Unspoken

I shouldn't be on here today, I don't have time.  J's first art show is in less than 48 hours, and as soon as it is over we are leaving on vacation for a week.  I am overwhelmed right now with getting everything ready, for both.  But I felt as though I had to get on here and defend myself.

I've made it a habit of not getting too political on my social media.  I keep it light and post photos of my cats or the critters in my yard, share vacation photos, post where we've gone out to eat.  I don't want to do anything else on there.  I may have put a few funny memes about the stupidity of Trump on my page, but I don't want to post anything "anti" this or that.  I try very hard not to offend anyone.  I've found that my friends and family are pretty much split up the middle- I have those who share similar feelings to mine, and I have those who believe the complete opposite.  I am cool with that.  I'm not out to hurt anyone, I'm not out to piss off relatives because they are from another political party.  Plus I think too many people are cowardly online, they take potshots at people in their replies and comments, and it disgusts me.  I don't go on FB to be disgusted.  I don't want FB to make me angry.  I have even unjoined a few groups due to comments from others.  Hey, social media is a fucking fake life anyhow, it doesn't bother me to drop the newsfeed from any particular person or group.  It doesn't bother me to get unfriended by someone on there.

I am truly live and let live.  You can support and vote for anyone you want, you can go to any church- or not- that you want.  I don't really care.  I have my beliefs, I live my life the way I intend, and I don't worry about what the neighbors think, and I worry even less about what they are doing.  If everyone minded their own business, the world would be a better place, but that's never going to happen.  The world will always be divided into a million little pieces- it always has been, and it isn't ever going to change. But I accept that.  I will die 20 or 30 years from now with political parties still sniping at each other, with religions still going to war with one another.  In the meantime, I will continue to live my life surrounded by the ones I love, and that's my real world.

If I thought I could totally drop off FB, I would, but my family would rebel because they would no longer "know" what's going on in my life.  I stay on social media to avoid constant phone calls and emails "checking in" on me.  For the most part, I only read a very select few posts from only good friends on FB, the rest of it I scroll through with a glazed look of boredom.  If I "like" a post, then I've read it.  I may not always agree with it, but I agree that my friend has the right to post it.  I like FB least of all.  I prefer Instagram and Pinterest and Etsy, because I can relax and be happy and look at gorgeous photos of art and kitties and beaches, get DIY ideas for my house and yard, and ignore what is mostly garbage anywhere else online.  I can't even stand going to my email, because I have to sift through all the news stories before I can even sign on.  They pop up on the screen so that I can't ignore them.  Depending on where you live, the local stories are just as bad as the global ones.  Where I live, on the outskirts of the big city, the local news is filled with the latest shooting or murder. Truly, there is one- or more- every single night on there.  One evening last week I counted and the first FIVE stories were shootings and killings.

You can become a hermit.  Or you can take it all in and deal with it.  I may sound cold, but for the most part, I am deadened to it all anymore. I think a lot of people are. Evil is so commonplace that we stare it in the eye every day, shrug, and move on with our normal routine.  If I stopped to rage and rail against the gods every time, it would consume me and burn me alive.

But the other day, I let a post get under my skin and offend me.  It wasn't from some random troll or internet crazy.  This was from an actual friend, one from real life, the person I always sit with and talk to before my Friday morning support group.  I've known her for a few years now, she even comes to see me when I have a booth set up at craft fairs, and she's an amazing artist herself.  I don't normally let FB posts goad me, but this one did.  In her post, open to everyone she knew, she stated that if your FB page was "silent" about the Orlando shootings, then she had to assume you didn't care about it.

I tried to understand that she was coming from a place of grief and pain, but I felt the finger pointing at "friends" was unnecessary and quite frankly, it made me mad.  I responded, not in anger, but I couldn't help being defensive.  She wasn't at the meeting last week, and I know I'm going to miss the next two meetings, so we won't have a chance to talk face to face.  I basically told her that it's my personal choice not to post anything political or "newsy"  or "controversial" on FB.  I told her that I discussed my feelings privately about the shootings with my friends and family, and didn't wish to write anything on social media about it.  What I wanted to say was, how dare you assume anything about me based on my silence!  My silence does not convey ANYthing about how I am feeling, and it certainly doesn't condone what happened.  My silence is meaningless, it's not even a factor.  Her response was that we have to "fight" to "protect" our way of life.  I did not reply.

