1 Like = ?

Something I’ve been working on lately, that has kind of spilled over into the new year, has been to have more kindness and forgiveness for myself. It’s been a long road of self reflection and consideration. In a lot of ways I have Facebook to thank for that. It sounds strange and a bit ridiculous, but I believe in some ways, Facebook has helped me become a better person.
8 years ago I would have considered myself to be pretty open minded and a tolerant person. However Facebook has really taught me just how much affect our words have on the people we interact with every day, and not just in a social media setting. Only by messing up and saying things that were pushy, judgmental and or based on some kind of personal assumption, did I learn to slow down and think hard about how I really feel and what I really think. This all came up over the Christmas Holidays because I decided to almost completely unplug from Facebook for a week. I felt it was having a stronger negative impact on my life than a positive one. As a mom of a one year old and someone who still doesn’t know what she wants to be when she grows up, Facebook can be a constant reminder how I don’t measure up to the standards I think are being set for me by society. I went out for drinks with my hubby one evening, and we really discussed just how much we let social media affect our lives. I brooded over the fact that more often than not, I feel like I’m failing my friends and family because I’m not successful enough, I’m not a strong enough advocate for change in my community, I’m not creative enough and I’m not well travelled. All things that Facebook, as I was interpreting it, reinforced in my mind every day. I lamented the fact that some days Facebook actually felt like homework. I have a lot of intelligent and well-spoken friends that are constantly sharing thought provoking and insightful articles. I often feel like it is part of my duty as a good friend/person to read these articles and open myself up to new perspectives and engage with my friends. I told him that for me, opening up my newsfeed on a daily basis means that I will be flooded with posts on feminisim, gender equality, ending homelessness, raising children, having the perfect marriage and being a positive role model for our next generation. It can all feel like a lot of responsibility and it can lead to a lot of feelings of inadequacy. My husband found this interesting because his experience is totally different. His newsfeed is mostly interesting science facts and gamer cartoons, followed by funny pictures of cats or dogs doing weird things. He doesn’t access Facebook to engage on a Political or Activist level. Sure he will encounter something along those lines from time to time, but he doesn’t feel the same level of obligation to engage or participate in it. He has decided what social media is to him and he doesn’t allow it to cross those lines for in his life.
I feel like I have had many moments with Facebook where my perspective has been completely shifted, and my mind has opened wider. One of those instances is with Feminism. Identifying as a feminist was never something I really thought about before. And while I had always believed in gender equality, the word “Feminist” always conjured up images of angry bra burning college students trying to start a revolution. Because I didn’t feel “radical”, I didn’t really think I was a feminist. I know now how wrong that was and that I am in fact a Feminist and it’s important for my daughter to see that and feel it in her upbringing. Facebook helped me figure that out about myself. It also helped me figure out that the way other people live their lives, is none of my business. If a woman decides to marry a man with money, and travel the globe and never have a “real job” because she doesn’t have to or really want to, that doesn’t make her less of a person. Or worth less of our respect. No one can define how our lives should look but ourselves. We shouldn’t judge other people for choosing a different path, it shouldn’t bother us when they do because it’s none of our business. Self-acceptance leads to the selfless acceptance of others.
As a mother I have seen Facebook’s potential for creating huge pools of support and information for all of us mom’s struggling to figure it all out. I’ve also seen it used as a source of mom shaming but as soon as you learn which groups are supportive and which aren’t, you can quickly control the sort of feedback you are receiving from these kinds of communities. And it’s a very rewarding experience. Without Facebook I wouldn’t have learned about reclaiming my power as woman during pregnancy and childbirth. I wouldn’t have known just what an amazing experience child birth could be and how many options were available to us. It helped me realize just how strong I really am and how I can own that strength. That no one should be able to take that away from me, no matter what. It has inspired me to hopefully one day be able to give back to the community of mama’s out there.
Basically what I have decided is to not let myself get so caught up in “owing” people anything on Facebook. Owing them a like, a comment or a share. I can decide not to read a potentially thought provoking article because I just don’t feel like it, and I don’t have to feel guilty about it. I can take a week off and not look at people’s pictures. I can’t tell you enough how awesome it was to not be constantly searching for my phone so I could mindlessly scroll through my newsfeed if I wasn’t doing anything important. To just allow myself the time to not feel tied down to my phone felt pretty awesome. But I can’t deny the positive effects Facebook has had on my life so I hesitate to disconnect completely, and I won’t. I will just approach my interaction with it from a much less urgent stance, and not get caught up in the race to prove something to everyone, or to myself.

Dahlia

My New Year

New Year’s Eve always brings about plenty of deliberation and discussion of goals and new resolutions for the upcoming year. With this comes the return of many people swearing to their graves that they will become more fit and healthy and eat well. I will not preach the failure of the abounding unrealistic goals that are set.
I will tell you what my New Years resolution is.
With the extremity of world events currently I have pledged to be more tolerant, to express myself as a woman as I see fit and to support unconditionally those who are judged for such expressions.
In the month of January 2015, I will wear a hijab, in support of my Muslim friends and their communities and in my own expression of woman’s rights. My husband did not force me, and I am not insulting any of my dear friends who are Muslim. Many of whom chose to support my endeavour after having been consulted for their opinions.
This is as much a social experiment as it is a practice of my rights and support of a community under fire.
I am aware that not everyone will support my decision but I simply ask that you be tolerant. Once January is over I will have learned a lot about all of you and myself, I welcome these lessons and look forward to the experience whatever challenges it brings.

