This Election and My Uterus

I'm a pretty loud-mouthed liberal, so I doubt many of you wonder my reasons for voting for Obama. But as a woman, I wanted you to know where I'm sitting. Where are you?

Abortion and Birth Control
This didn't used to be so close to my heart, but this has hit home. First of all: I'm on birth control because I have cramps from hell. My insurance provides that for me because I need it in order to attend class regularly and perform to the best of my ability at work. I'm also a (somewhat) sexually active, adult woman. Even if I had perfectly normal periods and didn't require medication to regulate them, I would be on birth control, because that's the responsible thing for me to do. My insurance company should still support me in making that responsible decision. When I have sex, I am not only on birth control now, but I use condoms--responsibility, folks. If I were to get pregnant under those circumstances, I sure as hell would get an abortion. I am in no way ready to have a child and I in no way want one.

I'm offended and creeped out that these GOP politicians are so concerned with my sex life. I will do whatever the fuck I want with this body, I will be as safe as I can when I do it, and if all that falls through, I will not further curse this nation with the birth of another unwanted child. Tell me how the Republican Party can oppose birth control, abortion, and funding for social programs? You don't want to help prevent pregnancy? Cool. You don't want to help end what you did not want to help prevent? Ummm... You don't want to support the child that would not prevent coming into this world? Fuck you. That is greed.

Many want to argue that this is not a War on Women. I call bull shit. If a man gets a woman pregnant by rape, incest, or consensual sex, he can walk away. He holds no legal responsibility while the woman clearly does. He commits a legal abortion by disappearing, leaving the mother to deal with that kid. A woman doesn't get that option. If she becomes pregnant and is forced to carry the child to term, then she is responsible. The world may never know who the father is--but she is marked. That child is hers. She has to drop everything to raise it. Or adoption, whatever. But let's be real. We have enough kids in the system. Maybe we should put a little more emphasis on those children who are already alive with friends, talents, interests, and loves.
And I love when some say they're only okay with abortion in cases of rape and incest... yadda yadda. Because the woman wants to go to court after she was raped to prove it was rape... meanwhile the child comes closer and closer to the point in its term where abortion is no longer an option. Incest? Maybe she doesn't WANT the person to know she's pregnant. And in the end, how do we prove any of this? We can't, really. Not even science is positive on that. So all y'all are full of shit. You're just trying to make yourselves feel better about telling rape victims they have to raise that baby. This is just something that cannot be government regulated.

Here are some further concerns I don't have the energy to write about in detail:
Capital Punishment
The War on Terror
Fear of Theocracy
Public Programming (a weak attempt at appearing fiscally conservative)
Foreign Relations
Medicare and Social Security
Gay Marriage
Equal Pay (without the help of binders)
My future in a mental health field

Facebook...

"These our my own and their from my heart"

 

This literally hurt my eyes.

Black babies, cute animals, and depression

I hate negative Facebook posts. I think they're attention-seeking and childish. The same goes for Twitter and Instagram. But blogs are a little different. I had to convince myself of that. This is my heart unraveled and woven back into shape between little black letters on my laptop. This, this is me. This is what pisses me off, what make me laugh, what hurts me, and what brings happy moisture to my eye. This is my blog, dammit.

And I'm not happy right now. I don't taste when I try to eat. Laughing feels physically exhausting. I don't want to sing. I don't want to dance. I want to sleep. I don't even want to cuddle, if you can believe that. I don't want to be touched at all. I do kind of want hot tea, though.

In a sick kind of irony, I think I'm most creative at times like this. Stories are opening up in my mind. I just don't have the energy to write them down--to make them whole. I WANT to, but just not enough. I have things I need to accomplish. I WANT to do them; not enough. My day is heavy with all the shit that needs done, and it's weighing on my heart. Because instead of doing those things right now, I'm looking up pretty African American babies and cute animals on Pinterest. That's pretty much all I want to do. I don't want to talk to anyone. I want left alone.

Extremes

This week has been full of extreme highs and lows.

• Midterms stressed me out unnecessarily.
• Friends disappointed me.
• Friends faced struggles I wish I could make better.
• Nearly every time I walked outside I was rained on.
• I don't own an umbrella.
• The alcohol/hazing/sexual assault training I had to do was useless and hell to get into.

