1 in 4 Women are Abused- I was one of them

Growing up, I was the kid everyone looked to for answers. I was the one who lead the group, chose what we did, what we played, where we played. I was a natural born leader. I took this strength with me throughout all my school years. I was the person people would come to for honest answers, because I felt there’s just no time to lie. I was capable of being tactful, but I was always very honest. My friends admired my strength, others feared it. 

Children and teenagers are made aware of the issue of domestic abuse. Our parents discuss it with us, we learn about it in school, even our children’s programs will talk about it. It’s no secret that domestic abuse happens, and it is wrong. So when I hit the age of dating, I was very up front about domestic abuse and how I would not stand for it. I went so far as to tell my boyfriends, in the beginning of each relationship, “if you so much as raise your hand at me in anger, I am out that door so fast.” Imagine my surprise when I would find myself in an abusive relationship years later.

When I was 18, I realized I am gay. I said farewell to all the failed relationships with boys, and I started dating girls. However, my strength and conviction remained. I started each potential relationship with the same disclaimer, “you so much as raise your hand at me in anger, I will be out that door so fast.” Many may think there was no need for me to make that disclaimer, but I felt it was important for them to understand I am not that weak little girl they can push around. So if that is what they were looking for, now they know and can look elsewhere. I didn’t understand, at that time, what abuse was really like. I also didn’t understand that abuse didn’t have to be physical.

Abuse comes in all forms. It can be emotional, financial, physical, sexual, the list goes on. Someone doesn’t have to hit you in order to abuse you. My focus my whole life was on the physical abuse. That is probably why I didn’t notice I had participated in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship until I was too deep into it. 

When I was 19, I met a woman who, for lack of a better term, rocked my world. She was fun, she was edgy, she was risky, she made me feel like I wasn’t this boring teenager I had felt I was. I really liked being around her, and she made me feel wanted. That, above all, was most important to me. All I ever felt from everyone else was that I was needed, but never really wanted. She pretended not to need anything from me, rather just wanted me around. I fell quickly in love with her. 

Things were fun for awhile. We enjoyed each other, we did fun things together, we had a blast. From the outside, you would think we had the perfect relationship. If you looked a little closer, it was more like the relationship from the movie The Secretary. It was purely sexual, but I was so young, I had confused it. The number one rule for lesbians is never be someone’s first, because they’ll fall in love with you. My girlfriend broke that rule, and I was head over heels. She gladly reciprocated that love, but only for a short time. Step 1 was done: madly in love.

About 6 months into the relationship, I had left behind all but a couple of friends. Most people get it when I say the honeymoon killed my friendships. People tend to disappear when they get into a new relationship, and I was guilty of that. The couple of friends I still had, unfortunately, were pushed away because my girlfriend got jealous, or she didn’t like them for some reason. I was more than eager to oblige and remove myself from them. Step 2 was done: complete isolation.

My girlfriend started to change. She had always been snarky, but it had always been to other people. She started to direct her comments and judgments at me. I was all of the sudden “too girly”, which I found funny, because I had never, in my entire life, been called “too girly”. At first, it was easy to put these minor and ridiculous insults aside. I told her if she wants to be with this woman, she’s going to have to accept that I’m a woman. 

Unfortunately, as the months ticked by, the insults grew more and more personal. She would insult my family, she would insult my job, she would insult my jokes, my opinions. She said I was too liberal, too atheistic, too stupid, too fat, too lazy, etc, etc. At one point, she even compared me to Nazis. I didn’t have my friends anymore to tell me otherwise, and my voice inside was becoming too quiet to drown out her bashing. She also had a way of making the insults not sound too cruel. She would laugh at the end of one, as if it’s just a joke. She would quickly follow it up with some sort of backhanded compliment, so it would somehow seem better. Or she would say it as if it’s endearing: “You’re so stupid! I love you.” When you spend most of your time with someone, and you love them, their insults eventually become your truth. Step 3 done: low self esteem.

About a year after we started this mess, I had become severely depressed. Her words became my truth, and I had started living by it. I gained 60 pounds in record time. I was at the heaviest I had ever been. I hated my job, I hated my home, I hated my car, I hated my life. I fell into a deep depression, and, as most people know with depression, our sex life disappeared. We hadn’t had sex for 2 months when she decided to warn me that she was going to cheat on me. She said to me one night, “if you don’t start putting out, I’m going to find it elsewhere.” I guess I should be happy that she warned me, instead of just cheating on me, but that didn’t make me feel any better about the fact that she felt I owed her sex.