Have love for the world and its people always.

Aren (aka A Miller)

Precipitous labour

Since I’ve become a mom to my darling son Babbers, three words resonate in my mind more than most:  Too Much Information, or TMI for short.  Mommy Facebook Groups, Blogs, Playdates.  It’s all fair game.  Especially with one specific topic:  The birth story.  I’m not saying everyone is trying to outgross each other, but here is definitely a sense of pride when a woman posts the details of her 100-hour labour* and her 13 pound newborn** and how she has 4 degree tears and couldn’t walk for three days and had no drugs because that’s how she rolls, and everyone comments: “You are so brave!!”  “OMFG I would have *DIED* if that had been me!!”
I don’t get to tell that story.  My story was very different.  Babbers is my first, and my entire labour, from start to finish, was 2 hours long.  You read that right.  Two hours.  I put a chicken in the over at 4:45 on the evening of December 23rd, and at 5pm felt some mild cramping.  It quickly escalated to insane cramps, and by the time we started timing contractions at 5:45, they were 2.5 minutes apart lasting 1 minute.  We paged the midwife.  My body pushed at 6pm, I started freaking out and we went to the hospital.  My body kept pushing all the way there, and through the icy parking lot (Hello Ice Storm 2013!!) and at the L&D counter.  A nurse offered to check me, and by the time I got undressed and laid back in a bed, I was 10cm dilated and started pushing.  It was 6:45.  My son was born at 7pm.
The midwife showed up at 7:15.  At 11pm, I was discharged, and carried my son in his infant carrier as my husband warmed up the truck by the exit. 6 hours after my first contraction.  Apparently my water broke at some point before we made it to the hospital, to say nothing of the mucus plug I kept looking for and never saw.  I experienced no “signs” of labour, like a lost mucus plug, or nesting instincts, or “Nature’s Enema” (a fancy name for diarrhea!). In fact, I had been discussing the induction process with my midwife that day, since I was 5 days from my due date but had no inkling the baby was in any hurry to come out.  I guess he heard the conversation and decided coming out like a canon ball was more his style.

They call it precipitous labour:  Any labour lasting less than 3 hours.  I had no idea about this until a month or so ago when a new mommy friend of mine sent me the article below saying “This is totally your story!!”  As I read the article, I was floored.  This is a thing? With a name? I just assumed I was one of the lucky women whose baby decided to shoot out like a canon ball!  And when I continued reading, and did further research about precipitous labour, I discovered some women felt anxious and robbed about their delivery.  That they did not get the usual progression they drill into you at prenatal classes.  I can understand the fear and disbelief of it all happening so fast when EVERYONE tells you how long a first labour is, but to be disappointed and depressed not to have had a long labour… really?
I was pleased as punch to be home by midnight eating delivery pizza as I nursed my son!  As it slowly sank in that not only was my baby already born, but home with me a scant 6 hours after being born, it made me dive head-first into the deep end of parenting. No life jackets, no swim-aids. Just me, Farmboy, and our brand new baby.  What were we thinking?  We weren’t.  We didn’t have round the clock nurses; we had each other for the first night and that was it.  It was the two of us and our new little miracle, and it was the best experience ever.  I think it took me until Christmas Day to fully comprehend everything that had happened, and while I’m not upset about my delivery, even though it will severely hamper my blackmail options later in life (“it took *two* whole hours to get you out!  So the least you can do is clean your room, mister!” just doesn’t have much clout, does it?!), it’s some women’s reactions that irk me.
“You know we all hate you, right?”  Is what I hear most of the time.  “Wow, you know that never happens, right?  You should buy a lottery ticket!” Is another favourite.  Or “the next one will either fall out when you cough or take forever.” Gee, thanks.  Yes, I had an easy pregnancy, and a very easy labour, but does that make me deserving of fellow women’s ire?  I’m sorry you had back labour and threw up your breakfast because of the epidural, but how does my story impact you? And further, why is my birth story “less” than yours because my labour was so short?  It might have been short, but let me tell you, it was intense!  Since it was my first, I had nothing to compare the pain to, so in my mind, this was early labour.  Things were going to get worse from that point, and that scared me. A lot.  My husband, in charge of the contraction timer, always asked me to rate the pain from 1 to 10 (as the app asked him to) and I always replied “as compared to what?  a punch in the face?  Skin ripping off? Being flogged?” I found myself laughing bitterly saying “I’m going to need drugs… what was I thinking wanting to do this without drugs?  This sh*t is crazy painful!”
There were no drugs. There was no time for drugs.  I was already in active labour. Like the good student I always was, I went right for the extra credit assignment and skipped the lecture readings.  Been there, done that, hugged the crap out of my Snoogle (c)
It’s a truism that borders on cliche how critical women are of each other, and with the anonymity of the internet, we can get downright cruel and demeaning.  Every time someone asks me how the delivery was (please, please ask me how he’s sleeping instead… he still wakes up once a night to feed, so you can lord over me how your perfect baby has slept through the night since he/she came home from the hospital! See? You win!), I cringe.  I want to share my story, because it was one of the best experiences of my life. There were no screams from my room, just laughter.  We were telling jokes about the evening’s events between contractions.  I ate peach slices with my hands because they ran out of spoons.  My husband and best friend scrambled to bring me carrots and hummus since our dinner was in the oven when I went into labour and delivered on an empty stomach.  It was chaotic, wild, and absolutely the story of my life.
It’s my story to share, and I will not stop telling it like it is.  Do I feel robbed? Absolutely not. Depressed that my labour was short?  No way!  I was able to come home the night I delivered and was not exhausted or so battered by labour that I couldn’t function properly and take care of my baby.

