't believe in taking time to grieve. There was too much work to be done and too much life to be lived.


By the time my path crossed hers, Agnes was 80 years old. She had always been an independent kind of woman. She raised her daughters single-handedly after her husband passed away. She lived alone in her own house, still drove her car, got her nails done every other week and did her own grocery shopping. The problem was, one day she suddenly got the news from her knees, that they were tired of holding her up. She had a series of tumbles and the last one left her with a broken hip. That's why she and I met.


 I think it was a spring day when I went bouncing into the rec room at the nursing home where I worked and found a very unpleasant lady in a geriatric recliner trying with all her might to get up. I had no idea who she was but I knew right away that she was angry. "Git me outta this thang!" She hollered. "I wanna go home! They beatin' me up in this place!"

I was still quite green when it came to handling situations like this with the elderly. I knew the nurses had strategically placed her in that room so I could keep her distracted from her anxiety about being away from home and not being able to get out of that chair. Up until that point, the most difficult elder I had ever worked with was a lady at another nursing home who used to yell obscenities at passers-by. It was easy to distract that lady, but this one I knew was going to be a challenge. I had been in the room 5 minutes and already I was feeling annoyed by this woman. I stood for a moment just observing her, listening to her wild ranting, venomous anger and absurd accusations. The accusations were, for the most part, directed at a Certified Nursing Assistant named David. David was a tall, big guy with a heart of gold. All the other residents on that floor absolutely thought of him as one of their best friends. Some of the ladies admitted that, at first, it was awkward having a man help them with their personal hygiene, especially a black man. But in the end, the finally learned something they hadn't known their entire lives: Black people are just as human, and just as "normal" as anyone else.


 People born in 1912, like Agnes, were raised by parents who still harbored fear and  even hatred for African Americans. Human-kind has always feared what isn't familiar to it. Many of our elderly folks today were raised by parents who taught them that black people were dirty, prone to raping white women and likely to steal. So with that belief system still in place, although perhaps not as strongly as it had once been in her mind, Agnes was completely terrified when David came to her room to help her to the restroom in the middle of the night.


 The nurse filled me in on the details about Agnes' run-in with David, and I went and pulled up a chair beside Agnes. I touched her hand. "Don't touch me girl!" she spat at me.

 "Okay," I said. "I won’t touch you. I was wondering if you and I could talk."

 "What would I have to talk to you about? Unless, you can take me home I ain't talking to you or nobody else!"

 "Wow, I'm sorry to hear that," I responded. "I was really hoping you could tell me what you are so upset about and see if maybe I could do something to make you feel better."

 "Well ain't you sweet," she came back at me, with the most charming southern sing-songy sarcasm I'd ever heard.

 "I try to be sweet, but sometimes I'm mean."

 "Y’all are all mean in this place. I got raped by a black man last night and nobody in this place even cares!' At that point I started to feel panic setting in to my own bones. I knew she was afraid of David, but rape?

 "Oh, my goodness! Are you going to be okay? Who raped you?"

 "That black man, I told you! There he goes right now! Don’t let him near me!" She pointed at David as he, embarrassed, shot by the door as quickly as he could.

 "Why do you think you were raped, Agnes?" "Look at all these bruises on me! Why else would I be so bruised up? I'm an old lady, who would want to have sex with me? He's just nasty!"

 Of course, her bruises were from the fall she took, wherein she broke her hip and ended up at the nursing home in a geriatric recliner. Turns out, the pain medication Agnes was taking was making her kind of delusional. She thought she could get up and walk around with a broken hip, and she was convinced that David had raped her and left her covered in bruises. Every day, day after day, I walked into my work-space and found Agnes sitting there looking angry and vengeful. She eventually came to love David, but she wouldn't admit it. She always griped to me about wanting to go home to her "perfectly good house." She wouldn't listen when I tried to kindly reason with her. In my foolishness, I tried lying to her by telling her that she'd get better and go home soon. I knew, though, that she was never going back home. She knew it too. She might have been old and confused at times, but there was no pulling the wool over her eyes. She was angry at us at first, and then her anger turned towards her children. One morning, as I was listening to the thousandth speech about why her children were evil for taking her away from home, I dropped my pencil and looked Agnes straight in the eye. "I'm tired of your complaining." I said.

 Without missing a beat she said, "Well I'm tired-a you wearing them stupid lookin' boots all the time."

 "I'm tired of you acting like I broke your hip" I said back.

 "Well that's just bullshit" She answered. "I broke my own hip doin' something I shouldn'ta been doin' in the first place."

 "Tell me about that," I said. She sat there with me and told me the whole story about the morning she fell in the kitchen and broke her hip. About the EMS people coming and about her daughter taking care of her at the hospital, and about thinking she was going home when they brought her straight from the hospital to the nursing home.

 "Wow! I can see why you are so angry." I said when she finished. "I think I'd be angry too." 


"Angry? I ain't angry" she said without making eye contact. Her normal harsh tone had disappeared as she finally sat in silence, looking out the window and picking at her fingernails. I left her with her thoughts for a while as I worked. Eventually she dozed off there beside me. On some kind of level, Agnes and I had bonded. For whatever reason, she was starting to feel safe with me and that made me feel amazingly good. I realized that day, that Agnes was a tough, independent spirited person. She didn't want to be placated or patronized, and that was what everyone around her, including me, was doing. She was an annoying old lady that everyone wanted to dismiss. Everyone who came into contact with her immediately started looking for an escape. They didn't want her to know how much they disliked her for her meanness, so they tried to say to her what they thought she wanted to hear, when all along she just wanted some honesty.


 For weeks after that, Agnes would come sit with me and we would talk about her house, her late husband, her children, and the garden she used to have at home. We even talked about her sadness about never being able to go back there. She was softening, and we were becoming friends. After a while, her true colors started to shine as she would make jokes (sometimes off-colored ones) and get into silly rants about the decor of the building or the behavior of another resident. Annoying ol' Agnes became one of our most beloved residents. She and the nurse bonded well with a relationship based on honesty and an absence of pretense. If you heard Agnes and me having a conversation, you might have thought we were arguing or angry at one another but we weren't. We were always honest with one another, and sometimes we didn't agree. For instance, I thought my boots were great.


Eventually I called her Agga Bagga, and she called me Rebecker. She came looking for me every morning and hung out with her nurse at the nurses' station every afternoon--cracking jokes about people walking by and telling Donna how to be a better nurse. Agnes always had handy advice to give out whether we wanted it or not. I recall one day when a CNA was talking about her boyfriend not proposing. Agnes very matter-of-factly told her, "Git yerself pregnant, then he'll marry you." One day she was looking through catalogues with me and we ran across a page of women's lingerie. "Oh you need to git some of this stuff, Rebecker. I bet your feller wouldn't know what to do if he saw you in that!"