This warning threw me into an instant panic attack. I completely freaked out, got very sick to my stomach, and retreated to the balcony to smoke. As I’m sitting there, contemplating smoking a whole pack in one puff, she came out to apologize. She did the usual song and dance that any abuser does, “I didn’t mean it. You just have to understand that you pushed me to this. I’m not really going to do it. I love you, you know I’d never hurt you. I’m sorry.” But I didn’t believe her. I am that person who gives you all of my trust from the get go, but if you do anything to lose my trust, you never get it back. She had, in one sentence, lost my trust. I knew, from that moment on, that I would never trust her again. I, unfortunately being the person who can’t keep her mouth shut, told her this fact. She cried, and she went inside. I sat in silence for a minute, and I felt calm. That minute was quickly over when I got a sinking feeling inside of me. I knew that she was doing something harmful to herself as I sat quietly outside. 

When I went inside, I knew I would find her in the bedroom. Sure enough, she had locked herself in the master bathroom, and I tried everything to get her to open the door. Knocking, banging, pleading, speaking sweetly, and finally yelling. When she opened the door, she had no pants on, a razor blade in her hand and 5 slashes across her thigh, dripping blood. I don’t know why she decided that night to become a cutter, but it was the first time I had ever experienced this scenario with her. I didn’t get angry, I got concerned. I quietly asked her, “why do you feel the need to do this to yourself?” At that point, she looked at me as if I was the Devil himself, and I had just killed a litter of baby kittens right in front of her. The pure hatred in her eyes has stayed with me through the years. She grabbed the door and slammed it harder than any door should be able to withstand, it shook the house. In a moment that probably lasted no more than 30 seconds, but seemed like hours, I realized that the door was shut and locked, but my hand remained in the door frame. I was actually confused. Her expletives being yelled from the other side is what brought me out of that shock. And when she opened the door, and my hand was freed, the tip of my middle finger fell to the floor. I had never seen so much blood in my life. I couldn’t believe it was coming from me, and I didn’t know what to do. Maybe it was the amount of blood, maybe it was because this was the worst I had ever been injured, or maybe it was because I was so confused as to what to do, I called 911. When I called, they put me on hold to transfer me to another department, and that’s when I came to my senses, and I remembered we lived 2 miles from a hospital. So I hung up, put on jeans, grabbed my glasses, grabbed my wallet, wrapped my bloodied hand, and went to the car. My girlfriend, who was in worse emotional shape than I was, ran around the house screaming, grabbed my missing fingertip, and ran outside. Unfortunately, somewhere in between the house and the car, she lost my fingertip. 

Once I was checked into a room, the doctor asked my girlfriend to step out for a minute, and she asked me directly if this was a case of domestic abuse. I laughed at her, and I found myself telling her that it was an accident. I told her that I’m not abused, and that this situation was unfortunate, but in no way abuse. I truly believed because she didn’t mean to cut my finger off, she wasn’t being abusive. I focused on the act of losing the tip of my finger, and I completely forgot about all of the emotional and verbal abuse that led up to that incident. I didn't even put together the emotional manipulation she was using by turning that whole night into her being the victim, and me being the jerk. So, no, of course I felt this wasn’t a case of domestic abuse. 

The weeks following that traumatic night were interesting. It was hard for me to deal with the pain, because surprisingly, losing the tip of your finger is extremely painful. I was out of work for awhile, because I had to take strong doses of pain medications, and I was pretty much comatose for a week or so. When I was awake, I was remembering her threat to cheat on me, her slicing her thigh open because I was upset by her threat, and my finger getting cut off. This whole time, she’s doting on me, and she’s telling me over and over how much she loves me, and she’s acting like she acted when we first started dating. We were staying at my mom’s house, because I couldn’t go home. It was a place that made me remember everything, so I wanted to stay with my mom. I had my girlfriend stay too, because she had to take care of me since it was her fault. This whole time, I’m also trying to keep up the lie I told my parents. You see, my mom is a therapist. I would never tell my therapist that my girlfriend cut my finger off, because that question about domestic abuse would come up again. And I would certainly never tell my mother that my girlfriend cut it off. But my family was nice enough to pretend they believed my lie that I was trying to shut the bathroom door, but since it’s so humid, the door frame swelled, and I had to tug on it hard. As I’m yanking on the door, the AC kicked on and sucked it shut. Unfortunately, my finger got caught in the crossfire. Lame lie, isn’t it?

