I just had someone like one of my blog posts! That means that someone (other than my husband, who doesn’t really have a choice) read one of my blog posts! I know I said I was really just writing as a way of release, but who doesn’t like validation, right? I know I have been really sketchy about blogging, I could never “do” this as a vocation or for that matter “be a writer”. Although I do have ideas for several YA sci-fi novels, sketched out in my head and I was a librarian, so I think I could do that, if I just had the whole dedication/brain working thing. But alas, I don’t. :o)
I am also excited because I have finally started building my store on this website, it was one of my original intents in creating a website. It will take me awhile to recreate everything I have on my Etsy store (I have 691 items as of this morning) and I am not closing it, but I think I will be able to do more with the website, like newsletters and notices of sales, fun stuff.
Ok, now the dismayed part. I don’t get the hate. I am talking about all of the hate I see swirling about me on a daily basis. When I say that I am referring to social media as I am home bound pretty much except for doctor’s appointments and those aren’t real political. I know I live in a red state, but I don’t understand how people who seem to be kind, warm understanding individuals treat me one way (good) but then act/feel/treat people who look differently (black, Hispanic, poor, insert minority group here) or who were born differently (LGBTQ) as less than. I hear everything from blatant racism and homophobia to just privileged cluelessness. I truly don’t get it. How can you look at another person and not see them as a person? I mean I understand treating someone differently because of their behavior, if they are a jerk to you, you don’t have to hang out with them. You might try to understand why they are a jerk, but some people are just jerks. I honestly do not like my ex-mother-in-law (first husband’s mother), she was a jerk. But it wasn’t because of how she was born or how she looked, it was because of how she acted/treated the people around her.
I know our ENTIRE nation is struggling right now with these questions as the people who should be providing leadership are acting in ways that would have had them sent to the principal’s office if they were still in sixth grade. But, I honestly feel it is up to each of us as thinking, literate adults to determine our own morality and we can’t use the failings of our public leaders as an excuse for bad behavior. We have to hold ourselves to a higher standard. When our kids say, but x did this or said this, we have to say, yes and it wasn’t ok when he did it either.
I have talked about how I spent 12 years as a middle school educator in previous blog posts. Here’s the thing, this is why I think all of this is so very important. I have had sixth grade babies over the years who were gay, they didn’t know they were gay, but they were gay. It was obvious, they themselves were kinda oblivious to the whole boy/boy girl/girl whatever thing because they hadn’t arrived there yet developmentally. But I guarantee you that within a year or two when they started struggling with it, someone in their lives told them they weren’t natural or it was a sin. These children, these babies, we have to protect them. To me, that is the MOST important thing. There are so many people out there preaching hate and it is all based on ignorance. Just step back and think about it really, think about the cost, think about the babies, and is it worth their lives? We have to protect the children.
I’m looking forward to following your blog!