 "Yes he would." I answered. And Agnes proceeded to giggle like a school girl.


Today when I was looking at my blog stats, something stood out to me. Since the tongue in cheek post I wrote titled, "The 10 Most Annoying Things About the Elderly" It has gotten more page views than any other post. So I did some digging, and found out the three search terms that bring up that post. And they are: "Why are old people so annoying?" "Annoying old people" and "Are old people annoying?" Turns out, on Yahoo answers, there are several "annoying old people" questions and rants from the youngsters about how old people are unnecessary, annoying and smelly. There are lots of comments about weak old men and slow old ladies and how irritating they are to be around because they're always telling stories about the war, etc. It made me kind of sad seeing that there are so many people out there who completely deny the elderly the human dignity and respect they deserve. They've done more living and more sacrificing than any of us have done. Whatever we are going through now, they've already been through it, often without the resources we have today. Yet they are still fascinated with what's new in the world. They want to know more, and they want to be validated as human beings who did the hard work it takes to even get old.


 After I left the nursing home and went to work for hospice, Agnes would call me up every afternoon from the nurses' desk to see how I was doing and tell me she missed me. I looked forward to hearing her voice every day. However, as her health declined, the calls were fewer and further between until she finally stopped calling. Her nurse kept me up to date on her condition and I went by to see her whenever I could. The last time I saw her, Agga Bagga was lying in bed. She was polite and very happy to have a visitor, but she didn't recognize me anymore. I was saddened by the loss of our camaraderie, but happy to see her anyway.


 A couple of nights later, I had a dream about Agnes. She was lying on the floor of a dark room and I was sitting beside her. I asked her if she was afraid and she said no. She told me she was ready to go see James. James was her late husband. I sat and held her hand in the dream and she told me she just wanted to say goodbye to me before she left. She told me she was ready over and over again and told me it wouldn't be long and not to worry about her. I shook my head and kind of laughed it off the next morning. I figured my recent visit and Agnes' memory loss had induced the dream. That could have been it, but I'll never quite be sure.


 Later that day at work, I got a phone call from the nursing home. It was Donna, Agnes' nurse. She told me that Agnes had just passed away a few minutes before she called. I told her about my dream and she insisted that I come by the nursing home. I left work and went over. Donna met me in the hallway outside Agnes' room and told me that just before she died, Agnes looked at her and said, "I'm ready. I'm ready to go see James. Don't worry about me, I'm ready." Donna and I both had goose bumps.


 This lady, this mean, annoying old lady that made my days so difficult for weeks and weeks, turned out to be one of the most influential people in my life. We forged a deep connection just by being honest with one another. Sure, sometimes we disagreed about things and sometimes we had to tell each other painful truths but beyond all that, we learned to love and appreciate one another just as we were. That angry, bruised up old lady with a broken hip--yeah, she was annoying. But she was also hurting and in need of someone to meet her where she was. When I was able to finally do that, her load became lighter and her last year became brighter and happier. She died in a place where she was so loved and she has been missed ever since she left us. I'm not claiming any kind of special powers with the elderly. I didn't know what I was doing with Agnes, I just kept trying until something worked and she taught me that starting with honesty and sincerity is the best way to reach someone's heart. I'm so blessed to have had her in my life for a little while.


The next time you meet an elder who is annoying or mean or whatever, stop yourself from rolling your eyes and giving that exasperated sigh. Think for a second about your own troubles and remind yourself that the elder you see has probably been where you are and made it out. That elder that you're so quick to judge as worthless and irritating is still battling problems and worries and he or she has never given up on the fight. Be proud of them, be honest with them, respect them and try not to patronize them. The world wouldn't exist as it does if they hadn't been here to shape it for you. Stop before you judge and hold your tongue. Trust me; elders get sick of annoying young people too.

I Don't Like Sweet Tea

Yesterday morning someone posted some maps on Facebook that showed how awful it is to live in the South.  The caption said I should be outraged by what I saw, but I wasn't.  It did make me think about moving to the Midwest though, because it seems like (based solely on these maps) that's the best place to live in the United States.

Here's a link to those maps, by the way :
Maps That Show How Awful The South Is.

Now, I could go into how depressing some of this information really is, especially economically, but we who live here already know how dismal our economy is.  When I made a comment on the maps yesterday a friend of mine made a comment back about Southern stereotypes.  That got me thinking about all the things I've had Northerners try to educate me on about the South over the years.

Speaking of maps...This one demonstrates not only variations of the Southern accent, but different accents across the country.  Too bad even they got the South wrong....We don't speak Coastal Southern in the whole state of SC.
  Go Here to read more about this study.

In sixth grade my best friend was Judy.  Judy was from Florida, technically the South, although you don't find many people there who would classify as Southern.  In fact when Judy and her family moved to SC, they were a little worried that they wouldn't be able to understand "the language".  Seriously, Judy thought that we spoke a whole different language here.  While our Southern dialect is different from what you'd here in other parts of the country, it is still English.  We don't all use bad grammar when we speak and we don't all have the same Southern sound.  A lot of people don't realize that people in the South Carolina Low  Country speak with a different kind of Southern accent than those of us who live in the mountains or piedmont.  People in Louisiana have a different accent than people in Georgia and  in the accents of West Virginians sound like an exaggerated form of the Tennessee mountain accent.

I had someone tell me once, "Southern people talk slow."  I never really thought about us being slow before then but after that, I started paying attention.  We don't talk any slower than anyone else.  We even sometimes shorten words to the point that they might not sound like English to the untrained ear.  One such word that comes to mind is the word "ruined."  I remember the first time I heard that word pronounced correctly.  I thought it sounded ridiculous.  Here in the South, a lot of us say "rurnt."  See, much quicker to say.  It's not at all that we talk a lot slower than other people, it's just that some of us put extra syllables in some words.  Like someone named "Joy" might get called "Joey" and words like "Catholicism" might be pronounced "CATH-olicism."  Incidentally, saying anything Catholic-related might also make you go to Hell--if you're a Southerner.

Here's one that's true.  We are a religiously protestant and  opinionated bunch of states.  I don't know who came up with The Bible Belt description of our fair lands but I don't like it.  It makes one conjure up an image of fat Southern Baptist preachers walking around red-faced, hollering at

"We can't wait to slap y'all upside the head with this Bible!"

everyone and whacking them upside the head with a king sized King James Bible.  Anyone who knows a few Southerners knows that for the most part, we are a passive-aggressive bunch who would rather silently judge you for your sins and discuss your iniquities with our "fellow believers" than call you out on them.  Yep, most Southerners are Republican and conservative, but certainly not all of us.  Likewise, we aren't all Bible thumpers, running around street-preaching and trying to cast people into Hell with our bare hands. Our beliefs are important to us and we tend to cling to what we believe worked for our families in the past.  It just so happens that many of us think that if it works for us it should work for you too.  It's not out of hate that Southerners want to change your opinion of all things God.  Most of the time it's out of a genuine concern for your immortal soul.  Think about it, if you believed sincerely that anyone who did not believe in Jesus was going to be cast into a lake of eternal fire and it was YOUR responsibility to try to convince them to believe so they wouldn't be tortured for eternity, wouldn't you be pretty emphatic?