I’m sure there are some women out there that went through what I did, and I would be interested to see if anyone does resent their birth story for being short.  I’ve been talking to a lot of women these last nine months, and no one, absolutely no one that had a short labour was angry about it. Surprised, yes. But not angry.

Am I alone here???

*Figure has been inflated for humour.
**Good God, I hope that hasn’t happened to anyone I know!!

http://www.justmommies.com/precipitous-labor

Buttercup

The question.

Recently my boyfriend of 18 months dropped a bomb. Marriage. One day he wants to get married. This is a touchy subject for me for a few reason. The two biggest? I am divorced and commitment in a verbal, stereotypical or public display makes me want to make out of strangers in the back seat of my truck.

After my divorce at 24 I was basically did the college sweep of dating men. I dated everyone I wanted to. I had a blast. I fulfilled a lot of my desires, and broke every single heart I could. My carelessness with my own heart during that summer is one of the main reasons I am now struggling with the basics of a relationships. At those moments in time, I enjoyed the lack of emotional connection. The opportunity for emotional distress was gone, I felt like I was in control of my feelings. Eventually, like most things, this lost its appeal. I missed being comfortable with someone, I missed the trust, the caring and the love. I tried to turn one of my ‘adventures’ into something long term… and we all know how that ended. Drunk texts. Tears. Facebook stalking. And when I run into ‘the guy’ it pretty much sends me into a bizarre spiral of wondering why.

As for how this current marriage conversation started, it is a blur. I deflected it like a total boss and asked him why he wanted to do it. What’s the value in a government piece of paper? Do I really need to do the horse and pony show? Its true your sister will never married, do WE need to do this for your mom? What about Vegas? I like Vegas!? How about when I am 30? After we do a nice long trip around the globe? How about when we both have no debt?? How about I move out on Thursday? Want to help me move?

As I spew this verbal diarrhea, the look on his face seems worried. It’s nothing really about him that makes me not want to marry him is it? It’s me isn’t it? For a different guy would I feel differently? As I scroll through my psycho girl Rolodex about all the reasons this whole situation terrifies me. What’s the big deal? How bad could it be?

What scares me so much about commitment? Is it being stranded? I can barely comprehend taking a cab to the bar, because I am no longer in full control of my ability to getaway. I tend to take seasonal jobs as I enjoy the change and opportunities that a set date to escape entails. I have been called a free spirit and a gypsy most of my life, I never really seemed like the type to settle down. Is this truly how I am? Or am I just a product of what I was told since I was a child?

I have always been the one who believe as adults, in most situations we can make our own rules. Want to skip Christmas to go travel? Lets! Want to live separately but stay in a committed relationship? Sure why not, if that’s what we need to survive together, then let’s do it! I do not value a lot of other people’s opinions, so if something unconventional gives me the opportunity to live a fulfilling lifestyle on my own terms, I am going to pursue it. Can this man who loves me understand and agree? Am I capable of compromise if it isn’t on my own terms? I am selfish. But is it possible to be selfish for the greater good of the relationship?

Isn’t it amazing how one word can create the opportunity for extensive amounts of soul searching and trying in a split second to decide if this is what I wanted in life? Is this who I want? Is my soul destined to the classic picket fence and family? Is it wrong that I am not?

