Category Archives: Thoughts

Just one form of strength

The thing about strength is that it doesn’t feel like strength when you’re in the middle of it. Everything feels all mixed-up and wrong. You’re certain that you’re doing the wrong thing and that irreparable harm will come of it. You’re sure that you’re going to lose your job or fuck up your kids are ruin a friendship that you previously thought was bulletproof.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like everything is terrible, but being strong doesn’t feel like strength. It feels like hell.

And it looks like it a little bit after you’re gotten through it. Because one day you’ll realize the worst part of that situation is over. You’ll look around, and you’ll see  the carnage from the landmines, but you’ll also realize that you’ve somehow manage to step on them as you made your way through the field. It’s a little amazing, not understand how you made it through.

It feels like relief. You can let your guard down and take a deep breath, let the tension out of your body.

Until, of course, you have to be strong again. You press on, but it feels like you won’t make it through. If you’re lucky — or if you’re smart — you’ll realize that you’ve been down a similar road before. The end is always just around a curve, even if that curve is terrifying. If you’re less lucky, you forget that you’re persevered before. You blunder forward, sure that this time will be the end of you.

But it’s not true. You will get through it. You do it time and time again because that’s what it means to be humans. That’s the process of living. It’s never easy. It’s often unpretty. It’s usually more outrageous than I could ever imagine, but it’s life.

I imagine that, given a natural death, I will some day have a moment where I let go of the breath that I’ve been holding. I will look back on the minefield that has been my life, and I will realize not only that I made it through but that flowers have grown over the places where I’ve stepped.

Maybe you’ll see that, too.

Perhaps the better title of this post would be “everyone loves me.” But I thought that sounded a bit too egotistical. It’s true though. I have no enemies. People don’t dislike me. They meet me, they learn about me and they love me.

I think this is because I make their lives better. I listen, I make them laugh, I’m a good friend, sister, daughter, whatever. And people tell me this all the time. It’s amazingly touching. It’s also reaffirming because I always suspect that I am beneficial to others, but that they take the time to tell me proves it.

I am a lot of things, and not all of them are good, but it more than balances out in the end. It makes my life worth living, truly. It makes me glad to wake up in the morning and look forward to tomorrow.

The thing about this is that I don’t really try. I mean, I do, but it’s not like it’s difficult. What could feel better than knowing you’re a positive factor to those that you love — and knowing that everyone you’ve ever loved pretty much agrees — than the knowledge that you’re just naturally good at it?

I don’t know. Maybe nothing better exists, just like my enemies don’t.

I woke up to some very sad news. Of course, I had to go read about it. As with anything related to guns and shootings, and especially those involving children because they pull at folks’ heartstrings, I signed on to Facebook and saw a few messages about gun control.

Wisconsin somewhat recently signed into action a concealed carry law. We’re really one of  the last states to do so. There was a lot of drama surrounding it, and I had no idea we were the minority before the change. I thought everyone else was with us about concealed carrying, and I was pretty against it. But this isn’t about concealed carry. Yes, we can assume that Connecticut has a similar law just because of the numbers but, let’s be honest, making concealed carry illegal wouldn’t have changed anything.

And this post is interesting coming from me. A year ago, I wouldn’t have posted anything of this nature. I would’ve firmly been in the other camp.

Here goes.

Dude took his mother’s guns. They were legally purchased, mind you. He was probably already breaking some laws by having so many on him, but I don’t know for sure. It wouldn’t surprise me. He then killed his mother at home. That’s definitely illegal. Then, he drove to a school zone with these guns. Also illegal. No question about it. Entering that school and slaughtering those children and employees. That is also illegal but no more illegal than the string of illegal thing he’s already done.

Without a concealed carry law, he would’ve been breaking just one more law, and it wouldn’t even be the more significant law on the list. One more or less law would not have prevented this from happening — if those laws are aimed at citizens. Why? Because this sort of thing is a symptom and not the case. It is a symptom.

The cause, according to many people, is a lack of proper mental healthcare in the United States. I don’t disagree with this. I don’t know that it would have prevented this from happening 100%, but it may have gone a long way to deter the Sandy Hook school shooting and other incidents from happening. But I don’t think that’s the bigger issue.