Not your average Southerner

Once I dated a guy from Michigan.  His family moved to Georgia when he was a freshman in college.  He was devastated by the move and really worried about driving in Georgia where there were no paved roads and the bridges were always out.  He obviously had never taken a ride down I-85 through Atlanta.  His whole perception of the South came from The Dukes of Hazzard, which by the time he was a freshman in college was already a show from the past that none of us could believe we watched in the first place.  That's one problem we have down here:  Everyone gets their ideas about who we are from TV that is made by directors, producers and actors that have never stepped foot in the home of a Southerner.  Don't get me wrong, I love watching My Name Is Earl.  It's hilarious, but really aren't there people all over our country who live like Earl and Randy?  The difference is their accents, people who live in trailer parks in Ohio sound more nasally than people who live in trailer parks in Alabama.  They're poor, some of them practice very poor judgment, some are criminals, and some are just regular folk doing the best they can to get by.




Waterbeds?  I don't know where this one comes from, unless it is from My Name is Earl, but I don't know any Southerner that owns a waterbed.  At least not anymore.  I admit though, that at one time in my life I lived in a trailer and slept on a waterbed.  So sue me.

If I had a nickel for every time some Northerner raised her eyebrows at me when I order UNSWEET tea for lunch, I'd be rich enough to buy my own F150 complete with towing package and a bass boat.  "Unsweet tea?" They exclaim. "You're a Southerner, you're supposed to drink sweet tea!"  Thanks for the tip on how to be "Southern" but there aren't really strict rules we have to follow.  We live in the South together, but we are still individuals--just like you Yanks.  According to some, I am supposed to be dumb, drive a truck, eat turnip greens, cornbread and fried chicken or bacon and grits at least once a day. I'm supposed to live in a trailer, be fat, date my cousin, have 6 kids with at least 5 different dads, go to church 4 times a week, whack people on the head with my Bible, hide moonshine under the floorboards and bury my money in the back yard in a mason jar because "Southerners don't trust banks."  Also, I am supposed to get my water from a well, walk around barefoot all the time and I really shouldn't have indoor plumbing.  Most of all, and I can't stress this enough, I am supposed to be dumb.  Stupid.  Ignorant.  Idiotic. Uneducated.  Foolish.  An imbecile with big hair and blue eye shadow who smokes and drinks beer for breakfast.

Don't let me forget that I am also supposed to be a racist, gun-totin' homophobe.  I really need to work harder on those things if I want to keep being card-carrying Southerner.  I really like people.  Any kind of people.  It doesn't matter one bit to me if you're black, white, purple or green.  Just so long as you're not a Clemson fan.  I have never owned or shot a gun and I'm most definitely NOT afraid of gay people.

On the other hand, this guy scares me.

 I hate to shatter your preconceived ideas about Southerners, but here's the cold hard truth:  We don't all do what you think we are supposed to do in order to qualify as a true Southerner.  Maybe I am supposed to drink sweet tea, but I don't like it. Perhaps the gene of a Yankee somehow made it into my family's bloodline and I got stuck with the non-sweet tea-liking taste buds.  Who knows?  We really don't need to have such a hard line drawn between North and South anymore, do we?  I mean, don't we all have a lot in common despite where our homes fall on the map?

I think we do, and I think Southerners are great people.  They are strong, determined, faithful, intelligent and witty folks.  Southerners don't tolerate foolishness very well, we don't drive as fast as they do up North, and we are totally thrilled when it snows.  We know how to cook, and we know how to eat some good freaking food.  Some of us like fat-back in our green beans or collard greens, and some of us don't like green beans or collards at all.  We are just people like everyone else.  We love our country and we love where we live for many reasons that you can only understand if you come live here with us for a while.

But when you do come on down for a spell, try not to advise us on how to be Southerners.  Let me enjoy my unsweet tea in peace.  Otherwise, the other part of my Southernness might pop up, and although you may not understand what I'm saying to you, you'll get the message. I am a Southerner  AND I do not like sweet tea.

No Sugar, Please

Saving Time

Having a serious disease really changes a person's perspective.  Especially when it comes to time.

A lot of people are thinking about time today, the first day of daylight savings time for 2014.  In fact,  I have heard so many complaints about that lost hour that I finally stopped engaging people with, "I know, it really sucks." And just smiled and nodded instead.

It is one hour.  An hour of sleep no less.  It isn't as if you're missing out on an hour at your kids birthday party, or your wedding got cut short by an hour.  It's not like something has really been taken away from you at all.  It's an hour that will still come and go as usual, but with a different number to symbolize it.  12:00 pm, 1:00 pm, what's the big deal?

I understand the importance of sleep.  I really do, because if I don't sleep, I'm not myself.  I make silly mistakes and I don't comprehend much of what is going on around me.  Because of my disease, I have spent countless nights without sleep--much more than just an hour.  So pardon me if hearing you whine about losing ONE HOUR of sleep kind of irks me a little.

Time is something you really can't save.  You can't hoard it away and keep it handy to spend however you deem fit when the day comes that life makes no demands of you.  You can do things you do like to do a little quicker, but no matter what, time is ticking away and there's nothing you can do to stockpile it for later use.  You know the old cliche, "There's no time like the present?"  Well, it's a cliche because it's true.  The present is really all there is.

I'm not saying we shouldn't have goals and dreams.  It is only human and quite natural, by our design to look to our future and think about what we want to accomplish.  But if that's all we ever think about, we are wasting now.

Time can't be saved, but it can be wasted.  This is the bare bones of what having a life-threatening disease has taught me.  It's both a good and a bad thing.  It's good because it drives me to try to make my days count, even if in thee tiniest of ways.  It's bad because I, too often, beat myself up for not making my days count enough. I give myself grief over wasting time in the past, on people who didn't want or deserve my time anyway, and on pursuits that, from the beginning were wrong for me.  Then I start telling myself that I am not good at budgeting my time, that I don't value myself enough to make wise choices about whom and what I give my time to.  I start to think I can't trust myself to make good decisions and then I get paralyzed by the fear of making another mistake--wasting more of my time--squandering a resource I can never replace.