“not all who wander are lost” j.r.r. Tolkien

Cheyenne

I Want to Change Your Mind About Me…

I’ve always struggled with self-worth. So when my best friend of more than 20 years told me she never wanted to see me again because I was too ‘judgemental’ it shook me to my core. Mostly because I work very hard to be supportive of all my friends in their endeavors. It never occurred to me that one of my friends may tell me one day that I was making them feel bad about themselves. And after my issues of self-worth come my issues with anxiety. After this devastating attack on my character and the dissolution of a lifelong friendship, my anxiety was thrown into overdrive. I immediately contacted my other close friends. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t inadvertently making them feel the same way. My thoughts were this “if my best friends tell me that yes indeed they have always felt judged by me in one way or another, than something really needs to change here”. However I was relieved to find that no one felt this way. In fact most of my friends have always found me to be support and empathetic. My relief was short lived though, because now I felt that I had somehow specifically harmed this one person and I would never know why. I always imagined that if a relationship spanning this much time was to dissolve there would be some form of build-up. In this case it was completely out of the blue. From the moment this verbal assault began in the parking lot of a café, where we had agreed to meet for a friendly chat and some bubble tea, to when it ended with her turning her back on me forever, I was completely puzzled. We never even made it inside the café because she couldn’t hold her tongue long enough. She was so consumed in her anger and self-righteousness that the moment she saw me it had to all come out. The strange thing was I had been in a harmful relationship for 7 years prior to this and though that had a very messy ending that involved police and hospitals; it wasn’t as emotionally damaging as this encounter. I think about this visceral attack on my character at all hours of the day and night. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and I will start remembering all the terrible things my friend had said about me that day. And it will lead me into a spiral of questioning every thing I’ve ever done. Every word I ever spoke to her and every moment I ever treasured in our friendship. Her words made me feel doomed in a way I can’t quite describe. They were so final, as if I will always be the terrible person she was describing and she almost felt pity for me. The encounter happened to take place only a few weeks after my husband and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, and I had been so thrilled to tell my friend about it. This was the reason I had wanted to meet her. But her texts leading up to the day were becoming cryptic and I had had a terrible feeling that it wasn’t going to go how I had imagined. It tinged my entire pregnancy with a level of self-doubt that wasn’t there before. My best friend thinks I am not good enough to be her friend anymore, how could I be good enough to raise this little girl? I would imagine her talking to her boyfriend about what a terrible mother I was going to make, raising someone just like me. And at the same time whenever I would have an ultrasound or a baby shower, I would find myself missing her presence. Like a sister who was now estranged.
This spring marked one year since that awful afternoon. And slowly I have found myself reflecting on it less, but with no less intensity when it does cross my mind. Family and friends often ask me if we have reconciled yet. Though I know in my heart we never will because her speech was impassioned and final. One that I was a mere audience for in that I didn’t shout back or begin thrusting her own faults and imperfections back upon her. I was quiet and I was a sponge, absorbing every scathing word. When I returned home that day, brimming with pregnancy hormones and shame, my husband was quick to console me. He tried so hard to undo the damage she had done but I was heartbroken. I look back at photos from our wedding and see her standing next to us, so enthusiastic it seems. Her mother went on to tell me that I shouldn’t look back on those photos with regret because she was there in full support and celebration of us that day. But it’s hard for me to not look at those photos and think to myself “what was she really thinking?” What I really want to tell myself is that it doesn’t matter what she was thinking then and it doesn’t matter what she is thinking now because she is gone. And the people who are still with me are here because they want to be. And yet I still find myself questioning my own value within my other relationships.
Months after my daughter’s birth I find myself struggling again with self-worth. The changes in my body are so much that I no longer recognize myself. Though my husband tries to tell me that I am not as different as I seem to think, I can’t help wondering who that person is when I catch myself in the mirror or someone takes my photo. I am unhappy with what I see looking back at me and that is not ok. I never want my daughter to feel small or imperfect compared to the rest of the world. I don’t want her to find value in her size and appearance. It was, however, how I was raised and so I struggle now. I desperately don’t want the cycle to continue. My husband tells me I am beautiful always, and I find myself refusing to accept his compliments. Something else I don’t want my daughter to do. I want her to accept them because she deserves them.
These feelings don’t stop in my personal life they follow me into my professional life as well. I’m always thinking about the message I am sending to my co-workers and if one of them decides they don’t like me much or treats me differently than others, my immediate thought is “how do I change their mind about me?”. It’s this strong desire for people to like me or at least understand me. Which I know isn’t realistic at all. The best I can do is to treat others with respect and kindness and then forget about the rest. And yet I find myself agonizing over every little detail of a negative encounter or an accusatory email, trying to find a way I could have handled it differently or something I could say now to save myself from feelings of guilt or failure.
What I want most for myself is self-acceptance. I want to be able to say to myself that I am a good person and believe it. I haven’t reached that point yet but I hope to get there one day. I wouldn’t have such an amazing husband and daughter if I hadn’t done something right in my life to bring them my way. I won’t stop being aware of my actions and reflecting on how they impact the people I care about. But I will try very hard to not take it so personally when someone objects to something I have said or done. I know that the way other people perceive me can often be tinged by their own insecurities, emotional state and surrounding influences. Things that I have absolutely zero control over and never will. I can also be happy at any size and in any place in my life, as long as I stop putting pressure on myself every waking moment.
Dhalia

Humanism.

Humanism: is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over established doctrine or faith (fideism).

-Definition: Wikipedia

I am a woman.

I am a wife, mother, sister, daughter and granddaughter.

I am a conservative.

I do not identify as a feminist.

I do not identify as a non-feminist.

I believe that every human on the planet should have the sole right to their person.