After some time went by, we finally returned to our home. It wasn’t long before the verbal abuse started up again. She had successfully gotten me back into the “in love” mode, and she was able to start abusing me again without question. After 8 more months of feeling like I was absolutely worthless, I found myself sitting in a bar with her, listening to her flirt with some other girl. As if she remembered I was there, she put her hand on my thigh, leaned in, and whispered “I love you.” It was in that exact moment that I had realized I deserved better. It was in that moment that I realized my need for love was not going to make me settle for someone who just pretended to love me. It was in that moment that I got the courage to face the world alone rather than stay with someone who had nothing but disdain for me. I looked at her, and I calmly said, “I’m done with this. I’m going to get my stuff, and I’m going to leave. Take care.” I walked out the door, leaving her sitting in shock at the bar, and I never returned. 

That was 11 years ago. Over the next 11 years, I worked very hard to find myself again, and I hate to say that I’m still not there. I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what I want, I don’t even like myself very much still. Her words, as utterly erroneous as they were, have stuck with me over the last decade, and I have to battle daily to silence them. I still struggle with my weight, and I have not since been the size I was before I had met her. I can still hear her telling me how fat I am, and I can only agree with her. I struggle every day to love myself, because she never did. 

My story is not nearly as tragic as a lot of the domestic abuse stories out there, and my story has a happier ending than most. She did not hit me; she did not break my bones (other than my finger, which I still say was an accident, even if it was in a sea of verbal and emotional abuse.) I did not end up dead at the hands of my partner. But we often don’t realize that you don’t have to be hit in order to be abused. My story is about that fact. I was, most certainly, in an abusive relationship, and I never once got hit. 

People always ask “why do you stay”? I can understand asking that question; why does someone stay in an abusive relationship? If we all are free, shouldn’t we have the freedom to walk away from that? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is not so simple for those that are inside the situation. From the outside, it seems easy. When you’re on the outside, you’re strong, and you love yourself. You have a sense of pride, and you will not tolerate that type of behavior. But when you’re on the inside, you have been emotionally beaten down to thinking you are absolutely nothing. You are less than nothing; completely worthless. You have been isolated from your friends and your family, you have been torn down to the bare bones, and it’s a wonder you can even get up in the morning. I wasn’t able to truly convey the extent of her verbal abuse towards me, because it’s just too much to write here. But that is where I was at; lower than the furthest bottom of anyone’s rock bottom. I was worthless. I deserved her words. I deserved her opinions and judgments of me. And at the same time, I loved her. She had somehow won my heart, and I thought I had won hers. I thought her abusive words were out of love. No matter how irrational or skewed that thinking is, that is the success of an abuser. That is how we keep staying. Other situations, worse situations, are life threatening if they leave. They truly believe they will be killed if they try to leave. Tragically, some are.

I really wanted people to ask “why did she abuse you?” instead of “why did you stay?” Because the latter question makes me feel like it was my fault I got abused. If I hadn’t put myself in that situation, I wouldn’t have been abused. However, I really just wanted someone to take my side and ask why she did it in the first place. Place the blame where blame is due. 

I ran into her not too long ago. It was a few months before I moved out of state. She invited me to lunch, and she spent that time apologizing to me. She told me everything I wanted to hear for so many years. She said that I was very special, and that I had been nicer to her than any other person in her life had ever been. She said I was so strong to take the abuse she gave me for so long. She felt deeply sorry for treating me so poorly. She asked if I would consider being her friend. I have been trying to live my life with compassion, and so I said that I would. I told her, however, I will not put up with that kind of crap again. Step 4 done: start the cycle over.

A month or so went by, and it was nice having her as a friend. She knew me from when I was young, and she reminded me of all the good times we did have. Not surprisingly, that only lasted a couple of months. Shortly after our friendship began, she started getting abusive again. She started using me for things she needed or wanted, she called me names, she talked down to me. I started to feel that worthless person rise up in me again. Thankfully, this time around, I wasn’t in a relationship with her, I wasn’t in love with her, and I had been working too hard to love myself again to let her tear me down again. I deleted her phone number from my phone, I blocked her from my facebook, and I walked away. I have not looked back since. 