I spend a ton of time lately, just staying alive.  This dialysis at home stuff is no joke.  People see me out and about and they'd never guess there's a tube in my belly, or that I sleep hooked up to a machine every night.  They don't know how long it takes me to get ready for bed because of that machine, or how long it takes every morning to disconnect from it, throw out all the garbage it produces and then go about my day.  I lose more than an hour a day, just staying alive.  I don't consider it time wasted, but it would definitely be much more fun if I could spend it another way.

That brings me to another thing I've learned from having a serious illness.  People complain about the silliest things.  I hear them moan and groan about so many things they can't change, instead of accepting what can't be changed and concentrating on what they can actually control.  I hear them whine about "problems" that aren't really problems at all.  I realize we all have daily irritations that get in the way of our sunny outlook on life, but really, before you complain to some single mom who is getting by on the tightest budget imaginable about not having enough time or money to get your nails done this week, think about it.  And then keep your mouth shut.

If you have love to come home to every day, pleasant people to interact with in your life, children, extended family, or even just a few great friends, you have plenty of time-worthy endeavors to explore in your life.  Instead of lamenting a lost hour of sleep, you could choose to be thankful for the time you have to give of yourself to those you love.

Those of us with serious illnesses are reminded all too often that life is short.  Time eventually runs out, and it can't be recovered.  But really, everyone should think as much about mortality as we do.  None of us are promised tomorrow, and today could be the last day we get time to let our loved-ones know for sure that they are loved by us.

As afraid as I am of my own decision-making abilities, I have been trying harder lately to learn to trust myself.  If something or someone seems to  be leeching away my time without any regard for my life and the way it is spent, I have to let go of that person or that thing.  It isn't easy.  Especially when you have to let go of someone you love or a comfortable situation.  But if the decisions go unmade, my life passes me by without meaning or purpose.  Sure, others may benefit from my presence, but if their hearts and minds are closed to who I am and what I can offer through the gift of my time,  I should find a better place to spend it...a more appreciative and caring person to spend it with.

I still want to make a difference in the lives of others.  I still have love and care to give.  Those are things I can save up, for the time when the right person and the right situations come along.  But in the meantime, I have to keep busy working on myself.  Even though I'll return to dust sooner than any of us may think, the only way I can affect the world around me, is by constantly working to better myself, spending my time learning to be a better person.

And that means trying my best to not complain about losing an hour of sleep for daylight "savings" time.

Super Hero

"Mom, if I forget to be Batman when I grow up, will you remind me?"

My son asked me this one day as we were going about our usual routine.  "Of course I will!" I said.

Truth is, I will always try my best to remind him of his Hero status.  He's too young to know it yet, but he has saved me more times than I can recount.

When my girls were small I would sometimes try to imagine myself at the age I am now, with no little kids around and all I could feel was a kind of grief.  It's true, that from the moment they are born, we have to slowly start letting our children go although when we're going through the day-to-day motions of raising them, we sometimes feel the task is never-ending.  I remember going through the steps with my daughters, talking, walking, potty training, kindergarten--with each milestone I had to loosen my grip a tiny bit more, until finally one day my oldest announced she was getting her own apartment.  How did it all happen so fast? I wondered.  Wasn't it just a few months ago that she was 10?

Hannah and Sylia in matching dresses, 1996

Oddly enough, even though my daughters are 19 and 24, I still think of them as 6 and 10.  It was strange, when my youngest daughter suddenly shot up so tall that I would mistake her for her older sister whenever she entered a room and I wasn't looking directly at her.  Now they are both taller than me, smarter than me, and more beautiful than I could have ever hoped to be.  They are kind-hearted, goofy, artistic big dreamers, and for so many years, were my only reason for getting out of bed in the mornings, especially after the divorce.

I know that life as an adult is supposed to be multi-faceted, and mine has been.  Maybe I've even had too many irons in the fire at times as I was raising my girls.  I know I haven't been a perfect parent, but the one constant I have had in my ever-changing life has been the presence and love of and for my children.

That concept of constancy applies even more to my little boy.   My future Batman.  Since he was born my life has taken more twists and turns than I can even keep up with in my mind.  I could list the crazy things that have happened, the poor decisions I've made, the dips and dives my roller coaster has taken that were unexpected and out of my control, but I'd rather focus on the one little thing that has stayed the same:  The comfort of knowing I still have my boy depending on me.

My girls are learning more and more independence.  They make their own decisions and they deal with their own consequences, just as all adults do.  I still worry about them.  I still want to make decisions for them sometimes, but I know it is there turn to brave life, just the way I did when I was their age.  I wish I had been a better mom to them.  I wish I had been more present, more of everything they needed.  But I realize I did the best I knew how to do at the time, and I feel so blessed that they love me so much and still depend on me when they need to.  I know that when something comes along that they just can't handle, they're eventually going to call Mom.  That's something I have never been able to do--call my mom, that is, when I need support or guidance.  I'm glad I at least did a good enough job with them that they trust me.

I had no idea why at 36 God would think I needed to have a baby.  I was in a relationship I wanted out of, I was overwhelmed by life already, I had stage 3 Renal Disease.  None of this seemed like a good idea to me.  But despite one doctors emphatic suggestion that I was crazy to risk having another baby in my condition (he strongly urged abortion) and despite my child's father trying to convince me of the same,  I knew, deep in my heart that this little boy was going to be an essential part of the rest of my life.  I even knew, before the first ultra-sound that I was having a boy.  Don't ask me how I knew, I just knew.

I don't tell him that he saved me just by being born.  I don't tell him how, there are days when I'm so grateful to have him, just so I'll have a reason to wake up in the morning.  I don't want him to ever feel the pressure of knowing that I look to him for purpose in my life.  But just as my girls gave me purpose years ago, he continues to give me purpose now.  He keeps me young, keeps me thinking about things that I would probably have stopped considering long ago without him around.

He is ever-inquisitive, always wanting to know how, where and most of all, "why?"  On days when I have been unable to find anything else to laugh about, he makes me laugh.  During times when I feel no one else in the world cares whether or not I exist, I remember that he cares-and he needs me to to exist.  I am the only constant he has ever had has well, I'm the only person in his life who has ALWAYS been here.  It's the nature of life that people come and go, but for a kid, a parent shouldn't be one of those people.

He's my hero, because every day, he keeps me on my toes.  He gives me  a reason to keep fighting for my life.  He gives me purpose and he brings me joy when nothing else does.  He makes me proud, he makes me exasperated, he makes me tired.  He is strong willed and resilient--honestly, one of the strongest people I know.  Sometimes he makes me want to pull my hair out, and other times he makes my heart want to explode because I love him so much.  He keeps the memory of my little girls alive and close to my heart, even though when I look at them now, it often seems as if they were never little.  He has little pieces of them that pop up in his personality--which I guess are also little pieces of me, and that reminds me that even if I never live a life that makes a big impact on the rest of the world, I will have made a difference to at least whomever my children love and cherish as they live their lives.

