Speaking From Experience

Here are the things you need to know about me before you read the rest of this:

I'm a woman.  A woman who has experienced gun violence perpetrated against me.  A woman that's been physically and sexually abused by men.  A woman that's held a gun in my own hands, debating on whether or not to end the life of one of my perpetrators.  A woman who has had five "spontaneous abortions" (the grotesque, but still utilized medical term for what we all call a 'miscarriage').  A woman that's had to struggle with infertility and being able to stay pregnant.  A woman that had to be on hormone injections, daily, to even stay pregnant.  A woman that had to face the very real possibility that I was going to have to have a late term abortion to remove one of my "so very hard fought for" fetuses from my body due to a genetic condition that would have killed my sweet baby mere moments after its birth.  I've also worked with and for the police department.  I've worked in the school system.  

So, when I say that I'm "speaking from experience", the above information is what I'm referring to.  

I've seen both sides of most of the "hot button" issues our country is facing.  I've been the victim and I've wanted to murder someone.  I've been the one that fought for my pregnancy and the one that lost children.  I've been protected by people with badges and guns, that allowed me to do my job safely and I've been scared to death, running "safety drills" inside of a school.  

I have family and friends that are or were police officers and I have family and friends that are or were teachers.  I'm friends with people that hunt and people that are vegan.  I was raised Southern Baptist but have grown to be an atheist.  I've read every single page of the Bible and our Constitution.  I've shook the hands of Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, Pagans, Wiccans and others that didn't even have a name for what they felt was their "religion".  I've listened to Native American people tell their sacred stories, with rapt attention to every detail.  I've valued every one of these people, even though we were aren't the same in many ways. 

Here's what I can say, speaking from experience, we're far more alike than we are different though. Most people are doing the best that they can.  Most people want to love and to be loved.  Most people want to do no harm.  Most people just want to make it home safely at the end of the night to see their family, their friends, their pets.  Most people see the value of life.  The hardest part these days seems to be agreeing on what those things even mean. 

We can't even agree on whom we're "allowed to love"; whom we can call "our family"; what constitutes being "safe".  

Speaking from experience, I know that "it" isn't easy.  There is no "one size fits all" answer to "hot button" issues like gun control and abortion.  What I think that MOST people are truly sick of is hypocrisy.  I think most of us are tired of hearing how "my side is right and your side is wrong", even when BOTH SIDES are saying the EXACT SAME THING, just about different subjects!  But, what makes most of us angry is the fact that we seem to have just . . . . .given up.  Resigned ourselves to the notion that we can't make it better, do better. . . .BE BETTER!  

We absolutely HAVE to do better.  We owe it to our children and their children.  We have to try.  

Speaking from experience, laws are ONLY EVER FOLLOWED by the lawful.  That doesn't mean that we have NO LAWS.  That just makes no sense.  Speaking from experience, I've never had to have an abortion, but at the time where I MIGHT have HAD to have one, it was legal and I'm thankful that that was the case.  I'm saddened to think that I would have either had to become a criminal or force a baby to be born into this world only to suffer and live for mere hours.  Speaking from experience, the reason I didn't kill my perpetrator, honestly, had NOTHING to do with the idea of "jail time" and everything to do with not hurting his family.  Speaking from experience, I would never want to live in a country without an armed police force to serve and protect me.  I also wouldn't want to be asked to carry a gun into my classroom, in order to do that for my students.  

I recognize that these are hard things.  We can do hard things.  We've DONE hard things.  Let's figure this out together . . . . .speaking from experience, not premise; speaking from experience, not spoon fed  rhetoric; speaking from experience that has shaped us, formed us and made us wise to the ways of the world!

Let's all take a deep breath, it's just another day in "Perfect". . . . .

Capacity?