But every time I hear a story of abuse, every time I hear someone ask the question “why did you stay”, every time I hear people negate the fact that abuse doesn’t have to be physical to be abuse, I am reminded of her. I am reminded of how much one person made me hate myself. I am reminded that I was abused.

Love Lesson 937

[there are no more words.]

I have re-written my heart to speak with

touches.

looks.

heat.

light.

shadows.

wetness.

I write with my lips. I tell stories with my hands.

My teeth.

I sing love songs with my eyes.

Venus had just exploded in the sky.

[we can't help their jealousies.]

maybe i like yr paint a little chipped.

maybe i like the way [my] hand fits into the small of yr back.

maybe there's something in the way doves and trains drown

                                                                  out the morning.

maybe there's something in the way yr voice

                                                       trickles down my body.

[maybe this is it]

hey little girl, stop yr running.

You don't always have to be on top of it all.

Let me carry you for awhile.

(if I stare long enough at a certain point,

I begin to drift out of my body.)

We walked, quietly, into the burnt out darkness of street

lights lining the avenue.

the calender hung itself on the mnth of may.

the smell of spices and sweat and wetness took over the room.

lust and love and nervousness.

shadows dance along the walls.

I can't see anything but you.

something about the contrast of white on white.

the sun has died and I have buried him behind the mountains.

fire takes over the air

and we all have trouble breathing under that kind

of pressure.

the city looked shallow, from up there.

the sky looked rounded, lying on my back like that.

stars become swirls of silver paint while yr kissing me.

my heart beats so hard it cld break the atmosphere off at the hinges.

i wonder if i'm giving myself away.

i wonder if i should care.

(the moon is smirking at me again. who needs that kind of guilt?)

i was dizzy with love. i wrote yr lips as my alibi.

you said, "shhhh. close yr eyes."

and you kissed my eyelids so softly it hurt.

i kept blinking to try to get my heart [in/]to focus.

we laugh at boys

because we know how to get ourselves off.

summer again.

summer has always been a season of new beginnings.

something about the heat

always makes me want to slip out of my skin

and into someone else's.

the moisture comes on slow.

humidity leaks into the air.

thick. heavy. musty.

like a new layer of skin. heavier and heavier.

until you feel like yr lungs will collapse under the weight

of all that anticipation.

the clouds cover the city like a blanket

tension draws wind. the kind that swirls around you

knocks you down off yr good intentions.

the wind will always carry the sound of acoustic guitar 

and a feeling of weightlessness for me.

and then it happens.

cloud burst.

like tears after you thought yr heart had

grown hard with listlessness.

there's nothing like rain,

something about the way water mixes with the soil.

you can feel the gratefulness of the earth.

(shoes stifle the senses.

     dirt has its own story to tell)

rainwater washes through the streets

making everything clean again.

even you

even me

love is sorta like that, i think.

(the gutters will be littered with broken hearts

        the morning after)

yr eyes make me crazy

like everything i've ever known has been a lie

in comparison to the truth you carry in a glance.

maybe time is a detail best overlooked

yr silly in the morning

dancing and laughing and playing.

hey love

maybe it's our turn to be little girls again

we can take back what was taken

you

and me

here

now

in this place

this is our time

hey love

show me yrs

and i'll show you mine

maybe it's our turn

to be pressed up inside the walls of a crush. girl romance.

love like no other laugh like no other cum like no other

cry like no other bend like no other break like no other

live like no other

everything goes soft when i think about you.

Carried by Music and Fireflies

I want to start by explaining my relationship with Sarah McLachlan’s music. I don’t know if I can put the feeling into words; the tug at my heart, the excitement, the sadness, the visceral experience that her music gives me. From the lamenting guitar, to the hypnotizing piano, to her incredible voice, I am immediately calmed, stilled, quieted. There is such a range of emotion in each album, but also within each song. She writes with a purpose, but we, as the audience, get the opportunity to put our own meaning behind each masterpiece. And believe me, each and every song on her many albums has a special meaning to me. Sarah McLachlan’s music has become the unwavering soundtrack of my life. 