I believe that every human should have equal opportunity.

I believe that every human should have equal provisions and necessities provided.

I believe that every human should be treated equally by the law and others.

I am a humanist.

In the simplest of terms there is a lot wrong and a lot right with the world that we live in.  Many of each to do with our personal identities and our access to rights and freedoms. Most of it to do with this principle, even this demand even, of entitlement for equality.

In North America we can choose the industries we go into, choose what education we take in post secondary, choose who and when we marry, we can choose different “lifestyles”; a word foreign in many countries in the world.  We can choose how to live our lives and where to live them.

In developing countries people receive none of these luxuries.  In a developing country people are more worried about where their next meals will come from, or access to clean water, than whether they are making an acceptable wage on a daily basis for work done. In these countries people are more worried about their families or themselves dying of starvation or drought than any of our ‘western issues’.

Emma Watson gave a moving speech on a new feminism campaign that the UN is calling ‘he for she’.  within the first 5 hours of global access to this speech via internet, she was receiving threats against her person, her private sexual life, along with every other woman who is active and identifying as a ‘feminist’ that I have seen in my life time. This is unacceptable.  Not that a woman is targeted for her views, or that a feminist was threatened for taking a stance.  Not even because a ‘new campaign’ for equal rights for women was possibly started or possibly misrepresented.  But that a human being, who is trying to make a difference in a big kid’s sandbox, was judged for their opinions at all, and the result being threats against their person, their privacy and most importantly their life.

She had an immeasurable number of excellent points in her speech.  She spoke about how inequality affects both men and women.  She spoke of how it is wrong to deny women access to equal wages, and rights over their own bodies.  She discussed the depth of the impact on both men and women’s relationships and mental health.  She provided statistics on suicide for men in the United Kingdom, and addressed a number of other topics, to do with both genders.

What she didn’t do is address them from a general standpoint. She discussed all of these points from a feminist viewpoint, all of this while claiming not to be a ‘man hater’, and still imploring men for their help and participation as a tool in aiding female equality.  This is where she was wrong.

The National Center for Men founded in 1987, and located in Coram, NY, fights for and supports men’s rights for equality.  They say that, men are targeted by law for crimes more often than women, and often found guilty when innocent.  They claim that men are unjustifiably responsible for unwanted offspring more than women, and yet more often denied custody over their children when they are wanted even if the mother is not capable of caring for the offspring. The NCM states that an overwhelming number of men are homeless, many more so that women. They declare that circumcision is an assault on male sexuality.

What the NCM doesn’t do is visit the challenges that both genders face daily in their own individual lives and this is where this organization is wrong.

Men are often portrayed in tv shows advertisements on daytime and prime time television as imbeciles, angry, frustrated, and even plain clueless to world issues, their households, and families.  These portrayals are almost never accurate.

We aren’t fighting for equal rights for females, or males, or children, or adolescents, we’re fighting for equal rights for humans.

Men and women are targeted, more often by race and religious, and sexual orientation than anything.  Despite all this men want privileges that have been provided to women in the work place for years.  Flexible schedules, more vacation time, more sick days, all to help deal with their families and personal issues.  Women want all this and equal wages.  Everyone should be able to choose which bonus to take from their employer, I doubt any one person would get more than one or two if this were an option. Custody of children should be provided to every person judged equally for their skill, compassion and desire to provide.  Financial aid and other forms of support for offspring should be judged and provided based on the level of involvement in that child’s life, both of these approaches should be taken with all people.

Mental health and medical aid should be provided to all people with mental health and medical challenges and disabilities.  Education should be available to all people who want and work for it.  Apart from medical intervention to save a life, each individual, no matter their race, religion, gender or identifying gender should have full and singular right over their bodies.

This all being said it is wrong to rape and kill a human being, it is wrong to steal or cheat a human being. It is wrong to be an adulterer or an abuser of animals, children or people.  It is just as wrong to rape and kill a woman as it is to rape and kill a man.   It is wrong to discriminate against a human for his or her race, religion, sexuality, political alignment age or gender.

An example, while extreme, given to me in discussion on this topic is that; if I were to walk through a neighbour-hood with an ethnically targeting and discriminatory t shirt on, declaring my distaste for the racial majority in the region and was shot to death, would it be wrong of me to have been killed? Yes, but was it wrong and ignorant of me to have worn the offending article of clothing as well? Of course.  Don’t ask for trouble.  People can be quick to anger as easily as it is to find people who are mentally disturbed.  Another good example is of women’s clothing.  Since the dawn of time, if you are peacocking in revealing clothing it is typically to advertise your availability as an individual.  In addition to this, we have always had criminals and the mentally and emotionally disturbed, with this comes of course sexual predators.  By dressing in revealing clothing, you make yourself a target for such individuals.

This is not to justify the action of the few, but to say, take responsibility for yourself and respect yourself enough to protect your person from being targeted in such a way.  It is wrong to rape and kill for lots of reasons, it is wrong to discriminate and it is also wrong to dress inappropriately for lots of reasons.