You know what I'm sick of?  Pretty much fucking everything.  No.  I mean it.  Really.  EVERYTHING!  If there was a little "timer" that would/could pop out of the side of each and every one of us "humans" that indicated when we've just "had enough". . . mine would have popped about a year and half ago.  (And don't we all kinda wish that such a thing existed?  Imagine all the bull shit we could prevent from happening?  No more crazed folks running around shooting innocent people.  No way!  We'd be able to "lock people away" until their little "I'VE HAD ENOUGH SHIT" meter returns to "normal"!)

I digress. . . .I mean aren't YOU sick of everything, too?  Such as. . .why on Earth do I need Christmas decorations out for sale in the middle of July?  Really?  Because, of course, there isn't ENOUGH stress put on us moms to make that "blessed holiday" (yeah, right. . .more like COMMERCIALISM AT IT'S FINEST!) bloody perfect every year?  Let's make me start panicking about my inadequacy in the middle of summer?!?  No thanks.

I'm also super tired of politicians.  I hate them all.   I'm tired of being told that I'm an "idiot" and "un-American" for thinking that there's really just no good damn reason for you and I to be able to go out and get a "clip" that holds ONE HUNDRED ROUNDS OF AMMUNITION!  Really?  I'm stupid?  There's something wrong with ME?  I've never heard of a "hunter" needing to shoot a deer a hundred times to kill it.  (Since all I "EVER" seem to hear about is "hunters need their guns for this and hunters need their guns for that. . .)  Not to mention, if I'm using "my gun" to PROTECT myself, again, why do I need 100 bullets to shoot a bad guy?  Are we really THAT worried about the zombie apocalypse?   I'm also tired of them throwing FITS when they "don't get their way" and keep on threatening to "shut the government down".  I find this hilarious because you can bet your sweet ass that they'd keep on getting paid.  Not really "shutting the doors", are ya?  Fuckers.  I hate liars.  I hate fakers.  I hate whiners.  Suck it up and do your damn job for once!

If I see one more Dunkin' Donuts next to a Curves or 24 Hour Fitness I'm going to explode.  What the hell is wrong with us here in America?  People aren't struggling enough with their health and weight, we need to give them some EXTRA temptation?  Come on.  I hate cruelty, too.  And to me. . .this just seems cruel.

Then there are all these damn 'studies' that make each and every one of us either feel stupid and inferior or superior and brilliant.  Again, really?  How much damn money do we spend on 'studies' of NOTHING IMPORTANT?

Speaking of feeling inferior and stupid. . . . why can't women be nice to each other?  I'm tired of being used and abused by people who claim to be my friends.  No good deed goes unpunished there.  Evil knows no bounds in this arena.  Someone knows your inner most secrets?  You can bet she's going to use that to, not only, stab you in the back but also in the front.  The side.  The head.  The shoulder.  The eye.  You name it.  It's apparently not "off limits".  And I love how then they turn around and blame YOU for the "drama" in their lives.  Ummm. . .???  WHAT?

I could go on and on, but really. . .the point is this. . .  .do we each have a set "limit" for what we can take?  How does one go about "resetting" their "capacity timer" once it's gone off?  I'm really struggling with trying to figure this one out.  How do I put the cork BACK IN THE BOTTLE?  How do I STOP feeling overwhelmed with my life and the lives of all of those that intersect mine?  Why do some folks seem to have a much larger capacity for bullshit?  Why am I one of them?  (Or at least USED to be . .)  Why was I able to, quite easily, just sit back and swallow all of the crap that was handed down to me; given to me through little or no choice of my own?  Why now. . .all of the sudden. . .am I UNABLE, perhaps, unwilling, to accept what, once was, not only okay but expected?  Is my current "lack of capacity" a sign of growth or weakness?  Does your level of "capacity" change over time?  Should it?  Can you consciously "adjust" your level?  How can we recognize the "warning signs" in ourselves and those around us that, maybe, just maybe, they've been pushed too far?  Why can't anyone seem to hear me; when I'm so clearly standing in the middle of this room SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS???  (Oh sorry. . . . .my 'turkey timer" popped right out there. . .)  