I will never forget the moment I first heard her: It was 1997, I was 15, a freshman in high school. I was standing in the kitchen, while my sister watched Mtv; back when Mtv actually had music on. The VJays were excited to debut her newest video for “Building a Mystery”. I didn’t pay too much attention, I just wanted my snack. However, as the video started, and I heard her voice; this voice no language could possibly come close to describing, I froze. I stared, open-jawed, and watched this beautiful woman paint a picture that I just couldn’t quite understand. I heard every note of her guitar, I heard every word she sang, and yet, I couldn’t make any sense of what was overtaking me. I was hypnotized. I was dumbfounded. I was completely reduced to nothing but an empty shell; my soul fleeing me to dance with her. From that moment on, it was all over for me. Sarah McLachlan had forever changed me, and she would always own a piece of my heart. 

I immediately rushed out to Circuit City. Does that show my age? I bought every CD she had put out up to that point: Touch, Solace, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, The Freedom Sessions, Rarities, B-Sides, & Other Stuff, and of course, Surfacing. I spent quite a bit of money that day, but it was a treasure I would keep with me always. I listened to nothing but Sarah for the next few months. I learned every song she ever wrote, every song she covered, every note out of her mouth. I could mimic every instrument; I knew the next beat on the drums, I knew the next note from the piano. I could have been a one woman band, covering nothing but Sarah songs. 

I spent a lot of time alone in my room growing up. I wrote a lot. I was a short story writer. I loved telling stories with hints of R.L Stine, Anne Rice, and other occult writers. I wrote dark poetry. Within a couple of years, I had enough writings to make my own book, which my mom kindly bound for me for safekeeping. Sarah was my backdrop; her transcendent voice serenading me; inspiring me to keep writing, keep creating. I was generally a happy person, never wanting to spread darkness to others. I wanted to take my unfavorable feelings out on paper; something that couldn’t be negatively affected by my pain. Sarah’s music, generally sadder, melancholy, a story of heartbreak and misgivings, showed me that even your pain can be beautiful. Sarah’s words spoke to me in a way no one ever could. It was as if she understood that pain is part of you, it creates you, it breaks you, but it builds you back up, it teaches you, it changes you. Through her songs, I found an inner acceptance for my turmoil while the outside world was condemning me for it.

In the song “Elsewhere” she says “I believe this is heaven to no one else but me. And I’ll defend it long as I can be left here to linger in silence if I choose to. Would you try to understand?” I took that song and ran with it. To this day, I get tears in my eyes when I hear it. To me, it was exactly what I had been feeling. People never understood why I spent so much time alone in my room, listening to music, writing dark stories. To me, it was heaven. I was left alone with my own thoughts, my own friends I was creating. I was getting to create an entire world, control it, mold it, decide its outcome. I had so very little control over the things that had happened in my life, and this was heaven to me. I defended it, and I just wanted them to try to understand it. And this was just one of her many songs. Each song became a symbol for something in my own life. 

Sarah’s music has been the one constant in my life. Even when she took a hiatus from writing, when her albums became further spaced out; I never lost faith. She could leave music tomorrow, and she would still be the one constant in my life. From her first album to her most recent, each one has a place in my heart and my iPod. It has been 17 years since I stumbled upon her music, and my love for her has not swayed. Yet, in those 17 years, I have never seen her live. I was living in a town that doesn’t get very many big names. If I wanted to see her in concert, I would have had to travel 2 hours north, and that just wasn’t something I was ever able to manage. Eventually, I made my way out of that town and moved to Denver. Earlier this year, I bought tickets to see her perform at Red Rocks. I was so thrilled: first time seeing her in concert, at this incredible venue, and we had 8^th row seats. Unfortunately, my wife was transferred to Georgia for work just one month before the concert. We had to sell our tickets. Imagine my disappointment. 

Once settled in Georgia, we checked her tour dates and saw she was coming to Atlanta. This was fantastic news. We got on our computers 5 minutes before pre-sale tickets went on sale, and we counted down. The very second pre-sale was open, we logged in and picked our tickets. Unfortunately, that was quite a hassle, and we ended up getting seats a lot further away than we had hoped for. I didn’t care at this point, I was just so excited to see her live in concert, finally. The days ticked by, the weeks crawled. Why wasn’t it July 30^th yet? At one point, we checked out “meet and greet” tickets, but we just didn’t have enough cash to do it. I was still content with our middle of the road seats, as long as I could get a glimpse of her. 