• I learned I may graduate early.
• The classes ahead of me are exciting and interesting.
• I'M GOING TO PARIS AND BERLIN NEXT SEMESTER!
• I had a thoroughly entertaining study session with my German class (although little studying was accomplished)
• I finally cleaned my room.
• All my exams went swimmingly.

This has been the ultimate bipolar week. The ups have been full of ecstasy, fast-talking, shaking, and jumping. The lows have been full of sleep, sleep, calls home, and sleep.

There have been no in betweens this week. It's been a constant roller coaster.

How do you define success?

So, I got out all my frustration on the subject of Kyle. I was personally offended, and I shouldn't have been. It isn't my life. Our lives have been so thoroughly intertwined for so long that is seems like a personal thing. Of course I think it's a bad decision. The people from whom I'd take advice think so too. Until recently, Kyle would have asked me first. Instead he acted quickly before I could change his mind. These are the facts. And I don't care about the finer details, because oftentimes the closer we look at things, the less of them we see.

1. He was a junior in college and dropped out.
2. He tried to get a job from the time he entered college, never getting a real one that he could hold down. He finally got a job at a gas station near his Terre Haute house. He missed the first day and was fired.
3. He doesn't have a job now. He plans to look for one in Marshall--but the job market is slim, and without an education, there isn't much for him.
4. He is living with his sister's boyfriend in an apartment. Clearly he is not paying rent.
5. He is smoking pot regularly--with money he can't afford to spend; with money he didn't spend on school. He plans on buying his childhood home--which will put him in debt. But he was morally opposed to the debt school put him in. Life is full of debt. It's inescapable.

Perhaps I just measure success differently than he does. Perhaps I see success as getting an education. As getting a job in a field of your study that you're interested in and care about. As making your voice heard. As being a good role model to children. I measure those things that I do at Waycross as success. I measure my current job as success. I measure the hard work I'm putting into this degree as success. And sometimes I get sad. I do. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed I feel like I'll never get out. I do. But I'm smart enough to know that so does everyone else. And we're all in this together. When Shannon had a ton to do last week, I sat with her in the library and entertained myself. And as I study for my big German exam, she is designing her Halloween costume right beside me. German is hard. But when I get those grades back, I'm proud of myself. I work my ass off and I see something for it. That is success to me.

So. Maybe that's just me. I'd say it's most people, honestly. But Kyle isn't most people. He's never going to be. He's more concerned with the way things should be than the way they are. He's gets so lost in his thoughts that he can't see what's in front of them. He is an extremist. He is so opposed to our societal structure that he's just opted out of it. But you can't ever really opt out of it. You still have to pay for your food. You still have to wear clothes when it's cold. You still have to pay for a house.You still have to pay taxes. You still have to pay for the gas to meet those you love (assuming you have a car).

The rules don't change. You can't get out of those things. All you can legitimately opt out of is a job that requires an education. You still have to pay to feed your drug habit. Money has to come from somewhere. Now it will just come from a job that doesn't involve writing, or thinking, or relationships, or art, and will start off at minimum wage. But again. Maybe that's what he wants. Maybe he's okay with getting a fast food job and writing blog posts. If that makes him happy, then so be it. It's just not what I'd expected from him. I saw a different path for him. But it's not my story to write.

There are times that I've wished I could just ditch these rigid structures of school. job. family. house... I understand that feeling. But school is my favorite part of all that. I like the discussions I have in classes. I like what I'm learning. There will be classes I don't like--but you can't always get what you want. I love school. I'd love to live more freely--but I'll make that happen. I'm going to create a kind of happiness and freedom in my life based on those things that I learn on this campus. I'm figuring out with the people here what my options are--how I can turn the things I love into a career. And I can't wait. I can't wait to graduate and find a grad school. I can't wait to figure out what I'm going to do. I can't wait to travel and see the world. ISU is practically PAYING me to do it!

I measure success as trial and triumph. I think in a phrase, that's how I'd describe it. Trial and Triumph. I want to know how y'all define success. Comment me, bitches. :)

Also: These pictures don't have a lot to do with the rest of the post. I know. But they were hysterical, and even a moderate connection was worth sharing them.

Sometimes...

a girl just doesn't have the time to angry-type that post that is imperative she post.

