United we stand, divided we fall.

We live in such a backwards world. People interpreting and applying the Bill of Rights every day to their advantage. The protesting that is going on, people are upset and stating people don’t have the right, when in fact it is the first amendment – perhaps the platform for which some of these messages are being produced is causing much anguish and people clearly don’t agree.

Next the mass shootings, now people talk about guns and the control of guns, when in fact the second amendment declares the right to bear arms, but people will twist it to suite a perspective skewed from others. This does not grant people the permission or entitlement to go on killing others for no reason.

What we fail to understand is the Bill of Rights provides freedoms that many will not agree with, but it is not freedom from consequences if you chose to exercise those rights. Both situations will have backlash, so what do we do to correct the issue?

We start by listening, we start by respecting, we start by providing mental health counselling and access to proper healthcare, we start by taking care of each other, we start by stopping the blame, we start by being compassionate, we start by having difficult conversations, we start by appreciating our history to progress our future, we start by accept the things we cannot change, the wrongs we cannot make right, and to focus on what we can change and what we can make right.

Where did we take a wrong turn in applying our basis freedoms? Where did we become such a divided country filled with so much civil unrest and hate and blame?

Yes, conversations need to be had – but they need to be the kind of conversations that progress us as a society, not divide and take away from what we have worked hard to build. We are going backwards with the division the hate the inappropriate application of the Bill of Rights to suite our own satisfaction. It just makes me sad that when you have children – you want to think you are leaving them in a world that was a better place than when I was here, I am not so sure that I am doing that now.

Life is hard enough, why must we add to it? I said last week that FB has become a stage for pushing agendas and after yesterday’s devastating events – it is even more so than it was.

How do we right this wrong? How do we become a society that stopped accepting that not everyone will be right all the time? How did we become so desensitized to the events such as what occurred yesterday, how do we recover the compassion that we once had? When did we stop caring for life?

I just don’t know but I am willing to listen, I am willing to accept that my way may not be the best way, I am willing to take chances to make this world a better place for my kids, one free of hate, blame, and violence.

My mind cries, my heart breaks. 

The Mirror

02-23-17

The reflection that stares back is not one I recognize. The lines of time, the roadmap of a life shaken and agitated, devoured by traumatic occurrences of survival. Every path navigated with varying degrees of defeat and subsistence.  How did this become a life so unfamiliar at times and at other times too familiar, almost comforting? Leaving a strike of pain the rises from within so suffocating, yet intoxicating. One might say devastating, but if you are me, it is vindicating. Knowing the reflection is one that cannot be impassive from my existence, a constant reminder that to be victorious means you have slain the demon that  eagerly sit in the darkness waiting to consume you with sorrow and dread, pinning you onto the ground with a hand akin to a hammer, but not this time…not any time here after.

May you try, and may you fail, as you have watched me do so many times before. You track that life line to a young girl who was afraid, alone, yet bidding her time, for this too shall pass she would tell her mind and body; do not lay duped to what has been taken, but set yourself free for all that remains; there is so much that remains. Do not be so naive to think this life will be without darkness, but take comfort in the moments that leave you breathless, bounded by blimey.

Too often I move through time with a blindness to happiness…wishing, hoping, my time will come. Tick tock…the clock strikes, go. I run, run so fast my limbs feel as though they are being ripped from my body. Running toward my life’s train. But…wait, all this time I have been running for the final destination. No! No, I scream in my mind. The final stop is the end of my journey. Panicked, I pull the cord to signal my early departure, it is not the final stop I seek, but the stop in between the last place and the place I don’t want to know.

No, it is not my time yet, I am slowing. Gently slowing, as not to miss my sojourn in this life. The reflection in the mirror whispers…here, stop here. I like this stop, I see happiness and my heart starts to beat again. Although I am still slowing, yet another life line tracks across my face. Let it show, relishing in all that is expressions - I lived, I loved, I cherished. It is one I will embellish with eternal bliss, even though I know it will not last forever. Decorating this place within my heart with jewels of pride, affection, and joyfulness. Adorned for better person surely, but it comes to me, so I grab it, hold it, and keep it for as long as I can.

Until tomorrow, when I see the person staring back at me; until then will I feel the need to relive the unpredictable opulence of life, but I will resist residing in the loins of purgatory.  My fate, my destiny, my life. Mirror, mirror, on the wall… may you capture my soul with a glance, may you hold it with time…but may you also set me free.