I don't want to fight anyone, I don't want to fight against anything.  I have enough trouble fighting down my own demons.  I can't take on all the ones out there in the world. If I can live my life right and be true to myself, then fuck everyone else out there. Some days I don't think I can even save myself.  I can't and won't take on the burdens of the universe.  I know there are injustices against humanity.  But if you are in the streets rioting against injustice, you are still rioting.  I am not being a bitch.  I am being realistic.  I think standing up for and supporting causes is amazing, and there are wonderful people out there working tirelessly. But I'm not going to waste my time and energy trying to get people to NOT vote for a presidential candidate.

Most of the time our brains are so scattered we can barely decide what to eat for lunch.  Yet we want to tell others what candidate to support, what god to worship, who to marry, what we can and can't have and do in our own homes.  It's all crazy, but there are those out there who truly believe they "know" what's "best" for the rest of us.  Again, it's happening on BOTH sides.  I am not pointing fingers at one particular group.

I would rather spend that time on finding a home for an abandoned puppy, saving the bees, supporting local farmers, feeding my city's homeless, getting better healthcare for poverty stricken children, cleaning up the streets I see every day.  Things I can touch, things that matter in my little circle of being.  Some people would snicker and think that is all lame and unworthy.  "How can you worry about animals in shelters when people are getting gunned down in public?!" they would cry.  I would answer, how can you NOT! How can you not start caring at the most basic level?  I'm not out for publicity, I'm not trying to slay all the giants. If I worry more about a tiny kitten getting euthanized because nobody wants her, then I guess shame on me for not choosing to picket the capitol instead.

I would rather take care of my own environment, because I can't fix Washington. I've watched on FB how my cousin and an uncle are tearing each other apart with their comments because they each support the opposite party.  It's ridiculous. Fuck Trump.  Fuck Hillary.  Neither of them are an actual, integral part of my life. Seriously.  We all know how the government works.  No matter who gets elected president, the opposition will find a way to vote down and stymy anything they want to accomplish.  Presidents are powerless.  Presidents, alone, do not enact laws and create policies.  It's been proven over and over again throughout the decades.  Do people REALLY still believe their vote counts?  Maybe I'm just a cynic.

They are all politicians.  They are NOT leaders.  There is no one running for any office, that I would wish to follow or support.  It's especially not worth my limited energy to bully my friends and family when they "like" the other party.  This world is already spinning too violently with its "us against them" mentality.

I know the shootings have weighed heavily on everyone, and at a time when the country is already so divided and angry and hurt and scared about the future, this just seemed to crush everyone.  Everyone, as always, is quick to rush to judgment and even quicker to condemn.  The shooter, the victims, the government, guns, religion, sexual identity, immigration.  BOTH sides are doing it.  We're all screaming at each other so loudly that NO ONE can be heard at all! People are taking a tragedy and turning it into a political platform, on both sides.  It sickens me.

Some people are too young to remember the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, where 168 people were killed.  I happened to be visiting in the area when it happened, and although I wasn't right there at ground zero, I did go back later to see the aftermath, the memorials, to walk quietly around the chain link fence to stare at the emptiness and devastation.  I stood there, in complete silence, and was engulfed in the agony.  I remember the photos of firemen carrying dying children in their arms.  It was a horrible blight on our country, that one of our own could do this to his fellow Americans, including babies and children.  This wasn't a gay thing.  It wasn't a Muslim thing.  It wasn't a race thing.  It wasn't an immigrant thing.  It wasn't even a gun thing.  But it was still tragic beyond comprehension.  Do I hate or blame or fear young disenfranchised white men for this?  No.

With 9/11, I became one of those people who fell into a black hole, not able to sleep, not able to tear myself away from the 24 hour coverage on the news.  I watched it over and over and over again.  I grew angry at my then-husband because he literally did not care about it.  At the time I hated him for it, for not being there to support me and talk with me about this anguish I was feeling.  Maybe I was being unfair to him.  I've gone to New York and I've seen the beautiful and awesome "Freedom Tower" that now stands on the site. But it doesn't erase the most terrifying vision I saw from the original attack- that of a man in a business suit sailing through the great wide open of nothingness as he made the decision to leap from a thousand feet up rather than burn to death. The news said he would have literally died from fright and shock, long before his body hit the ground, but that didn't make it any easier to watch.  Do I hate or blame or fear Muslims for this?  Absolutely not.

I could go on and on, I could go back into history as far as there are records.  I could remind people about the mass killings and abuse of my own ancestors, the Cherokee people, at the hands of the greedy American government.  By the thousands.  Can you imagine today, the American government herding a certain race of people into camps and slaughtering them for no reason, and having the rest of the country be okay with it?  To even encourage it?  Why?  Because they feared these people who were of a different color, who spoke a different language, who fought back when their lands were invaded.