I just don't know.  I don't know why, or how, or when, or where any of this went off of the rails.  I don't know who am I some days.  When I became this person who I see in the mirror every day.  I don't know how I got here and I certainly don't seem to know where I'm going.  I've lived a lifetime "under my capacity" and now. . . .now that I'm "over it", I'm not sure that I can put the genie back into the bottle.  I'm not sure what it would look like if I allowed myself to be raw. . .edgy. . . hard. . . .bitter. . . .selfish. . . . out of control. . .  ."over capacity".   What would happen if I just SAID what I really thought?  

 

Take a deep breath, it's just another day in Perfect!

What My Divorce Has Taught Me. . . . .

So, it's done.  Finished.  Over with.  My marriage that is. . . .and the divorce.  It's done.  It's . . .all. . . just. . . DONE!  It's strange really.  The divorce took eight minutes.  Yes, you read that correctly.  EIGHT. MINUTES.  That was all the time it took to murder a family.  Eight FUCKING minutes!  They have this shit down, I tell ya. . . .to a science, for sure.  It's very clinical.  They're very clinical.  The magistrate and the recorder.  They sat patiently waiting for my answers to questions that stuck in my throat, through my tears.  But, here's what this has all taught me:

Nothing matters.  No, I don't mean that to sound all cynical and negative.  If anything it's the opposite.  It's the fact that those eight minutes don't really MEAN anything.  I was still the same person I was when I got there, when I left.  I didn't crumble or crack or fall over or. . .DIE, like I thought I was going to.  Did I cry?  Yes!!  Like a fucking BABY!!!!!  I cried on my ex-husband's shoulder.  Yes, you read THAT right, too, I cried on. his. shoulder.  He let me get snot and tears all over his nice shirt.  And you know what?  It didn't matter.  He wasn't pissed about it.  He wasn't "put out".  He can always wash his shirt. It didn't matter that, as of 10 seconds prior to the bawling fit, we were no longer married.  It just, simply, didn't matter.  I was hurting and he held me.  Period. 

It doesn't matter that, as far as the state is concerned, I'm single.  Single, people.  Single.  I haven't been "single" since I was 14 years old back at good old "Smoky Hill High School", just prior to dating Keith!  What does one do some 32 years later?  How does one "date" again?  I have no idea and it doesn't matter anyway.  I'll figure it out.  Or I won't.  Either way, it doesn't really matter.  Life will go on. 

It doesn't matter that I loved my ex-husband in a way that, probably, wasn't healthy.  It doesn't matter that I wish I would have showed him how much I loved him better.  In a way that would have made him KNOW it, every single day.  It doesn't matter that I now know how lucky I was to be allowed to stay at home with our daughters and raise them, the right way, in our eyes.  It doesn't matter that I now realize I should have had more fun when I was there.  I should have allowed myself to go to lunch more often.  I should have stopped cleaning so much and allowed myself to relax.  It doesn't matter that I know for a fact that I tried EVERYTHING I knew how to do to save my marriage.  It doesn't matter that it didn't work.  It just doesn't. . . . . .

If I could give anyone a piece of my heart and some sound advice whilst going through the divorce process it's this. . . .it. doesn't. matter.  That piano doesn't matter.  The house doesn't matter.  Who's right and who's wrong, doesn't matter.  Even when it's GLARINGLY apparent!  None of it matters.  The day that you get a divorce is just like the day before it and the day after it.  There's nothing special about it.  Truly.  There's not!  You'll survive.  It'll be different and painful and difficult and nearly impossible some days, but it, in the end, still doesn't even matter.  You'll wake up tomorrow and put one foot in front of the other.  Then, you'll wake up the next day and do the same.  And the next day and so on, until you forget what even broke you up in the first place.  You'll settle into a routine.  You'll find your path.  There will only be the one set of footprints now, instead of two, but that doesn't matter either.  Eventually, you'll walk so far away that you can't even see the path that you both were walking down, once upon a time. 