I hope I'm still around to remind him, when he's getting ready for college, that he's supposed to major in Super Hero studies.  Either way though, he'll always be a Super Hero to me.

Escape

"Hey, a kid could escape from here!" Charlie piped up from the backseat today as we were driving around the corner where he can see the back-side of his school on the way home.

"Yeah, I guess they could," I said.  "But you wouldn't do that, would you?" I asked a little worried.

"Nah, not unless I had teleportation or invisibility." He answered, very matter of factly.

"Well, that's understandable." I replied.  "But where would you go if you escaped?  Would you go home?"

"I'd probably just do whatever stuff I want to do."  He answered.  And I thought about how nice That might be, even for a kid, to be able to just do whatever he wants to do.

It might be a while before we have invisibility cloaks or the ability to teletransport, but as adults, we really should try to carve out a little more time here and there to do what we want to do, instead of always running around doing things we feel we have to do.

Adulthood often smacks us in the face with all its, go here, do this, do that and then feel guilty because you didn't do the other, crap.  I noticed about myself the other day, that no matter where I am or what I am doing, I feel guilty--as if there is something more important I should be doing or some other place I should be.  This feeling, having nagged me for so long, I went in search of answers.  Does anyone else feel this way, I wondered?

 So, of course I asked Google.

 And of course, I just ended up feeling more confused about the whole situation.

Yes, I found out.  Other people do feel the same way as me, but for so many various reasons I couldn't decide which one applied to me personally.  Is it because I'm not doing what I'm supposed to with my life?  Is it because I procrastinate? Is it because I'm deeply scarred from my up-bringing? Is it because I really should be doing something more productive whenever I'm just doing what I want to do?  Is it because I haven't found my purpose in life?  I honestly still have no idea why I feel so unsettled about where and what I'm doing all the time. If you have any insights though, I'm open to your analysis...

All I have kind of figured out over the last couple of years is that life keeps on happening no matter what we're doing with our time.  As a mom of two girls after my divorce, my life seemed like a never-ending list of chores, work and errands.  A few minutes to myself seemed like such a luxury I dared not wish for it.  Then I had my son and two teenage daughters and was in the most miserable relationship of my life with a full-time job and an extra "stray" teenager living in my house for a while, and those were the days when I took several showers a day just to have a few minutes of peace and quiet to escape the noise of responsibility.  
During all that time my life was happening, and I was spending a whole lot of my energy feeling resentful about where my time was going.

I don't know where else I expected to place my time and energy, really.  After all, I was living my life.  I was doing what needed and had to be done, but I was going about it in such a joyless way that I ended up wasting what could have been a whole lot of happier days.  It wasn't that I could have slacked off any more, I couldn't.   Responsibility was making me its Bitch, and I couldn't fight that.  I suppose though, that I could have had a better attitude about it all, and not kept quite so much of my angst to myself.

Today though, instead of guilting myself all day long, I just let the day happen.  It started off stressful, just like yesterday, but I came home after dropping off my boy, took care of the dogs and then took a nap.  I almost felt bad about that, but I stopped myself.  Then I went to Goodwill and bought some books, picked up my boy, had the aforementioned conversation and proceeded to Sonic to buy milkshakes and then go play at the park.  It was a single day in my life, and not one I'm likely to even recall in years to come, but I've lived it the way I wanted to: Spending time with my little boy, enjoying the sunshine and learning something new from reading a book.  I think back now, on all those times when I was so tired and longed so much for some quiet time to myself and paradoxically find that I wish my life were more like that again.  Even though I enjoyed today, I feel as if I've had too many days lately where enough isn't demanded of me and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself.  Life, though hurried and difficult, seems much easier in a way when someone else is dictating how you spend it.

The thing that came to me, and this is all I can figure out about my feeling of not being or doing the right thing all the time, is that I have some big decisions to make.  Until I make them, my life is essentially on hold.  As long as my life is on hold, I'm always going to feel displaced.  My problem is, I am afraid I no longer possess the ability to make good decisions.  What if I screw up again??

That's what it all boils down to, I suppose.  I feel out of sorts because I'm putting off making some important decisions that absolutely have to be made.  I am living in a kind of fear mode, that whatever I decide will end up making my life worse, instead of better.  Goodness knows I've made plenty of similar choices before.

So much for all the "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" mantra.  Looks like for me, what hasn't killed me has just managed to make me a yellow bellied coward.  Ugh.  I don't like that about me.  Is that really me?

That does it.  As soon as I figure out how, I'm just going to teleport myself out of this mess.  Don't bother trying to find me.  I'll be invisible.

Welcome to Planet Mom

My dog loves to whine.   It's not that she's neglected, starved  or in need of anything.  She's just a whiner.  The vet likes to say that whiny dogs are anxiety ridden, always worried about being left alone or not being fed or loved enough, so they whine and whine to get our attention.  Sometimes she starts out with a whimper and if I don't respond by speaking to her or coming to her right away she increases her volume until the neighbors across the street probably begin to wonder if she's being strung up by her hind legs.  I assure you she's not.  You see, she's still got quite a lot of puppy in her and if I take my eyes off of her for a second serious damage could occur.  She's a poor decision maker, deciding to eat whatever toy she finds on the floor (Legos are a recent favorite) dig through the garbage or chew up the furniture. Once she even ate a big chunk out of the wall.  Because of her mischievousness, I often have to put her in her nice cozy crate when I'm so busy I can't give her my undivided attention--like during homework time with my son or when I'm in the shower, and especially when I leave the house.  In time she settles, circles down into her doggy bed and watches me with those pitiful puppy-dog eyes as I go out the front door.  Sometimes as I turn the lock I hear one loud, mournful wail before she resigns herself to be content with her surroundings.

Sometimes I like to whine too.  Times like this morning, for instance, when my dialysis machine is taking too long to finish its work and the pain from having it drain the fluid from my abdomen is excruciating AND its time to get my boy up and ready for school.  Penny is whining loudly to go outside and the OTHER dog is scratching and whimpering at my bedroom door, hoping I'll forget about my kid and hop up to get him his breakfast, pronto.

On top of everything else my boy is not cooperative.  He lies in bed like a mannequin, forcing me to sit him in an upright position and strip his clothes off before he wakes up enough to get dressed--then promptly lie back down and fall back asleep.

I tell my boy, "Go get your shoes on." Then I go into my bathroom to brush my teeth and get dressed.  When I come out and into the living room, I find him sitting on the bottom stair, head rested on his knees with his shoes still sitting on the floor at his feet.  Resigned to his resignation to not cooperate, I put his shoes on him.  Then I make the oatmeal while both dogs are still hollering at me to hurry up with the kid already so I can take care of them.