I can tell stories about the other side of my family, how at the time when my grandfather came over from Sicily, Italians were the most hated group of immigrants and were treated like animals and regarded as dirt.  All because they worked harder and took jobs- for less money- that other "immigrants" (those Europeans who had come over earlier) wouldn't do.  It was said that at the turn of the century, the Italians were the only people who were happy and willing to work side by side with blacks.  So they became hated, as a group, and the prejudice was staggering.  Landlords didn't want to rent to them, businesses didn't want to hire them.  In fact a large percentage of Italian immigrants from that period actually ended up returning to Italy, after saving up money for their families.  And here we are a mere 100 years later- can we imagine Italians being treated that way today?  When now we all flock to Italian restaurants, want to drive Italian sports cars, wear Italian fashion.  And visit Italy.

There will always be hatred and discrimination and fear.  There will always be sides waging battle with each other, to prove their belief is the right one, that their way of life is correct.  Politics, sex, religion, class warfare.  This will never never ever end.  It happens not just in our country, but all over the world.  To say we hate this or that group, is insane.  I am a liberal, always have been and always will be, but I don't blindly follow the party line.  I do have some conservative beliefs.  I don't hate people who think differently. I don't try to force my ideology down anyone's throat.  Every person has their right to an opinion, and we all know the old saying about opinions- they are like assholes, everybody's got one.  Me included.  I'm not making fun, I'm just saying it's utterly pointless to A- try and change someone else's mind, and B- expect everyone to always agree with you.  Never.  Gonna.  Happen.  And our differences should be celebrated, not lambasted.  It's easy to say oh the conservatives do this to the liberals.  But don't we all do it to each other?  It's not just coming from one side, people, wake up.

Evil isn't one particular religion or race.  It's not affiliated with just one political party.  We all feel that we are well-guarded against evil, that we recognize it when we see it.  But it's gonna sneak up on you, sorry.

No one on either side seems to really truly want peace, they want domination.  People want total annihilation of the opposition.  No one is talking about how to live together in harmony. Everyone is talking about how to crush the other side.  We use combative phrases like let's "defeat" the opponent- I don't see anyone saying let's "understand" the opponent, let's "accept" the opponent.  What we all really want is to be heard and respected.  But instead people yell and rant, no one wants to discuss things intelligently.  Especially this election year.  I'm sick of it.  It's destructive, and I don't have room for that in my life. As long as people are different from each other, there will always be fighting and protesting, misunderstandings and suspicions, fear and rage.  It's human nature.  I have a big rule at my house- I refuse to watch, read, or listen to any news early in the mornings or late at night.  I do not want to start my day off or try to drift off to sleep with all this lunacy ringing in my ears.

Unfortunately, and sadly, people will always react and behave badly, and they will lash out to hurt others.  Whether they walk into a crowded club or movie theater with a gun. Or drive a truck loaded with explosives into the garage of a building.  Or fly a plane into a skyscraper.  Or stand at a podium and use their words and persuasion over others to incite more anger and hatred.

There is nothing wrong with being passionate about your beliefs, and getting emotional.  As long as your brain is also engaged along with your heart.  As long as your passions don't swallow you whole and cause you to bring pain to others.

Even if you just get on social media and accuse friends of "not caring" about something.  Let's start thinking before we speak.  Isn't that really what the world is needing?  Forget guns and bombs.  Words can provoke more damage than any weapon.  Words can cause death and pain, words can create a hostile environment where no one feels safe.  Yet words are the easiest thing for us to control.  We all have the ability to do this.

People now make fun of the late Rodney King's speech, "Can we all get along?"  It's an impossibility, but dammit, he was right in wanting it.

MISS GEE

Subbasement

This last week was perhaps one of my lowest in a very long time.

I spent the entire week in the same clothes nonstop.  I went four days without a shower, without brushing my hair or teeth.  Even, holy crap, withOUT coffee because I couldn't find the energy to even make a single cup.  I didn't take J's clothes to the dry cleaners.  I didn't do the laundry.  I didn't take all my medications.  I let dirty dishes and towels and mail pile up everywhere.  I didn't clean the cat litter boxes.  Because J was due home Friday at lunch, I set my alarm for 5am on Friday and forced myself to get up and clean the house like a frantic wild woman, so he could be duped into thinking it had looked that way all week.  I even scrubbed the shower, for which he hugged and kissed and thanked me, because I haven't cleaned it since, well, I can't remember when.  Then I had to take a nap, I was mentally and physically exhausted solely from vacuuming.  I just hate this feeling.  It makes me feel less than human, it makes me feel like the poorest excuse for a wife.