Do yourself a favor, take responsibility for yourself, for your choices, respect yourself to make better choices, and more importantly stand up for everyone, not just the bullied, the children, the less fortunate, the women, or the men.  Stand up for humans.  Our humanitarianism is the only thing that keeps us from destroying the planet, and it is slowly failing in a world where communities are slowly degrading into technology hubs.

I’m asking you to stop fighting for the ‘men’s rights movement’, I’m asking you to stop being a ‘feminist’.  I’m asking you to stop being complacent.  I’m even asking you to stop fighting.

Instead support humanism, global equal access and rights.  So that our poor countries can eat, our prospering countries can continue to prosper and our biodiversity as a species can thrive.  So that we can live in harmony without international wars and conflicts.  Support humanitarianism so that we can live in peace and prosper globally.

Do yourself and your neighbour a favour, jump onto a new bandwagon, to help the people, to support the people, to bring equality to the people.

If we are going to sit down and say that both genders are going to be equal, there would have to be a lot of things put on the table for both genders. So lets stop this petty battle of pitting the sexes against each other.

Join me, become a Humanist.

Aren

How to decide who stays and who goes.

My demons have woken me from, what could have been, a peaceful night’s sleep.

I dreamed of friends who have left my life. Some merely refused to answer my attempts to contact them when we had made arrangements to meet for dinner.  They were also the same women who talked about nothing but babies and children for four hours two weeks after I’d had a hysterectomy. I was quite devastated I would not only never have children, but my choice was taken away from me. I was grieving and they didn’t seem to care. I understood that one was pregnant but they had no other interests for us to talk about, or refused to change topics. The last night we got together, we seemed to have a good time and agreed to meet up again the following month, just after my birthday. I still have not had contact with them although I saw one on the LRT, on our ways to work. She never said anything and neither did I, unsure I wanted to have my feelings trampled right before work. I’m not even sure she recognized me, headphones on, nose stuck in a book.
Another told me that she was being very careful about the people she was allowing in her life. She wanted to keep the drama to a minimum. I felt like she had physically slapped my face! Was I some kind of Drama Queen? Granted for 15 years she was the one I’d gone to first with both good news and bad! We had not seen each other for close to a year. I’d just had a brain injury and was still in the hospital. She was home recovering from surgery. I had Christmas and birthday gifts piling up for her. She had lent me a series of books and I want to return them. I don’t know what I did wrong, and she won’t tell me, just that she’s keeping the drama in her life to a minimum.
I dreamed about her tonight. She cried when I asked if I’d done something  to hurt her, and I put my arms around her. I asked what I could do to be allowed back in her life. She told me that I must follow her rules. If she booked a reservation at a restaurant, I was to know something about the restaurant, have a wine choice made, and be able to tell her about it. I agreed, anything to have her back! I hurt myself physically to express the pain I was feeling. She walked through my home and handled antiques carelessly. I smashed them to show her they meant nothing to me, she meant everything to me! I cried and when my mom wanted to suggest that a friend should accept you as you are, I told her to say nothing!
Now that I’m awake, I agree with my mom, a friend should accept you for who you are and where you are on your journey through this life. I have friends, great friends, great women who love me as much as I love them, sisters by choice, if not by blood!
So here’s the question, I suppose, how do you let go of those people? People who were a big part of your life, who thought that you two “would grow old together” but then walked away? I don’t have an answer. I miss having her in my life. But I’m not going to hurt myself to get her back.
I wanted to know what was wrong with me? Why did people keep leaving me, leaving my life? Was there something I was doing wrong? Was I a Drama Queen? Was I a crazy person and didn’t know it? I’m goofy sometimes, was it that? We women seem to do that, try to find the fault within ourselves. If we are the only one involved in these relationships that fall apart and fail, it must have something to do with us, doesn’t it? Not necessarily. Some people just aren’t meant to remain in our lives. Some are only in our lives for a little while. Some will come back, years later. I have a friend who’s done that. She’s a wonderful person and we reconnected through Facebook. I couldn’t be happier to have her back in my life! We picked right back up like we hadn’t been apart for more than 20 years! We have more in common than we did back then, which amazes me! The man in love with me, and with whom I’m in love, tells me that he’s never felt such peace as when he’s with me. There is no drama in our relationship. Passion, yes. Drama, no.
I guess it’s a choice. To let go of the people who don’t want to be a part of our lives and accept the people who do. I don’t have to carry the pain around anymore, none of us do. Even if we did do something wrong, or hurt someone’s feelings, a true friend would ask you to rectify your actions, and ask for an apology. A true friend doesn’t just walk away as if you don’t even deserve the respect of knowing what happened. I guess it boils down to that – respect. We deserve respect from our friends as much as we deserve it from ourselves. Will Smith says, “Don’t chase people. Be yourself, do your own thing and work  hard. The right people – the ones who really belong in your life – will come to you and stay.”

– Felicity

A little people’s book review

My personal picks for all people 3 and under.