Just know that none of this shit, that you're going through right now, matters.  You matter.  Your children (if you have them) matter.  That's really it.  That's all.  Don't make it more than it is.  Don't make it less than it is.  It's a divorce.  That's it.  And really. . . . .it just doesn't even matter! 

Take a deep breath. . . . it's just another day in Perfect!  

On The Eve Of Our Divorce. . . . .

In twelve short days, I'll no longer be your wife.  Yes, you've left our home many days ago. . . nearly a year's worth of days, actually, but still.  In twelve days, my life will be different.  I will no longer be able to say that I'm "your wife".  There will be no question, during conversation, as to how to qualify you.  You will be my EX-husband and I your EX-wife.  What does that even mean?  Does it mean that we stop loving each other?  Does it mean that we never DID love each other?  Does it mean that all of the caring, loving, hurting, crying, sharing, building, creating, worrying, fretting, celebrating, enjoying didn't matter?  Does it mean that we wasted twenty two years of our lives with the "wrong person"?  How is one supposed to be able to survive such a drastic change?  How will I breathe deeply ever again?  How will I ever relax again?  How will I ever allow someone in again?

In twelve short days, everything changes.  I will be single.  SINGLE.  Legally. . . S.I.N.G.L.E.  I will be solitary.  Individual.  Separate.  Cleaved.  Changed.

In twelve short days, my identity changes.  Forever.  I don't even know how to start to find "me".  I've spent twenty two years loving you.  I spent twenty two years focusing on you.  In all of that time, I gave little to no thought to "me".  Now, suddenly the world expects me to just "figure it out" and "do what I want to do".  But, how can that happen when I've spent so much time NOT thinking of myself?  How do you just wake up one day and start to be selfish?  How am I supposed to just stop thinking about you?  Worrying about you?  Loving you?  Caring about you?  Who am I without YOU?  My identity has been so closely tied to you that I don't really have one OUTSIDE of you or the idea of "you and I".

In twelve short days, I'll be free to love again.  You'll be free to do the same.  But, how?  When?  Where?  Will I EVER be open again?  How will I take the broken pieces of my tiny, fragile heart and glue them back together enough to even allow anyone else to look at it, much less, touch it or hold it?  Love ME???  No way.  That's terrifying!  What worse?  Knowing that someone else will love you.  Hold you.  Comfort you.  I don't want you to be unhappy or unloved, so these are things that I truly wish for you but I'd be lying if I said that a little part of me didn't die every time I think of someone else being "your wife".

So, in twelve short days, our divorce will be final.  It appears, however, that nothing else is quite so clear cut for me.  The papers have all been filed.  What's done is done.  There's no stopping it all know.  But, tell that to my heart.  Tell it to stop aching.  Tell my eyes to stop crying.  Tell my brain to stop thinking of the millions of things I did wrong; that drove you away.  Tell my body to stop longing for your touch.  Or my ears from wanting to hear you say "I love you", just one more time.

Take a deep breath, in twelve short days, it'll be just another day in Perfect. . . . .

The Myth of the "Amicable Divorce"

Amicable:

ADJECTIVE

1. (of relations between people) having a spirit of friendliness; without serious disagreement or rancor:

   "there will be an amicable settlement of the dispute"

   synonyms: friendly · good-natured · cordial · easy · easygoing
   
   

   Let me be clear here . . .there is NO SUCH THING AS AN AMICABLE DIVORCE!  You can not be "friendly, good-natured, or easy going" when you're going through the most painful thing a couple can go through.  Now, don't get me wrong, you CAN exhibit these behaviors.  You CAN show each other kindness and not scream at each other.  You can not blame each other for the broken state of your marriage, but underneath it all, you ARE crumbling.  You're destroyed.  Even if you saw it coming.  I ask you, if you SEE that bus that's coming down the road to hit you, does it not still flatten your ass once it strikes you?  Yeah, I thought so.  

