Month: January 2024

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Owning Your Truth

Several things have happened to me in the past year that have put me in the familiar situation of either owning my truth, or trying to save face.

Women are trained from the moment they enter this world to not only apologize for everything, even things they had nothing to do with, but to explain themselves.

It is one thing to apologize and yet another to explain yourself and justify why you did or said something.

We are taught to be flustered in situations where we did something wrong. It is to make us weak and end up feeling very very bad about ourselves afterward. Making excuses and explanations leaves an awful bad feeling in ones soul.

We are taught to fall all over ourselves with explanations. To gush with them.

It is to make us a good girl.

To just apologize, a simple I am sorry and stop there, takes a lot more courage than you might expect. A woman will be questioned, no, interrogated to explain why she was a bad girl.

Even for us to say no, we go into explanations. This is very demeaning. Why can’t we just say no. No I won’t work on my day off. No I don’t want to go out with you. No I don’t like that. No, I don’t want to do that.

Recently I apologized for something I did do wrong, and for something I said. I did do those things and I was wrong to do so. I owned my truth. I did not elaborate. I was interrogated but I said nothing further, just repeated my apology until they finally understood that was all they were going to get from me. And that was enough.

My heart was pounding. My temperature rose to a hundred degrees. I sweat. But I felt terrific later.

Being true to yourself is extremely hard. No one likes to admit they were wrong. Especially if they did or said something on purpose. And women are suppose to explain why, which is so humiliating.

Sometimes I just fuck up. Sometimes I am in a bad mood. Sometimes I don’t know why I did or said something. Sometimes I do. But why do I need explain it to anyone? We all make mistakes, accidently and on purpose.

Own your truth without a single word more. It is freeing.

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Rewrite the Ending

I bet there are a lot of books and movies you wish had a different ending.

I watched Labyrinth during the Christmas holidays. I had not seen it in decades.

The ending should have been that Jareth joined in the party at the end instead of flying away as an owl back to his miserable lonely life in the castle. He could’ve had friends, fun and the girl.

I was disappointed greatly in the ending of All the Light You Cannot See. This novel was beyond awesome and then the ending was like a flat tire. Ffffffsssstttt. All that build up to such a wimpy end. Blah.

Of course Andie should have stuck with Duckie in Pretty in Pink!!

I hate unhappy endings. It is too much like real life.

If I’m going to read a novel or watch a movie, I want it to be uplifting. To hell with reality. I face that every damn day.

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Forms

My fingers are numb from filling out forms.

From the moment we are conceived (and actually for generations before we are even thought of) we are data on forms. We can trace our lineage practically back to the cave man thanks to forms.

Everything we do in life is recorded on forms. Your birth, death, marriage, financial status, health, shopping, you name it. You fill out forms over and over and over, in duplicate, triplicate, ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

You fill out forms for yourself with cross references to others who also have their piles of forms making a huge web of interesting, but probably mostly useless connections.

You fill out forms to prove you filled out other forms.

And those forms are passed on to others who fill out more forms to prove they have read your form and it goes on and on and on. Entire departments are dedicated to this. It employs a lot of people, which is good I suppose. Eventually you have quite a pile of forms about yourself, with virtually the same information on them, that sits on a server somewhere. Forever.

Until you need that information for some reason.

And then it can’t be found anywhere.

There is no record of you ever having been there, done that, purchased this, returned it, had it repaired, filed it, been at this place, seen this person, had this conversation, underwent this procedure…

The information is lost, misplaced, stolen or just never received.

You need to fill out a new form.

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Shut the F Up

Do you know how extremely fortunate you are?

Perhaps you need a reminder.

I know a person who whines continually about how hard life is. This person has their own house. Their own car. Their own housekeeper. They live alone. They go on extended paid vacations overseas. They buy expensive clothes. Eat at expensive restaurants. But life is so very hard, don’t you know? So difficult to find a work life balance.

I know a man who works 3 jobs to support himself and his family. He works when he is so sick he can barely stand up. Because if he doesn’t work, he doesn’t get paid. And if he doesn’t get paid, a whole lot of other people don’t eat.

I watched a young man stealing menstrual pads in the drug store. Stuffing them into his pants and sleeves. Why would a man steal that? Because he and his partner are broke.

To all you self entitled spoiled brats out there, you need a wake up call. A hefty reality check.

Maybe we can’t solve poverty on our own, but we can be damn grateful for what we have, and not ever forget it.

Next time you go to whine about a privileged first world problem, check out what life is really like for a large portion of the population in one of the richest nations on earth.

And shut the F up.