Melissa Wright
Bio
A woman who chooses joy from a small town known as "the city of southern hospitality". Love writing articles and stories that dissect personalities and circumstances of life that have made me who I am today. *Wife, Homeschool Mom, REALTOR*
Stories (8)
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Kissing Social Media Good-Bye
I abstained from all forms of social media for a long time. I never had a MySpace page. I don't have Instagram or Twitter. I do have Snapchat, but only for the fun filters. I will never "send you a snap". As I stated before, I didn't take part in social media for the longest time, but once I got my real estate license, I joined Facebook. At first, I didn't do much with it. I didn't really know how. I wasn't familiar with the lingo. I didn't understand what the etiquette was for "liking" posts. I just wanted to be able to share my listings and connect with my clients on a need to basis. Well, three years later, I am yet another victim of the biggest time wasters on the planet. For all the good that social media *could* do, it is mostly used as a mind-numbing escape. How often have you picked up your phone to perform a legitimate task only to be distracted by that little notification in the upper left corner for the app? Your curiosity gets the best of you and you open the app. You only plan to see what the notification was but, more often then not, you fall down a rabbit hole of endless posts. This one funny, that one heartwarming. Posts full of beautiful family photos and romantic tropical retreats. Helpful vlogs that cater to whatever struggles or challenges you might have in life. All that sounds wonderful! Unfortunately, generally speaking, you are not going to just check that notification and move on. In fact, you are not just going to scroll for a few minutes and then get back to business. No, you are going to refresh the page, again and again and again without ever realizing how much time has past. Finally, you will get bored scrolling through your friends' virtual life highlight reel and decide to become a productive member of reality once again. You stand up and move back towards your original task. Walking over you realize, DOH! You never did whatever you set out to do. You go back to your phone, unlock the screen, and guess what...ding, ding, ding. More notifications! How much more of a productive life could we have if we simply stayed out of the social media escape world?
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Humans
Who's That Trip-Trapping Over My Bridge?!?
My mother returned to work after a parental sabbatical when I was just under five years old. Her return to work as a secretary left me in the care of my maternal grandparents. My granddaddy was a magnificent man! He was fun and always spoiled me. Not in the traditional sense. My family isn't extremely wealthy, but time, love, and junky knickknacks I thought were treasures were abundant. Like in many cases though, he was the fun while my grandmother was the heavy. Grandmother (Yes, that's what we called her. My husband makes fun of it because it is too formal in the world of Nana, MiMi, and Gran-Gran, but it is what she wanted to be called.) was saddled more with the work side of childcare. She cooked, cleaned, and managed me while Granddaddy looked for ways to engage and have fun. Each day, he would inform me he was ready for his beauty nap. It made me laugh each time because the thought of him sleeping to maintain is old man looks was very humorous. Grandmother also found great importance in day sleeping. Even when I no longer needed a nap, she would go through great lengths each day to encourage my slumber. Sometimes she would rock me and hum. Other times she would place a sheet over the rough, itchy upholstery of the couch and tell me to lay down and watch Sesame Street hoping I would drift off if I would lay still enough. My favorite method was when she would sit by the bed and read to me.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Families
Mary Faye Hunter and Her Mysterious Death
Mary Faye Hunter was a quiet, intelligent young woman who lived in Decatur, Alabama. Although she was an adult, she stilled lived with her parents in 1967 sharing their modest home near the small downtown area. She maintained a quiet existence in the town she had always called home. The highlights of her week included walking to the beauty salon and playing the organ at her church. Mary Faye was employed at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama where she performed secretarial type work. It was here that one might say her eventual demise began.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Criminal
Lessons Learned From Being Raised By a Toxic Mother
My mom died almost nine months ago. Sometimes I feel as though I should be ashamed by the fact that I do not have all the emotions I hear and read about when it comes to the loss of a parent. I want to contribute that to the fact that Mom had such an awful terminal illness for so long. ALS is a disease like no other I have ever seen and the day she was freed from the now useless prison of her earthly body was a day of relief. I was so happy that she no longer had to suffer. The last year had been absolute Hell on Earth for her. The two years leading up to that Hell had not exactly been a walk in the park either. She lost her ability to stand, walk, eat, and talk. And as those skills became extinct, so did her dignity, physical appearance, and sense of pride. Watching her endure such humiliation, struggle, and pain was a gut-wrenching experience no family should ever have to experience. But as much as I want to write-off my numbness as a natural side effect to what I just witnessed, I know that I am experiences the results of the coping mechanisms I had developed over the past forty years. My mother was a toxic human being. The fact that she has passed from this life does not change who she was while she was here. I could lie. I could make up fluff and spew niceties because those would be the societal expectations of someone who recently lost their mother. If you grew up with one of those "walk on water" mothers, you now think I am a horrible person - cold and heartless - but I can assure you that I am not. What I am is broken. Broken, but mending. Being raised by someone who parents using shame and manipulation as their primary parenting tools can really damage a sweet and sensitive child's psyche. I will give credit where credit is due - I still learned from her. It may have been unhealthy coping mechanisms or internalizing and ignoring my feelings, but I learned. I was shaped. I am currently and actively reshaping myself with a vengeance. Here are three things I learned while being raised by a mother with very toxic personality traits.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Families
I Believe the Children Are Our Future
The duty of reducing one's carbon footprint is a relatively new concept, unseen and unheard of mere generations ago. Our most recent ancestors didn't have to consider the condition of the planet or the effects their daily living may be having on the well-being of future generations. While they rarely wasted anything and found new uses for items that would otherwise be discarded as trash, this was a direct result of the mental strain endured throughout The Great Depression. That era shaped them into waste not, want not people, and they did all they could to ensure they always had what they needed even when it seemed silly to the next generations. We would snicker as they carefully unwrapped their gifts, folding the paper ever so gingerly, so that they could reuse the wrapping paper when it was their turn to bestow a gift on someone. Watching them rinse off used aluminum foil or plastic margarine containers for the purpose of food storage was met with eye-rolling and snide comments about how cheaply those items are available at the store. Our elder generation had the reuse portion down of the 3Rs - reduce, reuse, and recycle. The other two Rs, however, were not on their radars. The concept of recycling was unbeknownst to them. To think of placing certain trash items in a container at the end of your driveway so that a special truck could come gather them to take them to a special facility where they would be cleaned and treated in some way so that they might be used again to create something else was never heard of in their lifetime. Reducing waste was also not something that would have made any sense to them. Hard-working and determined people, the end would always justify the means. They didn't have the luxury of information at their fingertips. Whatever needed to take place to reach their goals is exactly what would take place. This was especially true with the boom of The Industrial Revolution. No executive or employee ever questioned what damage may come of dumping waste into the nearby waterway. The amount of smoke billowing from the smokestack was of no concern to air quality or the health of the people. It was not until they began to see the consequences firsthand that anyone surmised the possibility of the dangers and even then the almighty dollar reigned supreme over the well-being of a few ecosystems.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Earth
Charismatic Geminis
Hello, beautiful Gemini! Full of life and energy, you are always fun to be around! Born in one of the most truly pleasant seasons of the year, much of your positive vibe is fed by the innate exquisiteness that surrounded you as you entered the universe. You are charismatic individual with an incredible sense of humor that includes the gift of never taking yourself too seriously. You, my friend, are a blast to be around and can be compatible with almost anyone.
By Melissa Wright5 years ago in Humans