   Being aware that you're going to be "flattened" does NOTHING to prevent the pain. . .the "shock and awe" that comes with filing some stupid paperwork.  One wouldn't expect such a "mundane sounding" event to create such chaos in one's life, yet it does.  It's beyond chaos.  Beyond pain.  No, this. . .THIS is something entirely different that I don't think there's a word for yet.  Total destruction, doesn't even do it justice.  

   My husband and I are "amicable".  I hate that fucking word.  Yet, we are; on the surface, quite amicable.  We've been amicable our entire marriage.  Not fighting.  Not even once, in twenty years of being together.  Yeah, I know, I know. . .you think I'm totally bullshitting you, yet, I'm not!  We "polited" ourselves straight into divorce.  We never once raised our voices.  We never once spoke out of turn to each other.  Yet, here we are.  The "amicable" divorce.  

   People "praise us" for how well we're handling it all.  Let me also be clear here. . . .I'M NOT HANDLING THIS WELL AT ALL!!!  I'm falling apart.  I'm lonely.  I'm heart broken.  I'm angry.  I'm FAR from friendly, good-natured, cordial or easy going!  Most especially to myself.  I'm beating the ever loving SHIT out of myself.  Questioning all of the things I didn't do.  Why DIDN'T I?  Torturing myself for all of things I DID do, just incorrectly.  Why didn't I do that better?  What's wrong with me?  No. . .there's nothing amicable about how I feel.  So, when people tell me how "well we're handling all this", I can't tell if I want to laugh or cry more.  If I'm "proud of us" or if I think we're just fooling ourselves and everyone else, too. 

   
   

   As much as I WISH there really was an "amicable divorce" I KNOW that there's not.  There cannot be.  No matter how much you KNOW you don't belong together or you're better off apart or you didn't mesh or you didn't have anything in common or you "lost that loving feeling" a long time ago, it's just not amicable.  How could it be?  You're ending something.  You're killing something.  "It', the marriage is an entity, in and of itself.  It was this living, breathing thing that you had around you every single day.  It might not seem that way, especially at "the end", but let me tell you it's there.  It's alive.  That is, until you kill it.  Until you smother the life right out of it. . .it's alive.  It exists.  It's real.  It matters.  The pain involved in the "death of what could of been" is so immense, it drowns you.  It's the huge waves that pound you down and the undertow that pulls you under until your lungs fill with burning salt water and you gasp and you struggle and you fight and you try to swim to the surface, yet the surface never comes.  Somehow you just get pulled deeper and deeper and it becomes darker and darker and then. . . .POOF. . . .it's just done.  Dead and gone.  Just like that.  With the ink of a pen.  What's amicable in THAT?   What's "friendly" or "easy going" there?  

   
   

   I will survive.  I will, somehow, get "washed up on the shore" on some strange island where, I'll live alone.  Well, not "alone alone", I'll have my wonderful children to look after.  Those two amazing human beings that we created on "our island". . .the island of our marriage.  These two people who also got dragged down and spit out onto a new land mass.  The two people whom carry my heart with them, as they travel around this big new place, called "divorce land".  They will give me the strength to pull myself up and brush off the sand and salt and untangle the sea weed that's wrapped around my neck.  I will see in them the love and support that I've given to them, so freely over the years, paid back to me in my moment of desperation and need.  I will return the favor, freely, in the hopes that they won't hate either one of us for making this "one decision" that forever changed the course of all of our lives.  You know the one. . . .that "amicable divorce". . . . . .

   Take a deep breath, it's just another day in "Perfect". . . . .

What It's REALLY Like to Be a "Perfectionist". . . . .

I get teased.  A lot.  Yes, I'm an adult.  Yes, I can handle it.  Yes, it's all of part of life . . . .everyone's life.  But, sometimes, just every now and again mind you, I wish that people would know. . .could know what it's already like inside my head.  The hostile environment I live in every single day.  All self inflicted. . . .the suffering.  The damage dealt.  The pain.  The constant nagging.  All coming from inside my own body . . . . .is relentless!