After he eats I tell my boy, "Go get your jacket and book bag, it's time to go."  Then I go put my shoes on and grab my jacket and gloves.  When I walk back into the living room, he's lying on the couch.  The book bag and jacket are still hanging on the coat rack.  Losing my patience, I pull his feet off the couch and stand him up, telling him firmly, "Put your jacket on now!"  Finally he does something I've asked him to do.

On Planet Mom, you can always expect the unexpected.

Once in the car I say, "buckle up!"  Just as I always do.  When I turn and look at him, my boy is sitting in a haze, no seat belt attached.  "Look," I say.  I don't know what planet you think this is, but I'm telling you right now that this is Planet MOM and YOU are going to do what I say.  Put your seat belt on!"  He did.

He was late for school, of course, and as I dropped him off at the front entrance, I swear, the School Resource Officer who stands outside and waits for all the stragglers to make it in safely looked at me scornfully and shook his head as if to say, "What a shitty mother!"  Under my breath I say, "Suck it, Officer Safety Patrol." And I drive away feeling a deep, heart-wrenching, soul screaming whine well up inside me.  Honestly, I wanted to howl.

I came back home to a  sink full of dishes that I didn't dirty and a laundry room piled to the gills with laundry that, in all honestly, I think might belong to a hobo or something.  Seriously, where does it all come from?  It's trash day and the garbage is all still sitting beside the house but I'm in a hurry so I don't take the time to roll it to the curb, telling myself I'll do it on my way out the door to work.  Maybe I will, maybe I won't.  

It doesn't help that I had dreams all night that left me feeling the emptiness of loss at my core as soon as I woke up an hour before the alarm clock said I had to.  I suppose it is never a good thing to lie in bed and wish for too long, that your slumbering reality were still your waking reality.  That kind of thinking gets your head stuck in the past and then you start to feel like everything you ever loved is suddenly missing.  I tried to make myself think about all the good things in my life, tried to implore the power of positive thinking, the peacefulness of prayer, but nothing really worked for me this time.  Then the pain of the machine doing its job, the refusal of my son to go with the flow and the yelping of my dogs suddenly started and I...well I lost my shit for a while.

"All I want is a little help!" I thought.  "I just want someone to be around, even if all they can do is give me a big hug and tell me to calm the heck down."  I thought. I said to God, "What's the deal here?  I'm only one person, you know.  Hello? Remember me?"  I'd like to tell you that I suddenly felt His peacefulness sweep over me and comfort me with indescribable relief, but I'd be lying if I said that.  I felt no such thing, just a whole lot more alone and forgotten, really.

Now I have to get ready for work, and I'm still squelching that huge, final mournful wail deep inside me as I give in to the day and accept that these are my circumstances for now.  This is my life and like it or not, this is how it's gotta be.  Because apparently I'm a poor decision maker and for my own safety and the sanity of others, I probably need to be confined to Planet MOM.

The Waiting Room

Life is sometimes like being stuck in a waiting room for hours and hours, staring at the walls, memorizing the art-work, and wondering when the hell your name is going to be called.  Everyone experiences the waiting game at some point in life, especially after having done all the growing up, trying new things and screwing up lots of things.  Screwing up is the key there.  Screwing up is often what lands our  judgment impaired asses right back in that hard, uncomfortable waiting room chair with not so much as an outdated issue of Vogue to thumb through.  Screwing up isn't fun.  It isn't easy, and fixing our screw-ups often takes time.

The set-backs we have in life, whether we create them on our own or whether they happen by circumstance, can serve a purpose.  Before you roll your eyes and stop reading here, remember: Everyone is sick of hearing that our trials make us stronger and that mistakes teach us important lessons, and that God is preparing us for something awesome, He just has to bully us around a little bit to make sure we deserve the Prize....You get the gist.  No one wants to be told that his long-suffering, ever grateful attitude through troubles and trials will someday pay off.  The truth is, we don't really know if that's true.  Lots of people have had terrifically horrible lives where things happened to them that they didn't deserve, and for many of them, life never got any better.

Take, for example, the short life of a 13 year old Ethiopian girl, whose mother abandoned her at age 3 and whose father died when she was only 9 years old.  Hana, later known as Hana Williams after an American family from Washington state adopted her, never had an easy life. When  Larry and Carri Willliams, a Fundamentalist Christian couple with 7 biological children decided they wanted to continue to grow their family past Carri's physical ability to bear children, they turned to adoption. Specifically, to adopting a young deaf Ethiopian boy they had seen in a video.  Around that same time, they also saw Hana, a pretty Ethiopian girl whom they claimed they also wanted to give a better life.  Soon after their new daughter became part of their family, she started her period for the first time.  This apparently angered Carri Williams, who, according to a friend stated that she thought she was adopting a sweet little girl, not a half-grown woman.  Hana endured harrowing abuse at the hands of her adoptive family, being locked in a closet where sermons and scripture were piped in for hours, some say even days at a time.  She was beaten, ignored, starved, forced to use an out-house and bathe outside in the hose with no privacy, and eventually sent outdoors on a cold May afternoon, where her "family" watched out the window as she succumbed to hypothermia and died after falling and hitting her head numerous times.   They later began to abuse the 10 year old deaf boy they had adopted as well, but because of investigations into Hana's death, the boy was removed from the home and placed with another family.  If you have the stomach to read more about Hana's experience you can do so here .

What purpose could Hana's suffering have possibly had?  The pain and abandonment she endured did not shape and mold her into a strong young woman of character who took her horrible childhood experiences and turned them into an inspiring life-story of reaching out to other children who were hurting.  Hana's suffering served her no good purpose at all.  For this poor girl, and for many people all over the world, those who die young and those who live to old age, the purpose of life--the very definition of life, is suffering.  Do you think any of these people want to hear you talk about how their pain and suffering will someday be "worth it?"

We all screw up, and bad things happen to everyone at some point or another.  You don't have to be happy about your consequences or circumstances.  Sometimes there are no obvious steps to take to change an unpleasant situation.  Other times, there are options, but no matter which one you take, you're going to be screwed.  There are times when there's nothing you can do but wait out a bad situation and see how it turns out in the end.  The only thing you can change about your wait, is the way you spend it.

We keep hearing all the time that our trials help us grow, but it is really those in-between times, after a loss or a big mistake, that we incorporate what we have experienced into who we are.  We can dwell on what we have lost indefinitely, we can drown ourselves in shame and guilt over our mistakes, or we can throw our hands up and accept life, let it use us, the same way life used Hana to rescue 8 other children from the hands of two horrible, evil abusive parents.  We think we always deserve to know the reason for everything, and we tend to get impatient with waiting for whatever trial we are suffering to be over.  But we aren't entitled to know everything, even about our own lives.  What about just acknowledging that you are here for a purpose, and that you may never really understand what that purpose is?