Just last week, I happened to be fumbling around on Twitter. It’s the one social media site that really boggles my mind. I don’t know why, but I am very confused on how to work it properly. I follow Sarah, and I happened to see a tweet from her about a contest to sit on stage with her. I immediately went to the site and entered. She wanted to hear our Shine On stories, she wanted to know how we spread the love, the kindness, the compassion. So I wrote. I wrote her of a tragedy that I experienced as a child and how I had overcome it, even found peace with it. For the next 4 days, I kept it to myself. I didn’t tell anyone I entered the contest. But I sat inside myself, heart racing, excitement welling up inside of me, the atmosphere could have burst from all the anticipation. As my wife and I sat down to dinner on Monday evening, I waited. I could barely breathe, but I knew the moment would soon arise. Then my phone beeped. It was my email, and I apologized for having to check it, but it was very important. And that is when I saw it; the message I had been longing for even before I even knew about the contest, “Congratulations. You have been invited to join Sarah McLachlan on stage in Atlanta on July 30^th.” I laughed, I shed a tear, I danced a little, all right there in the restaurant. I have no shame, really, I don’t. I told my wife, barely able to get the words out, that we were going to be sitting on the stage with Sarah, and we actually get to talk to her! The next 2 days were a nightmare just waiting. 

It is 2 in the morning. I am exhausted. I couldn’t possibly sleep now. We got home about 2 hours ago. Let’s back up again. We got to the venue early and found parking pretty quickly. I had my wife get in line to get into the venue while I went to Will Call where I picked up our special invitations. While at the window, a woman overheard me explaining what I was picking up, and she asked if I needed a friend to go up with me. “I’ll totally ditch this bitch if you want to take me with you.” I laughed but said my wife would probably be upset if I didn’t take her. Once the gates opened, we went inside, grabbed some food and drinks, and found our seats. Showtime was not too long after, and when Sarah came on stage, it was as if the entire world disappeared. She started in without much foreword, and I reverted back to that 15 year old, hypnotized, staring, open-jawed. She sang many of her older songs, and every memory, every milestone, every mundane triviality, every single moment of my life returned to me; flooded me, overtook me. I was 15 again, I was sitting alone in my room. I was 16, writing my latest vampire story. I was 17, getting ready for the funeral for one of my teachers. I was 18, struggling with the reality that I am gay. I was 19, a year of being on my own and feeling so lonely. Every year, 17 years, crashed in on me, a wave of forgiveness: forgiveness for the transgressions, forgiveness for staying too long, for not knowing and knowing too much. I was overtaken, and I cried. Here I was, sitting in the middle of thousands of people, sitting alone, sitting with just Sarah, and I was crying. And so the rest of the show goes. 

Halfway through, she invited us up to the stage, and we went. Jealousy spat at us as we raced to the side door. My heart attempted to flee, but only my mind was successful. We sat on the couch on stage with two other couples: it was a meeting of lesbians, the irony. She came over and greeted us, she sat on the ottoman in front of us. She smiled, she hugged us, she was speaking into the microphone, and I disappeared. I had waited for this moment only in dreams, and now I am faced with reality, and I could not speak. I said about 2 sentences to her, and then I sat there. After a few awkward moments of everyone just staring at her, she got up and sang her songs. She sang 3 songs that I had to record with my phone, because I knew I wouldn’t remember which ones they were once it was over. We were up there for about 10 minutes, maybe 15, but it seemed like 30 seconds, and back to our seats we went. I would not trade that moment for the entire universe. 

It’s easy to look back on that moment and think what I would have done differently. But when face to face with someone like Sarah, someone who has meant so much to me for so long, I’m sure I would be just as dumb each and every time. The rest of the show, it was as if I was having revelation after revelation. I could have died, and I would have been blissfully unaware of it. I had floated above the crowd, carried by her music and fireflies. 

This was the most incredible experience of my life. I will never be able to convey what Sarah's music has meant to me from the moment I saw Building a Mystery debut. Every story, every poem, every letter I ever wrote was written while she sang in the background. Every moment of growing up, becoming who I am has her music as my soundtrack. I have loved her music for so long. It just touches me on such a deep level. So this moment, tonight, will forever be emblazoned on my heart.

4th of July- 'Merica, Fuck Yeah

On the 238th birthday of the United States of America, we all celebrate by blowing shit up and eating lots of grilled food. But what are we celebrating really? Well, on this 4th of July, I want to list the things that I celebrate today:

1. Today, I celebrate being able to say whatever I want without fear of imprisonment. While there are consequences to it in my career and from others, I cannot be imprisoned for my speech. I'm also thankful that we all have the freedom to believe whatever we want to believe, whether that be in a deity or lack of. And while we have that freedom to believe, we also have the freedom to not have other people's beliefs to take away our rights.