I get teased because I "clean my house too much".  People throw around the words "OCD" and "anal" like they're just words.  First of, OCD is a real condition that has little to nothing to do with my need for my home to be spotless every second of the day.  Do I have a "touch of it" in the fact that I'm COMPULSIVE about crumbs or dust or vacuum lines in my carpet?  Sure.  Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  Who knows?  Better, who cares?  But, if you could just hear what I tell myself about those crumbs.  That dust.  Those "stupid lines" in my carpet.  If you really knew the disgust I feel about myself when those things are present or lacking, you might not be so quick to "make fun" of me.  You might give me some grace and treat me a bit more tenderly if you understood that I simply cannot allow this space, this refuge, this "sanctuary" to be anything less than perfect because I feel that it is such a reflection on who I am.  What I am.  At my essence.  I'm a failure if it's not "perfect".  I'm less than.  I'm a loser.  I'm lazy.  I'm "not pulling my weight".  I'm pathetic.  I mean, who can't keep their fucking house clean?  I feel dirty on the inside so maybe. . .just MAYBE if I can keep the space I live in spotless I'll feel a little bit less damaged.  Survivors of sexual abuse generally feel dirty.  Broken.  Guilty.  We feel like WE did something wrong or that something MUST have been wrong with us, because otherwise, it wouldn't have happened, right?

I get teased because I "count every calorie and I work out every single day".  People simply can't understand why, after "all these years" of maintaining my weight loss, I still feel compelled to be "so hard on myself".  I mean, come on, "Why can't you just come and hang out and have some drinks and eat some food and have fun?"  Oh, if it were just that simple.  If you could hear the tapes that are playing in my head.  Over and over and over again.  If you knew the shame I feel from eating a cookie or skipping leg day, you'd understand.  If you could be inside my body when I'm starving and craving a chocolate cake and I KNOW that I can't eat it. . . or anything else for that matter.  If you knew that words I used to describe myself. . .to myself about even WANTING a damn chocolate cake, you might just sit back and think "Wow, I'm glad I'm not her!"  Or you might think, "Wow, she's really fucked up?"  Who knows?  If you knew how painful it is to log every bite of food that I put into my mouth and workout every single day and still gain 15 pounds over the last year and half and how I simply can't give anymore in a workout or eat any less or beat myself up anymore about it, you might back off a little bit with the "teasing".  If you knew how badly I want to give up each and every day and either gain all my weight back or go the opposite way and go back to bingeing and purging "just to get there again" you might think twice about "pushing me" even harder.  If you saw what I see when I look into the mirror, you might understand.  Understand what it's like to see a fat cow staring back at you and KNOWING that there's just not one damn thing I can do to change it.  Fix it.  Make it alright.  I've given it everything I have and it's still not enough.  I've still failed.  I'm still a loser (or a gainer, depending on how you look at it).  I'm still pathetic.  Oh, those tapes, they just circle around and around in my head.  Playing on and on and on until there's nothing else I can even hear over the volume of them.  Eat less.  Move more.  It's that simple.  Until, it's not.

I get teased because I'm too sensitive and take everything to heart.  People tell me to just "let it go, blow them off, why do you care what they think anyway"?  Believe me, I WISH that I could.  I wish that I didn't care.  I wish that I didn't feel. so. much.  I wish that my tender heart would just "toughen up" already.  I wish that I could just walk away and not look back.  Look back at all the failure.  All the loss.  All the pain.  I wish that I could just "move forward" and make a vow that, "from this day forward I solemnly swear to not give two shits what you think about me".  But, come on.  I can't lie to myself.  I could maybe lie to you (although, those of you who know me, know that even THAT'S a stretch. . .my "lying ability" is not one I've developed very well over the years) but one can NEVER lie to themselves.  I know that I'll still feel the pin pricks of pain when I'm verbally attacked.  When someone is disrespectful to me or my family.  I will still hurt when I'm misunderstood which, by the way, seems to happen to me a disproportionately large amount of times.  I'll still feel confused when someone assumed the worst in me, when I'm giving them the best.  It'll never occur to me that you're lying to me, so I'm made to look foolish often.