Hana Williams in Ethiopia

What if the waiting we wail and complain about so much is not a curse, but a blessing?  Maybe instead of lamenting what we don't have yet, we could spend more of our time being grateful for what we already have and what we have had the pleasure of experiencing.  Maybe, just maybe the wait we lament so bitterly isn't waiting at all.  Maybe the waiting room is where life really happens.

Speaking of Southern

I have seen so many movies with actors trying to mimic Southern accents who do its badly that I hang my head in shame, in embarrassment for them because they apparently don't know how bad they suck at saying thing's like "y'all" and dropping the "ing" from words.  As a Southerner myself, I think our accent is probably one of the easiest to fake.  After all, it's just a matter of speaking in a more relaxed way.  You can call it lazy if you want, we don't care.  Here are a few pointers for any of you out there who want to sound more like the locals when you visit places like Asheville NC or heaven forbid, Louise MS.

1. Speaking Southern requires a state of being that rejects concepts like traffic-jams, political arguments, standing in line for $7.00 coffee, or behaviors like tapping your foot at the cash register while the cashier sparks up some small talk with the person in line before you.  If you really want to sound like a Southerner, take a deep breath, clear your mind of all your sissy pants city-boy concerns, and imagine yourself instead, sitting on a front porch with hound-dogs underneath it as your uncle Clyde picks out a sweet gospel hymn on his guitar.  You can even imagine yourself with a cool glass of sweet-tea in your hand, if that helps.  The point is, anytime you want to feel more Southern and less like a jack-ass, take your mind to a happy, Southern place and then take action from there.

2. Onto the more technical aspects of enunciating the Southern way.  Folks from the hurried North seem to think that speaking Southern merely requires one to use improper grammar and say words that no one who lives above the West Virginia state line can define.  However, one of the key points to sounding more Southern has to do with  where you place the emphasis on any given word.  To demonstrate, I'll give a few examples.  Any word or phrase that is abbreviated, for instance TV, or CD, is pronounced with the emphasis on the FIRST syllable: "Honey, have you seen my Lynard Skynard SEE-D?"  Or: "Son, turn off that TEE-V and do your homework."  The same goes for words like:

Insurance--INsurance
Theater-THEE-ayter
Speedometer--SPEED-ometer
Magazine--MAG-azine
Peanut--PEA-nut
Pecan-PEE-Con

Hopefully by now, you get the point.  Just remember, emphasis!

3. I can't make this point clear enough.  You must, absolutely and without exception learn the proper use of the word "y'all."  Y'all is a Southern-grown contraction for the words "you all".  This means that when we say "y'all" we are talking about a group of people, not a single person.  Never, EVER refer to one single Southerner as "y'all". Just like you Up-North people, when we speak to a single person, the correct way to address them is with the word "you".  As in, "You fucked up my order, you dumb-ass Yankee, why don't you go back where you came from so you can understand the language."  Y'all is also sometimes a possessive pronoun. As in:  "Are them all y'all's junk cars sittin' in the yard?" Or, more commonly in my house, ya'll need to pick up y'all's toys before I break my neck tryin' to walk up the stairs."

4.  This one is optional, because some Southerners in recent years have begun to add the "ing" back onto words where it belongs.  However, many still do not, and if you want to sound authentically Southern, you'll need to lazy up your speech a little to achieve this.  There are some key words to which the "ing" are Southernly not necessary.  Here are just a few of those words:

Wedding-Weddin'
Getting-Gettin'
Fixing-Fixin'
Eating-Eatin'
Fornicating-Fuckin', sinnin' or goin' ta Hell....

You can probably figure out the rest on your own, but again, this point is less important than some of the others.

5.  The use of the word "I".  This seems to be the hardest one of all for Hollywood Yankees to figure out and I can't figure out why that is.  Here is the correct Southern pronunciation- "Ah"  here is the correct English pronunciation-"Ey".  We simply replace the longer sound of the "y" with a silent "h".  It's just lazy speech people!  Yeah, maybe we talk slower, but we are experts at shortening the words that we say so slowly, so it probably all balances out when you think about it.  "Ah'm goin' to the store to buy some 'maters.  y'ont some?"  Seems to me that takes a lot less time to say than, "Ey am going to the supermarket to buy some fresh tomatoes, would you like me to bring some back for you as well?"

5. We make up words to fit certain situations.  You won't know the meaning of these words until you've heard them a few times, but after you've gotten used to them, they'll make perfect sense. Just to be a stinker, I'm not going to tell you any of them.  It's too much fun watching you nod along as if you understand what we are saying to you, when in all actuality, we are probably making fun of you in the politest way possible.

6.  My last point brings me to this point, which is my last point.  Southerners often combine two words into one to make thinks simpler.  After all, we are all about living simpler lives.  Along with the word y'all, we employ words like "nem": As in, "When are Bobby-nem gon' get here?"  And "Yonto" as in "I'm going to go huntin' tomorrow, yonto?"  or "Ustacould"--"I ustacuould talk like a Yankee, but I can't do it n'more."  One of my personal favorites is "Backair"--"I can't find that toilet cleaner you said you put'n the closet!"
"Well, I know I put it backair!"
This one also applies to "upair", "downair, and "inair".

Although I doubt if any Northern born and bred Hollywood actors are going to stumble across my humble blog post, I hope that in some small way, I have helped someone--maybe even a Northern Transplant to the South figure out how to communicate more effectively with the locals.  Just remember, be careful how you use these terms and phrases, otherwise, you might insult the wrong guy by saying something like "I sure do wish I could get to know your wife a little better downair."

The key is practice, and to not sound like a Northern prick who is trying to make fun of the way we speak.  The truth is, we think you talk funny too.

The Text Trap

I'm horrible at verbal communication.  I'm not sure exactly why, but especially during emotionally charged situations, I find myself grasping for words to effectively communicate how I feel or what I'm thinking.  I find myself having "verbal" exchanges with people who aren't present, as I go about my daily business, wishing that in that conversation that already happened in real life, I could have thought of the thing I just said.

I suppose that's why, whenever I need to share something deeply emotional or confrontational, I find it much easier to write out my thoughts and feelings.  It seems to me that I make more sense that way--that whomever I am communicating with must surely be better able to understand my point of view if I am able to state it more clearly in black and white, rather that with blubbering emotion and my struggle for the exact "right" words.

