Ten Years Gone...

NOTE: I wrote this ten years ago. Since then, I had two husbands pass away and moved four times. Now I'm deep into middle age and more settled in myself; I'm in a much better place mentally. But the world...hasn't changed. In light of current U.S. and world events and the recent election it's wild how it's still relevant. I could have written this yesterday. I saved it in an email draft, and came across while cleaning out old messages.

One afternoon, my late husband Alex and I drove along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. The sky was an unholy shade of dark pink and purple with menacing dark gray clouds. It wasn't that late in the day, and neither of us had ever seen anything like it. I said, "that's the kind of sky that would make people think God is returning for Judgement Day." Alex replied, "I don't believe that. I believe that God gave up on us a long time ago. He's off to bigger and better things."

Today I woke up and I didn't feel so well. I decided that while I rested I would go online and catch up on news/world events. I was quickly reminded why I stopped doing that. It is an awful world out there, with so little positivity. In an hour I was steamrolled with so much bad news, hate, destruction, fighting, disaster, etcetera. I have always been an extra sensitive person who can get easily overwhelmed by empathetic pain. My belief system speaks to respect for the earth and to positivity so strong that we have the power to change the world. But today when I said my daily prayer all I could do was apologize. Apologize to the Universe for all of the evil that we've done to the planet and to each other. I had not felt that sad, hopeless and helpless in a long time.

Surely, this is a time and a world that is hateful, spiteful, 'ful' of the wrong things. Meaningless, hopeless, 'less' of what truly matters. So many people are grasping for something for all of the wrong and occasionally the right reasons, that at the end of the day is really a crumb of what is ultimately most important - living and thriving. As long as the human race continues to devolve and clutch desperately at the lowest common denominator, the lowest hanging fruit, the cheap shots, the pseudo-academia, the hypocrisy, the hysteria, the fear, agendas, false promises, pettiness...living and thriving is basic human right that will be denied to EVERYONE regardless of whatever it is they are fighting for.

So I had a decision to make. Am I going to wallow in the feelings of misery and anger or am I going to - please forgive the rhyming - turn that frown upside down, and turn my attitude around? I am choosing the latter.

I did not choose to be born Black, female, American, middle-class, barren or short with a propensity for overweight. I realize that I will be judged on those things daily by people who are stupid, mean, racist, sexist, elitist, judgemental, resentful or any combination of the above. But I can and do choose to ignore them as much as possible. I need to do it for my own sanity and well being. I cannot allow lesser human beings like that to dim my shine or to make me feel less than, over things that I had no say in and I cannot - and would not ever - change. Even if doing so would make my life better, more fulfilling or desirable...by someone else's standards.

I am a deeply intelligent, creative, thoughtful, and centered person with much to offer this life and this world. Whether my fullest potential will be reached in whatever time I have left on this earth remains to be seen, just as we all have the potential to be more than others would expect or give us credit for. Not only do I deserve to be here, I have the right to be. I refuse to be just a vote, a number, a donation, or supporter when it suits an agenda, just as I refuse to be fodder for rhetorical bullshit, stereotyping, or anyone's exception to anything once my demographic is discovered. Fuck you. I don't need the approval of anyone, especially from people who more than likely no better or no better off than I am.

Writer Laina Dawes use the caption "writing is fighting." So while this ended up being longer than I intended it to be, know that I will live, write and fight against anything that will try to hold me down and hold me back in life and in spirit.

Maybe at some point God/Goddess, the aliens, whatever deity you worship or all of the above did tire of this awful reality show called Earth, and has let us circle the drain to our certain doom unaided and unpitied. Maybe Alex was right.

Regardless, I will continue to rise and rise above. I can only hope that whatever God proves to be the real one, He or She will have mercy on us all when the real Judgement Day finally arrives to take some of us into the beautiful, peaceful hereafter. I dare say many of us are not deserving of it. Are you?