See, here's the rub. . . .in all of this, I'm simply trying to be perfect.  I want to be.  I need to be.  I don't know any other way TO be.  In some futile attempt to be "good enough" to deserve your love, I've lost all sense of my self.  I just know perfectionism.  I only know this way.  I can only feel like I've given it my all, if I've truly given it my ALL.  If I'm left exhausted at the end of every day and if I feel tortured, beat up, hurt and empty, then I KNOW I've done all I can.  If I leave no stone unturned, no corner undusted, no floor unattended to, no person felt neglected by me, I worked out until I want to cry or vomit or both, I didn't eat that chocolate cake and ate less than I really wanted, I do more than I did yesterday and will do more tomorrow than today, then I might be able to sleep tonight.  For you see, my "being perfect" isn't really a choice for me. . . .it's a way of life.  Hell, it IS my life.  So, maybe, just perhaps, if you know someone like me, who knows, maybe you ARE like me, maybe, you could take a step back and really realize what it's REALLY like to be a perfectionist is-----you never really ARE.  It's never enough.  It's painful and long and strenuous and tedious and it's all for really damn good reasons but in the end, I'm always going to fall short.

So, maybe the lesson in all of this ranting it just this . . . . . .

Take a deep breath, it's just another day in Perfect!!!!

I Know That You're Afraid. . . . .

I know that you're afraid of me. . . . I know that you're afraid of me because I'm a woman or because I'm an atheist or because I was born in America.  I know that you're afraid of me because you don't know me.  I know that I am the "they" that "they" have warned you about.  I know that that fear has been bred into from the day that you were born into that family, that village, that world that tells you what to fear and what to welcome.  I know that you, the real YOU, that deep down part of all of us that is simply human, doesn't really want to fear me, is only curious about who and what I am.  I know that you're tired of being afraid.  I know that that fear, in and of itself, is what drains you, depletes you, hurts you.  I know that you don't know any other way to be, feel, exist.  I know that that fear can drive you.  I know that it can push you into feeling, doing, saying, being something that you're really not.  I know that you want to hurt someone.  I know that you want to hurt someone, anyone, to make that fear stop.  I also know that no matter how many people you hurt, that fear will only grow. . . .deepen. . . .SEEM MORE REAL to you.  It will grow inside of you, hidden.  Like a cancer it will eat away at your soul.  If you feed it it WILL grow.  It will become you, take over your mind, your spirit, your thoughts until nothing else exists BUT that fear.  I know that you're afraid of me.  I know that what I represent, means the end of what you represent.  Or, at least, that's what "they've" told you.  I know that that fear has convinced you that, simply by my existing, I'm threatening your way of life.  I'm threatening your actual life.  I'm threatening your children's lives and their children's lives and so on and so on, until, you feel so justified in hurting me that there simply is no. other. way.  Yes, I know that you're afraid.

But, I suggest something radical to you. . . . .talk to me.  Learn my name.  Try hard to pronounce it properly.  Look into my eyes.  See me smile.  Listen to my breath.  Watch me love my children.  Listen to my struggles to provide a loving home for them.  Come to my place of work and watch me excel in my life.  My actual life.  Not the one that has been presented to you.  Not the one that "they've" told you I lead, but, my real "day in, day out" living life.  I know that you're afraid.  But, could you "take the risk" and try, just for a moment, to let the fear go?  Can you leave it at the door?  My door?  And walk into a life that looks, shockingly, similar to your own?  Listen to it.  Smell it.  Taste it.  Savor it.  Hell, maybe even ENJOY IT!

Yes, I know that you're afraid and that the world is telling me that I should be afraid, too. . . . but, today. . . . . .I AM NOT AFRAID!

Take a deep breath. . . .it's just another day in Perfect!