2. I celebrate being able to protect myself, my family, my property.

3. While our troops fight a war, whether one agrees with it or not, I celebrate today that my house remains my own. While I support our troops, have love for my friends in the military, I am thankful I have the choice to open my home to them, not be forced to give it up for the military.

4. On the note of having freedom in my home, today, I celebrate that police and government cannot enter my home without probable cause, that I am protected from unwarranted searches and seizures.

5. Today, I celebrate that I have the right to not incriminate myself. While I have that right, I'm also grateful that my right to not incriminate myself cannot be legally used against me.

6. If I am ever in trouble with the law, today, I celebrate that I have the right to be judged by peers, not the government.  I also celebrate that I have the right to face my accuser.

7. It also good for me to celebrate today the right to still be judged by my peers in a federal court.

8. Today, I celebrate that we are protected from cruel and unusual punishment, but also that we are protected from outrageous fines for any crime we may commit.

9. Today, I especially celebrate that the aforementioned rights I have are not my only rights. That I continue to have rights outside of the set 10. Because, let's face it, these don't cover everything.

10. As a citizen of not only this great country, but an individual state, today I celebrate my state's right to set it's own laws. It keeps things interesting, and makes people love or hate a state more than the others.

11. Today, it's nice to celebrate that citizens of other states or other countries can't bring my state to court.

12. Today, I celebrate the ability to be part of the presidential selection process; assuming things are done the way originally intended and is free of corruption....

13. While it would make house chores easier, today, I particularly celebrate that we cannot enslave anyone. If we claim to be a free country, everyone must be free.

14. Today, I celebrate loudly that my state cannot make me a second class citizen. I am equal, and I deserve equal protections under the law.

15. Piggy-backing off my 12th reason, today I celebrate having the right to vote.

16. Today, I don't really celebrate paying taxes. But I guess, if I need to celebrate- I celebrate having paved roads, working bridges, police, firefighters, EMTs, and much more that our taxes pay for.

17. I celebrate today having 2 representatives from my state in the Federal government to represent my voice. But I'm thankful their term is limited, assuming we don't vote them back in.

18. I'm not so much grateful for the prohibition of alcohol....

19. I'm a woman. So today, I celebrate that *I* have the right to vote.

20. While I use my vote, sometimes there just isn't a good candidate. So, today, I celebrate limited terms for Commander in Chief.

21. So today, I celebrate that alcohol is back on the menu.

22. I'm just really really celebrating limited presidential terms.

23. Today, I celebrate the idea of Congress and how they are appointed. Congress can be a great idea if politicians weren't in it.

24. If I don't pay my taxes, I can still vote. That's something to celebrate today!

25. Today I celebrate having a backup if the leader leaves.

26. We really really REALLY need to celebrate that we can vote.

27. I'm not really celebrating paying senators.

While those 27 things are worth celebrating, let's remember those aren't the only 27 things that make this country great. So tell me... aside from fireworks, servicemen/women, beer, and BBQ, what are you celebrating today?

How Can You Bring Yourself to do That?

I just don't understand how any woman could possibly support any organization, corporation, politician, or random stranger that wants to take away their rights. I just don't get it.

With this Hobby Lobby case, and the SCOTUS ruling that our bosses can take away our right to choose what is medically best for us, it boggles my mind that any woman would cheer for this. Has the media done that good of a job that there are women who actually believe contraception causes abortion? I get that some women are against abortion; so much so that they will fight to take away our right to choose that. But really? I understand that men want to remain in control. It's so engrained in our society that men rule and women should shut their whore mouths, but for any woman to back that. I just can't wrap my head around it. We are systematically going backwards in time. What is to come? Will women lose their right to vote again? And will there be women who support that decision? I understand that's reaching pretty far, but who's to stay where this stops? The SCOTUS majority are Roman Catholic men who have zero regard for women. What speaks to them is money, and the ones who have more money to sway these men are other men who want to keep women under their control.

This Hobby Lobby case is not about birth control. I don't care if they still offer 16 of the 20 contraceptives available. The fact remains that they have won the right, THE RIGHT, to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body. She is paying for health insurance off each and every paycheck. She is expecting to use that health insurance for what she and HER DOCTOR deem medically necessary. And Hobby Lobby, among hundreds of other closely held corporations, now have the power to control if she has access to that medication, despite the fact that she's paying for her health insurance.