I have always always always loved books. I have loved them for so long that when my daughter was born I still had a small stack of books from my own childhood to share with her. I am SO glad I started reading them to her when she was just one year old because they are actually crap and my early start means I didn’t have to explain to a toddler why that “little black boy deserves a whipping”. HOLY Crap! I was born in the 1970s not the 1870s! Why is this shit in my childhood books?

Anyway, my very first advice about children’s books is to read them by your self, every word of them, before you start to do it out loud to any children. Some might be surprisingly racists, some you might find promote different ideas than you want to, and some just have plain old poor writing/bad English/weak stories. After trudging through a couple boat loads of books I decided to give my personal double thumbs up for a few of my favourites in no particular order.

Anything and everything by Karen Katz. Some titles include “Mommy hugs”, “Daddy hugs”, “Counting Kisses”, and “Where is Baby’s Belly Button”.

The art is absolutely charming, and the stories are simple and feature a solid word base for the wee ones. Many of the stories encourage affection, teach body parts/numbers/family member names and more. My daughter also loved to point out where the family cat was on each page of “Counting Kisses” which is something I didn’t notice on my own! These books are easy to find, and make an awesome gift!

“I Love You Through and Through” and “How Do I Love You?” written by different authors but both illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church. Perfect for the littlest people, the writing in both is simple and sweet for quick page turns! I know some little hands that liked the page turning the best! Also sweet and simple pictures that help highlight the words on each page. These books are published on the thinner board that seems to hold up better in my house than the too tempting think board books, and a very resilient squish cover. My daughter was a rodent that chewed everything from books, to my walls, even shoes sometimes… and I know all children are capable of different levels of destruction, but these are the only surviving books from birth to now (2 1/2 years of terror).

Any Patch books by Peter Curry. These are a little tricky as I was sent them from the UK but they are awesome! Patch is a gender neutral puppy who does stuff that kids do. It’s all very simple, but the art is vibrant and my little one took her copy of “A Day With Patch” everywhere… until she ate it which makes me very sad because I think she’d love it even more now she’s a little older and can identify all the activities and the routine of the day. If you can get your hands on these or you want to get someone a gift that isn’t the standard fair, then these are a good pick!

Of course more than anything I recommend that we read read read! I forget sometimes too, and some days she just wont sit still, but I have witnessed first hand how awesome things can happen when we spark that interest in books early! It can fucking blow your mind!

Love always

Fat Feme

The epidemic of suicide

There is very little more heart-wrenching than the suicide of someone you love. Family and friends left behind go through the usual steps of grieving; denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But they also go through a lot of guilt. How could they have missed the signs that, now, seem so obvious? Why didn’t they answer their text/call, or text/call them back? Maybe they could have done something, said something, maybe even just listened to them. But they didn’t so they feel horribly guilty. The simplest answer would surprise them. They may have been able to stop their loved one from attempting suicide that day, but someone determined to end their life will find a way.
I found some interesting statistics while doing research for this article. The highest percentage of the population committing suicide isn’t angst ridden teens and adolescents, it’s middle-aged men, men between the ages of 50-59! Robin Williams is within this group of men who seemingly have everything to live for, successful careers, wives and families who love love them, and private struggles with mental illness. The last decade has seen an increase in the percentage of men in this age group committing suicide, increasing by 50%! Now men have been more likely to be successful at killing themselves than women, although women attempt suicide more often, according to the statistics. That is likely more because of the more lethal means that men use – hanging and shooting. These are men in privileged levels in society, they’re at the top of their careers, running big businesses, they seemingly have all the power! Why would they commit suicide? Part of the problem likely has to do with how these men were raised, to not discuss their emotional concerns. In the last decade roles have changed, with women becoming the bread-winners, their generation is sandwiched between caring for their elderly parents and their children, and all the jobs lost due to the downward spiral of the economy. Men of this generation were taught to “Keep Calm and Carry On,” so to speak, not show their emotions, not discuss said emotions, or ask for help in dealing with the stress in their lives.

Then there is another group who choose to end their lives at a time of their own choosing due to medical conditions. The medical conditions range from ALS to Multple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s. Some cancer patients refuse treatment because they have gone through it before and it was an awful, painful experience, and caused them to feel very ill. These people will have to watch their bodies deteriorate while their minds remain, for the most part, intact and fully functioning.

Imagine that for a moment. Your brain is still the same, intelligent, you. But your body doesn’t respond to your commands. Someone must look after everything for you. They feed you, they make sure you get your medications on time. They also have to clean you up after you’ve soiled yourself, changing your diaper at the same time. They must wash you, an unpleasant experience for any independent adult, to have a stranger wash your body, scrubbing areas no one but your spouse has seen in a VERY long time. It is embarrassing, humiliating, and unpleasant, though most nurses try to get you through it with minimal embarrassment, chatting to keep your mind off it. It doesn’t help. I know because I had to go through it due to a brain injury. I didn’t want male nurses to wash me, men I didn’t know looking at a body with scars, stretch marks, and more weight than I should have been. I was embarrassed enough to need someone to do it for me, I didn’t even want a woman to wash me. I learned very quickly to block it out, go somewhere, anywhere, else!