Internet communication and text have not helped me learn verbal communication skills at all.  In fact, technology has turned me into an emotional coward when it comes to communicating with someone face to face.  The mere thought of having an extremely vulnerable conversation with someone face to face literally terrifies me. What if I say something the wrong way and they don't understand me?  What if they're better than me at this "talking" thing and I never succeed in getting my point across?  What if they say things to me that I can never un-hear?  Things that hurt me, and things that make me more emotional and more likely to make a fool of myself in front of them.

I realize now, the origins of the "Dear John" letter, the suicide note and the silent treatment.  They all come from a very deep and very real sense of insecurity.  Perhaps, sometimes guilt, when we know that what we have to say is going to be emotionally hurtful to the other person.  The problem, as I am realizing it now, is that in communicating in such a disconnected way, like text or email, just makes the other person feel as if you don't have enough respect for them to discuss your issues with them face to face. 

I'm understanding how unfair it is of me to hide behind the black and white of my computer screen or the tiny text bubbles on my iPhone.  It's wrong of me, to refuse to let someone I care about hear my voice when I tell them that my feelings are hurt, or that I'm unhappy with how our relationship is going.  It is inconsiderate of me to expect them to read and decipher through mere words on a page, how I'm feeling or what I am trying to emotionally communicate to them.

I have to make an important phone call to a business acquaintance soon.  The news I have to communicate isn't good news. I sat here at my computer a few minutes ago, pondering whether I should just email the news to her and let her deal with the facts.  The problem is, she's also my friend and I care about her very much.  I know that I need to sit down with her, look her in the eye and tell her the cold honest truth and then be there for her as we both try to figure out how to fix things.

She deserves more than a one-sided textual explanation of things.   I can think of a few people who needed and deserved more than that from me over the last few years, since text and email have come along to rescue me from my own social awkwardness.  I realize I still owe some people some conversations, or at least sincere words spoken from my heart--not presented as black and white factual information on a screen.  So what if I shed a tear or can't think of the perfect way to phrase what I need to say?  The point is, they'll know I cared enough to give them my time and my effort--that I faced my own fear of looking them in the eye and letting them see me for who I really am, instead of seeing me as a cold and calculating person who has to perfectly measure her words and type them out, instead of speaking from my heart.

Lord be with me, as I venture on this new way of relating to the world around me that will not involve text or email, or even blog posts that I secretly hope the "right person" will read.  I want to be more genuine, more available and yes, maybe even a little more vulnerable in my dealings with those I care about.  How can anyone feel comfortable opening up to me, when my emotional world to them, is nothing more that a boring tirade of black and white on an electronic screen?

I guess I have a few visits to make in the coming weeks.

Wish me luck.

Race, Gender and Sexuality...Is there anything else to talk about?

One thing about human beings will never change:  Our constant need to feel better than those people.  By that, I mean anyone different from us.  Nothing makes this point more obvious than the constant media barrage of stories about equality that merely succeed in creating more of a divide between people of all kinds.

Here's what is happening as a result of the incessant "news" stories about inequality:  We are all figuring out that no matter who we are, we are screwed.

Women, for instance, are screwed because we don't get equal pay as men for doing the same work.  We are objectified and victimized by men.  We are judged harshly for our choices concerning education, family and work.  Women are too fat, too skinny, not stylish enough, not sexually adventurous enough.  We are bitches or sluts or prudes.  We are gold diggers or  Welfare leeches.  The list goes on and on, and who is pointing out all these things to us that make us feel like crap about our place in the world?  Check your Facebook news feed and you'll get the answer to that question.

I realize that there are activists out there who honestly want to help create a world where everyone's worth is considered equal.  I applaud their efforts and encourage them to keep pursuing their passion.  We all need a purpose in life, and if yours is working your ass off on behalf of a certain group that is considered underprivileged, bless you.

What I'm referring to though, is the never-ending over-discussed and occasionally exaggerated media flood of articles, nightly news stories and internet "feel good" or "Shame on you" blurbs that constantly remind us, women, African Americans, immigrants, gays, etc...that we should feel angry and put down by the society in which we live.

Somewhere along the way divisiveness has become the norm, and acceptance has become an anomaly.  It seems like all we hear about is how we should be more accepting of others as fellow human beings, regardless of our differences, but at the same time, statistics are being crammed in our heads about the disparities between people of different races, genders, sexual orientations and economic status.  With our media constantly focusing on our differences, pointing them out to us and encouraging our wrath about how unfairly we are treated, it is no wonder hate, fear and intolerance take over, leaving people to  feel more animosity towards one another.  We are being convinced, one Upworthy video at a time, that everyone else is out to keep us down.

I'm certainly not saying that intolerance doesn't exist.  It absolutely does, it always has and it most likely always will because we are all human.  We all have our own personal belief systems that act as our moral compasses, guiding us towards what we feel is right or wrong.  The problem comes when we try to hand our compasses over to everyone else and make them follow our path, instead of giving them the freedom to follow their own.  The only way to conquer division is to stop perpetuating it by labeling one another as minorities, homosexuals, heterosexuals, blacks, whites, hispanics, heathens, bitches, whores, lazy, unintelligent, unworthy and classically, the Privileged American White Male.

"So I'm just a person like everyone else?  Oppression bubble: bursted.

We flock to stories of what we have come to believe are the rare acts of kindness and acceptance as if those things are the exception to society's norms.  However, every day in America people of all walks of life, with differing beliefs, lifestyles, genders and colors get up and go to work driving ambulances, working in hospitals, caring for the elderly, looking out for the welfare of children, helping the homeless, feeding the hungry and smiling at strangers who might be very different from them.  The act of acceptance and the feeling of equality doesn't come from knowing everyone's differences or even from celebrating those differences.  It comes from seeing people as what they are:  People.

So instead of so many stories about our "rights" and shameful memes about how unfairly some people treat others, lets hear more about how we can learn to treat one another with kindness.  Instead of judgmental tirades about who is wrong and who is right, lets hear more about who is making a positive difference in the world.

I, being a woman and considered a minority, am not interested in hearing more about why my body image is distorted by Hollywood.  I don't want to read more articles in women's magazines about how I need to keep my age a secret so I can still snag a man.  I don't want to be reminded that to some men, I am nothing more than an object--like an old couch they can use and then toss out on the curb when they're ready for a new one.  Likewise, I'll venture a guess that there are many gay people who don't feel great about being constantly reminded that their version of love and companionship is frowned upon by lots of folks.  There is something about all of us that isn't widely accepted in today's world, but constant reminders of our differences, placed in a negative light only serve to create more frustration, division and unrest within all of us.

Let's face it, we are, above all else human.  It seems to me, if we all strive to remember that and focus on what is the same about us all, equal treatment of everyone would become a more natural and less talked about phenomenon.

 And we'd have a lot fewer angry videos popping up on our Facebook pages.

Here's to being human.  Enjoy who you are, and respect the humanity of others.