I don't pretend to fully understand how health insurance works. I'm assuming I pay this amount each paycheck, but it actually costs this amount, and my employer picks up the difference. That doesn't give my employer the right to say what I can and cannot use my health insurance for! I pay well over $200 a paycheck for health insurance. Yeah, that's a lot of money. So don't come at me saying that YOU'RE paying for my birth control, because you're not. I am.

Corporations have become people, and women have become nothing. And we have women, who are considered nothing, supporting this ruling, supporting this spiral that America is on. I'm not so much angry at Hobby Lobby, because they're assholes and I don't care about them. I'm not so much angry at the frightening precedent the SCOTUS has just set in this country. I am SO ANGRY that there is even ONE woman, let alone hundreds, who actually support their rights being stripped away.

Women: we're simply chattel.

Fat Shaming- When We Do it to Ourselves

The other day, I had a meeting with a woman I may be working with in the near future. This was an informal meeting, more of a meet and greet, just to see what potential jobs I might help with. We decided to get together at a cute little cafe to enjoy a treat while discussing business, at my suggestion. The conversation was nice enough, and I was getting excited about the potential future. However, I noticed that she kept doing something that bothered me. She kept fat shaming herself. When we got our orders, I told her "this place is so good!", and she responded with, "I'm not inclined to believe you because you're skinny. Now me (pointing to herself, who is overweight), I know good food!" That was odd, but I left it alone. The evening continued with further discussions of future endeavors, but every now and then, she would find a way to throw in the fact that she's overweight. More so, she would include some comment about me being skinny. While it's nice when someone inaccurately refers to me as skinny, this was almost done in a negative way. As if there is something wrong with me being smaller than her. But also, as if there is something wrong with the size she is. And that's where my issue lies.

Our society has caused us to believe being fat is being less than. In the movies, fat women get supporting actress roles, while the skinnier ones are put in the spotlight. If they put the overweight actress as the leading role, her weight is often the focus: used for comedic relief in the movie, or focused on during interviews. When we read interviews with skinny actresses, we don't see questions like "how has your weight affected you in getting roles?" Movies are just one example. Look at models, clothing lines, commercials, etc etc etc.

I understand that obesity causes a lot of health issues; it is the leading cause of diabetes and heart conditions, among other health risks. However, not everyone who is overweight is unhealthy. Our bodies come in all different sizes, and some women are just "overweight", and yet they are healthier than some "skinny" women. When we pass judgement on someone because of their weight, we are reinforcing the idea that they are somehow less than.

Somehow, we think it's ok to tell a woman she is fat and that she needs to lose weight. We do this gently, objectively, tactfully, offensively, or however we see fit. The point is, somehow, it's ok for us to tell a woman she isn't pretty, she isn't healthy, she isn't the best she can be all because she's fat. Whether this be by suggesting a certain type of diet; think Paleo, Southbeach, Atkins, etc, or by suggesting supplements, or by suggesting specific workout routines/trainers. This is continuing the message that we MUST be skinny and ripped in order to be pretty or worth something. To tell someone who is fat that you are concerned only about their health, and that this has nothing to do with their worth or looks or whatever, is still sending the wrong message. Just because you saw a fat woman, you assumed she was unhealthy. That's not always true. Conversely, when you assume a woman is healthy because she is skinny, you are making another inaccurate judgement.

This all comes back around to fat shaming ourselves. Society fat shames, movies fat shame, TV fat shames, everybody fat shames. If you are overweight, you've heard it a million times: fat is ugly, fat is worthless, fat is not going to be the leading lady (in movies or in life), fat is bad. It's so ingrained in us now, that we have decided to beat people to the punch line. "I just know you're going to call me fat, so I'll do it first." We assume others automatically think we're fat, and that's all they can focus on, so we MUST mention it before their heads explode and insults start spewing uncontrollably out of their mouths. When we do this, we are telling everyone else that it's ok to make fun of us for our weight. We are perpetuating the idea that fat is a joke, fat means we don't have feelings, fat is something to be made fun of or is bad. Who, then, is to break this cycle?

I am not skinny, but I am not fat. I do not care if you are skinny, and I don't care if you are fat. We need to judge people off their merit and actions, not their pant size. And ladies, if you are guilty of fat shaming yourself, stop it right now. You are beautiful, you are you, and no one can tell you otherwise.