The saddest part is that I didn't even try to do anything that was good for me this week.  I didn't go to the grocery store, but instead ate stale bread and old crackers, because it was effortless.  I cancelled my regular physical therapy session.  I skipped my weekly support group meeting.  Hell, I didn't even READ all week.  I sent a long rambling email to my best friend, begging off talking to her for awhile.  I sent a text to my dad asking that neither he nor my mother call me for a few days, because I wasn't feeling well.  My sister had surgery this week and I didn't even reach out to her.  That's a pretty shitty week when you actively tell the closest people in your circle, people who love you and care about you, to just please leave you alone because you feel like utter crap.  I tried to sound chipper on Facebook, but most of my posts came while I was huddled miserably on the couch or stuck in the bed because I couldn't make myself get the fuck up.  I literally was an unmoving, uncaring lump all week.

When J got home on Friday, I was my regular phony-baloney self.  Fixed up, dressed, ready to live a normal life.  Sometimes I think he sees right through me. Yesterday he asked me if I was still feeling depressed.  I said, oh I'm okay, just tired.  We really only had Friday evening and Saturday together, but I forced my best smiles and laughter for him.  Now it's another six days without him.  This current Sunday through Friday schedule ends this week, and then he'll have four days off at home before he starts his next assignment.  This morning I asked him if he could stand four days at home with me. Without words he simply gave me a big squeeze and held on tight for a long time, his face buried against my neck.  Was he happy at the thought of time together, or just trying to compel me to stop bashing myself?

So which is the real me, my true self?  The scraggly-haired dirty person who shuffles through the house, or the woman who gets dolled up to spend time out in the world with her husband?  My happiness does not depend on J, I realize that.  And I don't blame my depression on his being gone.  It started long before he began traveling full time for work.  And it continues on weekends when he's back home.  It's just that when I'm home alone, I don't have to fight it as much, I have no one to put on a show for.  And I don't care enough about myself to do anything about it.  But because J loves me, I try so very hard for him.

I vowed I was going to have a better week, because I deserve it.  I deserve to be good and kind and loving to myself.  As soon as J left this Sunday morning to head off for the week, I showered, fixed myself a lunch, started a load of laundry, and I even put shoes on- glory be.  I am determined not to have another wasted screwed up week, to find a purpose and DO something, even if it's take a bag of clothes to Goodwill.  I don't care.  DO anything.  Any god damn little thing for myself.  Sometimes just getting started in the morning is enough momentum to carry me through the day, the week.

We were supposed to have a yard sale this coming weekend, but I begged J to postpone it a few weeks.  After he capitulated to that, I then begged him even harder to postpone it until the fall.  I just don't have the energy for it right now.  We had a yard sale in April, and the unsold items are literally piled up on my dining room table and all over the garage, in limbo because we intended to have a second sale so soon after.  But I can't stand seeing it all over the place, the unwanted clutter is like an old brick wall, crumbling, untended, constantly threatening to topple over and bury me in debris.  I just can't look at it anymore. The old picture frames, coffee mugs, books, paintings, knickknacks, clothes. All the things we've decided we no longer want. By getting J to agree to pushing the sale off another season, I promised myself I was hauling it all down to a corner in the basement, where I can continue adding to it and pricing things, but not in a place where I have to trip over it all.

It takes a lot out of me these days to go up and down the stairs, but even if I make one trip down and have to rest for 30 minutes before I go down again, I have GOT to get all this shit out of the way.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around of stuff to keep and take to the new house.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around of all my pottery and jewelry for the craft shows.  It's enough that I have boxes sitting around filled with vintage items for our Etsy shop and antique shows.  Now I have boxes sitting around filled with J's artwork for his new Etsy shop.  I feel as though my home and my life are in limbo, contained in plastic tubs, scattered all throughout the house.  I keep stumbling over everything every day.

J left me with quite a daunting bit of work to do this week, because he's working a craft show in a few weeks.  Unless I apply myself every day, as much as I possibly can, I'm not going to accomplish it all.  I am tired of disappointing my husband, who works so hard to give me everything, who allows me to stay at home, who encourages me to find my peace and pursue my happiness.  The very least I can do is get all his signs sanded down and painted, so he can come home on Friday and see me as his helpmate, instead of the albatross around his neck.  He's always there with me when I work a show, and I want to repay him and give him his shot at success.  Anything we do, we always do it together, and it takes teamwork for any of our endeavors to become triumphs.

But I've first got to get my head above the water, before I can ever hope to make it out alive to crawl onto shore.

I read an interesting article in the paper today, where someone was asked if they were happy. They said, "You're always stronger if you try to find a positive in something.  Because a day is going to come when I'm going to get a phone call...telling me something genuinely bad, and it's going to floor me...And every day that that doesn't happen is a brilliant gift."

My life doesn't suck, I've got to start embracing that realization.

MISS GEE