We did it! It is officially women’s day in the year of women. It only took thousands of years of giving birth to every person to ever be born to get recognition. I mean don’t get me wrong it doesn’t change anything. We still don’t have equal pay, or reproductive rights.. and we still “deserve” to be raped if we wear the wrong outfit.. and we still get hassled for any choice we make in our lives, whether we choose to work or not.. have kids or not.. and so on.
The craziest part of the whole thing is that we are not actually a minority. We make up up more than 50% of the population. There is no reason for this. We are the ones who raise the future generation. We are the ones that teach boys and men how to treat others. How is this the norm? Well, sadly we tend to think of ourselves as competition instead of being each other’s biggest champions.
I read through all the posts and memes today, and all the women screaming for 
themselves. I saw how McDonald’s switched their sign around to commemorate Women. I saw how everyone was talking about the things that men need to do to help women, and all of that is great. I agree, men need to take their sticks out of their asses and acknowledge that women are just as strong, smart, and competent as men, but what’s more important is that women have to encourage each other.
It’s great that we’re marching, but what we really need to do is start shopping at women owned businesses. We need to start hiring each other.. and promoting each other.. and voting for each other. I’m not saying vote for someone just because they are a woman. Sarah Palin is a woman and no one should vote for her, but if you know that there is a candidate on the ticket.. look into her. Even if it’s a name you never heard of, look into her.
When you see a mom having trouble, give her a hand. When you have a coworker in your office don’t make her your enemy.. be happy for her if she gets a promotion. Befriend her, learn from her, teach her.. grow together. If we expect men to come around and treat us with respect we need to show them how it’s done. We are the mothers of the world. If we can teach other’s how to respect who will?
As we sat there, stuck in a room, waiting for the nurse to call us in he escalated the conversation. He started telling me how cute I was. How he’s just looking for a nice girl. He started asking personal things about my life, which I dodged as clearly as I could. I lied when he pressed me on where I live. I lied and told him that I was married. I started messaging people on my phone to show him that I was otherwise engaged in other conversation. I was already sitting as far away from him as I could, but still leaned further in the other direction.
Unconditional love is spoken about a lot.. almost as a fairy tale. As if it were an ideal that people could never actually live up to. Relationships fall apart just as fast as they come together. Divorce rates are growing while marriage rates are dropping. No one can say forever anymore, and because of that unconditional love seems like the unicorn of feelings… but here’s the thing. Love isn’t about staying together. Love isn’t about rings. Love doesn’t even have to be romantic.
We are all spinning our wheels. The US Presidency primary is 2 years away, and Trump knows this. Trump knows that if we spend all of our time talking about him and fighting about Hilary then there will be no one to run against him. There will be no one to rally around to take him down. That’s what happened last time. It’s not that Trump won. It’s not that the country chose him.. the country chose “not Hillary”.
to food programs that hurt children and the elderly. I don’t want more cuts to public schools.. even if my son is in private. I don’t want healthcare to be a thing for only the wealthy and the healthy. He talks about how great countries like Norway and Australia are… use that. Talk about people who support the same policies as they do. Use his words against him. Talk about the DACA kids making a difference. Talk about the soldiers fighting for our rights to be healthy, safe, and educated. Talk about the inner city programs that are working. Talk about your grandma with meals on wheels. Talk about how well the free college programs help the next generation of doctors and engineers. Talk about the good things happening in this country and around the world. He talks enough about the bad.
being raised in the US we celebrated all of the commercial Christian holidays: Christmas, Easter… and to a lesser extent Halloween. My father read me the children’s Bible when I was younger, but that was half out of obligation to my mother who gave it to me, and half because he felt that it was part of our modern culture and he wanted me to be educated on it.
blood sugar levels would drop to the point where he would become hypothermia and the paramedics spent a lot of time at my house. My father, however, was still working and paying most of the bills while I worked at home part-time teaching ESL online to people across the world nights after my son went to sleep .
See, here’s my thing. I don’t like Football (American or otherwise). I just don’t really care for it in any way. I see people fighting over it, and obsessing over it. I see people who have their team that they love and believe in win or lose. I see people who never miss a Sunday. I see people who worship the players, and dress in their gear…. and I don’t care.
After about 1.5 hours my son had to pee so we stopped at a gas station/convenient store and we grabbed snacks. It was one of those things that I talked myself into being ok. I had to do something to keep me awake and munching on snacks and coffee always does the trick. I was right. We got to the house with no incident and things seemed good… till I laid down. Suddenly I felt like I was going to be sick. I had severe heartburn and even the next day I had very little energy. I ate the left-over donuts we had and I felt even worse.
But what about all of those who are just hoping to get through the bitterly cold nights? The food pantries and soup kitchens don’t just have “guests for the holiday”. We all talk about the things we want to get and achieve, but what about the things that we want to give.
to accept failure. Most people are much more comfortable with self deprecation than we are accepting a compliment. If someone says, “wow, you look great, have you lost weight?”. The receiver automatically feels uncomfortable and makes up some excuse about being sick, or “maybe a little”, or brushes it off as if it’s no big deal. But it is a big deal. Anything that you work hard at is.
Even those who are successful in whatever aspect of their lives still feel the need to put down anyone who wants start. Slim, healthy people make fun of overweight people who are beginning to exercise. As if “who does that person think they’re fooling?”. Why do they have to be fooling anyone? Why does their life choices to try to be better at something automatically put others on the defensive.
candles and pouring salt, it’s all very pagan traditions… which is fine, just not my cup ‘a. Anyway… the whole point is to get the person to try new things and to spend more time in their own head. There is a lot of sitting in silence and meditating.. which I do believe in.
Katrina Michelle Russell 