The bigger issue is that this all started with perfectly legal activity, and that activity is the purchase of gun’s. Its easy. It’s too easy because we don’t dig into mental health histories enough, and perhaps if we had more stringent mental healthcare, there’d be more detailed histories to dig into to begin with. But guns are easy to buy. It’s easy to buy multiple guns. It’s easy to get your hands on a gun because, even if you didn’t buy one, maybe your mom did.

People use school shootings as ammunition — pardon the pun — to stoke the fire. They argue that this is exactly why you need to buy a gun. To protect your own. I disagree. Who, in their right mind, would think arming a bunch of people in a school would have made this any better?

Many people who own guns don’t own them in the right ways. They don’t keep them locked up. They don’t make sure that they’re the only people who can get to them. As long as that happens, more people buying guns won’t help. So, I guess I’d argue that licensing should be more difficult. But it’s not.

And it’s not for a reason. That reason? Firearms as an industry is fucking profitable. Not for me or you, of course, but for some guy who owns the companies or a politician who made a deal with them. Probably a middle-aged white dude. A Republican. The kind of CEO whose interest is paying less taxes than you and me. I guess I’m getting political but, perhaps, in a different way. To me, it’s easy to see that the issue isn’t gun control on a personal level but on a corporate level. Make it harder to get guns into peoples’ hands by reducing the number of firearms in circulation. Make it less profitable for the companies, and that will happen in an instant.

I’m not saying that gun trade won’t move to the black market, but it’s already there, and people like Adam Lanza don’t even have to go that far to get guns, but if he had to? Maybe that would’ve been the inconvenience that stopped him altogether or put his plan on hold long enough for someone to discover it. Maybe not. But a lack of a law that lets people carry concealed weapons wouldn’t have accomplished anything in this situation.

I know my mother wasn’t the only parent who held a child extra close last night. I know I wasn’t the only one shocked. I know that concern is pouring out from every corner of the globe. My thoughts, like yours, are with the community of Newton, Connecticut and the families who lost loved ones at Sandy Hook. Whatever arguments occur or changes happen as a result of this aside, that is true.

Catch a shooting star..

This isn’t the blog post I started to write, but maybe this is the post I need to write. Do you ever feel like that?

I vaguely remember someone discussing tonight’s meteor shower, and then I promptly forgot all about it until a friend posted on Facebook. I thought that I’d step outside to see it since I was up, but I forgot as I finished the show I was watching. You see how silly I am?

I stepped outside in my gizmo slippers, not expecting to see anyone, but my neighbor was getting something from his car so I retreated inside. I finally remembered and headed back outside to watch the stars. I oriented myself, found a dipper and shivered. I was just about to give up and go inside. As I turned, I saw a meteor burning brightly and flying through the sky. It renewed my patience, my strength. I stayed outside to find another one. I adjusted my position because I realized the building might’ve been blocking some meteors. Of course. I was limited because I was in my gizmo slippers and didn’t want to get them wet with snow.

The second meteor came from the same direction but shot out in a different path. It was so bright. They both seemed so closed. I waited out a third “shooting star.” Its trajectory was similar to the first. I felt that three stars in such a short time was enough to call it a night. It’s the type of night where you see your breath, and what sort of weirdo stands outside in slippered feet in the middle of a Demcember night?

Oh yes. I do.

The science isn’t as exciting as the mythology. The idea of a shooting star, of something you make a wish on. It’s the stuff of fairy tales, of songs. It is, for some people, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I found myself reminded of the beauty of nature. Of the insignificance of it all. Of the minutiae that is myself and every other human. I stared at the sky with childlike eyes. I was in awe, and I loved it.

Moments like these remind me how I’ve become soft in my old age. I jest. I’m hardly old, but it seems like the older I get, the more I appreciate my ability to look at things with awe, with wonder, with softness. It’s a talent I’ve not always had, even as a child. I cherish the ability that I’ve grown.

And I am grateful for the opportunities to exercise that.