Unrestrained Hope--A Post on Living Without Fear

It's been awhile, friends. The week of Homecoming and the week prior to homecoming was packed full for Greeks and the enthusiastically involved like myself. I had the Chi Omega tent to worry about and affiliated alumnae events, I had Sycamore Sync, and Trike, and The Walk.I'm not old enough to participate yet, but I have to worry about not hitting drunk college students in matching shirts saying things like, "Walk Hard, Play Hard," and "Keep Calm and Walk On." It's kind of like an unsupervised herd of children walking down Wabash--except hyper-sexual and profane.

Sunday, work took me to Indianapolis with Kyle. Pleasantly, Mom brought Kairyn along, and I spent some time with them. I took pictures for Tanglewood Press. It was a good Sunday day after a long, long, long two weeks.

Last night I had my date. Some of you may notice that I removed my last post. I did so because I was asking questions I've managed to answer myself, now. This is something I never used to do... but the recentness of the post made the contrast to this post uncomfortable and confusing to those who follow me faithfully.

Last night I went on my date with Drew. I'm guessing a number of you didn't even know that was happening. Dinner, movie, and conversation. In one way or another I'm guarding myself from an acca-awkward situation in the future. Here I'm going to define my feelings on the past of that relationship, my fears regarding it, and how I picture it working. *Deep breath* Here we go.

Drew caused me a lot of heartache over the last year. I was pathetically and unrelentingly in love with him, and he did not love me. I'm not the type to have a million crushes on boys and fall in love willy-nilly. I've only said it about three boys now. And Drew was the second. Honestly he led me on. On the surface, he didn't. He never made any promises he couldn't keep. He never did anything directly unkind to me. But when I look back--he was leading me on. Because he still paid attention to me. For whatever reason, he let me love him. He could have shut me down, and he didn't. It was hard for a long time. But this summer, I did a lot of processing, and when the truth of that relationship revealed itself to me, I cut ties. It was a kind of passive decision. I was uninterested in talking to someone who was uninterested in me. It's a decision I made just in time for him to silently change his mind about me. When my only contact with him was via text messages that he sometimes responded to hours later, any interest he'd ever had felt distant and vague. He's not one to talk about his feelings.

In this time I dated Jacob--a jumbled kind of affair. And due to misunderstanding, Drew and I had no contact for two months. Acca-awkward.

In an odd series of events, we began speaking again. And this time there was actual speaking. With calls instead of texts and with long-winded Skype sessions. He apologized an awful lot.

So... fears.

• I'm afraid he wants to be with be because he's lonely. And that it doesn't really have anything to do with me.
• I'm afraid my history will confuse our relationship--that was a not-so-subtle topic last night.
• I'm afraid he'll be too scared. And this will all be a repeat of last year.

If we were to make this work. what would it look like?

• No commitments. Nothing is ever in stone.
• Personal academic achievement and work always come first--even if that calls for an end to all of it.
• There would be an equal contribution on the part of both parties to see one another. I don't like the idea of "make it work." This shouldn't be work. I know long distance is rough. It never lasts, whatever. I've seen in work with mature adults before. But I still have those same fears of long distance. But honestly? Haven't we been doing that for a year? Just with a paralyzing fear of the assumed commitment that walks hand-in-hand with labels. What I dream of? It's close. Just with a greater effort to spend time together. Just with a level of temporary commitment, which doesn't dictate decisions for the future, but rather enriches the experiences we have in that moment... those moments.
• I'm a realist. My level of idealism has shrunk more as I've grown and seen the exploits and failures of those in my life, (and my own, I suppose). I'm expecting nothing more than acknowledgment of love.

If those things do not happen, I can be okay with that. But I can be nothing more than a good friend. I refuse to chase. I'm over chasing. I'm over looking. If love wants me, love will find me. and I will give myself wholly to that feeling in that moment with no care of what lays before me. Endings are as natural as beginnings. I live without fear. Love cannot exist one-way, and it cannot exist if it is unspoken. Something as intangible as a feeling doesn't really mean anything unless it's expressed. It isn't even there. Think about that for a minute.


I won't have my heart broken if it never becomes something, and I won't have my heart broken if something develops, then fades. That's just life. Sadness over such things is inevitable--but I'm beyond the mess I used to live in. I'm just as happy by myself. But hope is as unrestrained as love in it's imaginary place in our minds. I'm giving it substance by saying it here. I hope something happens. I do.

It is what it is.