The people who choose to end their lives due to illness have groups trying to help them. Some groups are fighting the fight legally, through the court system. They’re challenging the legality of doctor assisted ending of lives. They feel it isn’t constitutional for the government to deny a person’s wish to end his or her life. Several people have been fighting the battle for so long, and their conditions deteriorated in the meantime, that they passed away, at times from completely unrelated illnesses! One woman got an infection and died very quickly from it!

Recently a woman from BC was given a diagnosis of ALS and decided to end her life on her own terms and in her own time. She notified all her children and spent a final weekend with them. They were, understandably upset, but they felt a sense of peace as well. They got to share their feelings and say their goodbyes. A group in BC helped her make sure that was what she wanted. But they also did their due diligence, they had her speak with psychologists, and confirmed that she was ill, and not just in a depressed mindset or being coerced. The group has the person sign wavers, and there is one or two group members present at the end. Once the person is gone, they call the police and make certain they understand what has happened.

This was the hardest article to write because I had a major depressive episode last year. I didn’t want to be the burden I thought I was to my family. My common-law spouse left me when I still couldn’t cut my own food and took my car because he had sold his truck to get money. He couldn’t seem to make ends meet. I had no money coming in and we’d gone through my savings. I wasn’t allowed to drive, which was a mute point considering I had no vehicle! I felt useless, that I had no ability to be a productive part of society. I wasn’t going to be able to do anything special, I wasn’t going to make a difference in anyone’s life, I didn’t matter. I was also in a lot of pain, neuropathic pain that required heavy duty pain killers, which of course made me very tired and sleepy all the time. Was this it? Was this my new normal? Was this how my life was going to be from now on?? I seriously considered ending my life since I was useless and just taking up space. I had a LOT of pills, and gravol to help keep them down. The mistake some who try to use pills to end their lives is that they end up vomiting them up, hence the gravol. I called my common-law spouse, asked him to come over, that I needed to not be alone. He was at work, because it was in the afternoon. He said he would come, after work, but he had to go to some party for his brother first. He didn’t come over until 1am. He had apparently called my sister, who had a brand new baby in the NICU, to come see me or else get my brother to come over. I still don’t understand why he didn’t come himself. But I do understand why people commit suicide. When you’ve been fighting so long battling depression or anxiety, or the possibility of being trapped within one’s own body, when you don’t see an end to the pain, and you feel like you have no fight left in you, you just want it to stop, and ending your life is the only way out that you can see to do that.

Obviously I didn’t commit suicide, but that was my choice. I decided that I had to keep going, I had come this far, battled this hard to come back from my brain injury and paralysis, I wasn’t going to stop at that point. I am so glad I didn’t or I wouldn’t have fallen in love with an amazing man. He looks after me when I need help, catches me when I lose my balance, and says it gives his life purpose to look after me when I need him. He tells me every day how beautiful I am, how special I am, that I am the best thing that has ever happened to him! I would have missed the most incredible love I have ever experienced! I thought I had been in love before but this is so much more, bigger, and deeper than anything I’ve experienced, ever!

While I can understand why some people want to end their lives before their medical condition worsens, or if the pain is unbearable, I have trouble understanding why others choose it. Things may change soon, making life bearable again, you may even find the love of your life!

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Smile in the mirror

Like most woman I struggle daily to look in the mirror and smile at the image looking back at me.

I attended a wedding last night that was full of friends, laughs and of course pictures. I am currently the heaviest that I have ever been and I am so caught up in all the “should’s” that I can’t see the forest for the trees. I should go to the gym daily, I should eat salads for every meal and most of all, I should work a lot harder to be happy with this new foreign body. I should be happy because this body created the most wonderful little human being. This body wakes up at least 3 times a night to feed that tiny human. And most of all, I should be happy with this body that, everyday, keeps our little family’s world turning.

As a modern mom we are expected to do it all and look great while doing it. But today I am standing up and saying… Doing it all is really hard. In fact, it’s the hardest thing I have ever had to do. Between paleo, gluten free, raw food, and the juice cleanse. To weight watchers, Jenny Craig, knowing the difference between good fat and bad fat, counting calories and the dreaded carb. Don’t forget to make sure you eat coconut oil, chia seeds, hemp seeds, blueberries, broccoli and flax. I can hardly keep track of what I should be feeding my family, never mind what I should be eating myself.

We live in a world full of fad diets, celebrity bodies, and an unrealistic expectation of what we are suppose to look like…. Along side knowing the GMO companies, the companies that use pesticides that are killing our bees and the affordability of eating local organic and sustainable food. It’s any wonder why the majority of us are in a constant battle with the health of beauty.

I have to be honest, right about now I would trade all the modern conveniences and big box stores for a world full of mom and pop markets. I could relish in the comfort of knowing that what I feed my family nourishes us and the people I bought it from.   It would go a long way towards boosting my confidence in myself and the choices I make for my family on a daily basis. 

If I could only smile at the face in the mirror.

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