Category: short piece

Saying Goodbye to Your Partner in Life

By Kim E. Morrison

In a lifetime a person will experience a lot of loss, see a lot of people they loved or have loved pass away, but none will be more stunning, numbing, soul crushing, or life altering as losing the person you have loved, had children with, and built a life around for decades. In a single instant you feel as though the weight of the world has dropped on your head because in that very same instant you suddenly realize that your life has changed immeasurably and will never be quite the same again. The person that loved you despite your imperfections, the person that was by your side through hardships, and helped you endure many other personal tragedies on life’s journey is gone and despite well meaning friends and relatives trying to cheer you up or being there to help you deal with the aftermath you will never in your life feel more alone and that generates a fear of the unknown and in turn that creates a number of questions: What do I do now?, How do I live without him or her?, Why did they have to go now?, and the list questions never ends. Unfortunately, many of those questions do not have answers and that only adds to the pain and sorrow that you are now enduring. Religion helps some folks at these difficult times and that is wonderful for them, but the phrases they toss out like “they are in a better place,” or “it is all God’s plan” really do not do the rest of us much good because God’s plan no matter how wonderful it may be is hurting us beyond words at this point in time and that so called better place better meet expectations because at this moment we can think of no better place than having our loved ones in our arms.

The painful reality is this is road we will all have to travel eventually, and the tears and pain will then be someone else’s burden to bear. However, it is all on our porch now and no matter how much time passes you will still miss your spouse, the passage of time will slowly ebb the tide of tears, but even years later your eyes will still well up with tears and your voice will crack when a memory of the person you lost engulfs your mind. You move forward or transition to the next stage of your life because you have no choice, but to do so. However, you will never not feel some sadness when the hand that held yours, your partner in life, the love of your life, or whatever comes to mind because your heart and soul is forever imbued with their memory and that is the way it should be.

My cousin Donna lost her husband yesterday after a long illness and I wrote this short piece for her. Even though I know from personal experience that no words help in the early stages of grief

The Ghosts Of Jim Crow Still Haunt Georgia

      I have never told this story to anyone, not even my mother until yesterday, because I did not think anybody would really care. However, the experience did change me, and I thought about it more than a few times over the years. When I was in my early twenties I lived in small town in southern Georgia for a time and I thought the state was beautiful, so I used to just drive around a lot up there. One Sunday, I think it was, when I was driving on this old country road I heard the most stunning beautiful choir music coming from a small church and I was just so taken in by the sound of it that I just could not help, but to pull up and stop the car to listen to it more. For a brief moment, I thought about going in the little church, but I had not been in a church since I was eight or ten years old and even though it was 1982 I worried how I might be received since I was certain that my face would be the palest face in there because after all it was a black church, so I just sat there in front of the church and listened to their amazing choir. Suddenly a black fellow came out followed by another and then a black woman and at first it looked as though they were glaring angrily at me, so I started my car and readied to leave. I then looked back at them and thought wait a minute they are looking beyond me at something behind me, so I immediately spun my head around and behind me coming out another small building across the road was a group Ku Klux Klansmen in full dress with some with the hoods off walking out that building and they were glaring at the people that came out of that church and by that time more had stepped outside the church. I was scared, but at that very same time I was never more ashamed to have white skin than I was that day. Not knowing what to do, I slowly pulled away from the church and headed down the road, but my fear and utter total embarrassment quickly turned into a tearful anger. I pulled off the road again and just hung my head and thought Jesus Christ brown people cannot even feel safe in their house or worship, their house of God. When is this vile hatred going to stop?  After getting underway again, I wondered if I would ever live long enough to see the end of this evil hateful nonsense.

     Well I am almost sixty-one now and I have lived long enough to see the whites only signs go down and the other vile visuals and symbols of the “Jim Crow” era disappear, but current events in this country tells me the same hatred stills imbues the soul of our nation and the deceptively racist laws being passed tells me the old ghosts of “Jim Crow” are alive and well and still haunting the beautiful and otherwise inviting state of Georgia.      

Guilty of Being Black in America

     Over the years I have witnessed many protests both violent and peaceful.  I have also seen many cities tore up and burning because of social unrest. I was in the middle of a riot once while working some years ago. I was scared, but I made it out of the city after my deliveries that night largely due to a black man I worked with that ran the same route in this predominantly black neighborhood who knew the area well and he instructed me in detail on how, as he put it, “I could get my white ass out of there if something ever did happen.” I am pretty sure my ass would have been in big trouble without some of those instructions that night because people did throw bottles and strike the vehicle I was in with bats and sticks and I was called a honky and other angry words more times that night than I had ever heard before in my life. The smell of tear gas that had been propelled into a building next to a group of people is something I will never forget or the chaos that ensued in that neighborhood because of a an incident that shined a light on racism, unfairness, or perhaps I should say the persistent inequity in treatment between people in this country often by the people who are supposed to protect and serve us all. Unfortunately, behind these incidents there is always dead body with dark skin that cause many of us to cry injustice and to get angry for a little while. For an instant, the people in this country who are in the majority are forced to come face to face with the reality of the hidden racism in this country and indifference shown to people in the minority and some in the majority hate to have their silent racism rubbed in their face. Nevertheless, every time something like this happens most people of all races and creeds hope that this time the death of a brown skinned man or woman because of callous indifference will be the last and some meaningful change occur. Often change in the way of social reforms to attempt to keep what happened from happening again does occur, but what doesn’t change is how we think or how perceive each other and as long as that doesn’t change being guilty of just simply being black in America will continue to occur.

      The question before us is what will make our racism, or our unfairness or indifference to others end? When will these senseless deaths from callous indifference that cause violence to erupt across our nation stop?  It will end the day a white person can look at black person and not see the color of their skin first and when a black person can look a white person and not see the color of their skin first. The day a guy looking at hot girls on the beach doesn’t lean over to his friend and say look at that hot girl over there without having to add the descriptive black or African American to distinguish her from the other hot girls. The day a person gets angry at someone that does not look like them or wear the same skin color and the first thing that pops in their mind is not a derogatory term connected to their skin color or race. The day we realize that there is no such thing as a black problem or white problem, but that it is a problem for all of us. The day when people stop talking about racism because as long as we are talking about racism, we have a race problem. The day people of all races, creeds, colors realize that we are in this thing called life together and that when one of us bleeds we all bleed. The day we as a people stop allowing the psychological chains of slavery to bind us to attitudes, thoughts, and feelings that imbue the very soul of our nation. The day we stop allowing the grotesque ghosts of “Jim Crow” to lynch the hearts and minds of generation after generation people. The day a special fear constructed from our ugly history no longer exists. A fear that forces brown moms and dads to have a special conversation with their children at a certain point in their lives about the white people that could hurt them, especially those who might wear a badge. When that day comes there will be no more senseless deaths from simply being guilty of being black in America. When that day comes, we will have arrived at that elusive but magical place some of us heard about many years ago from a wise man that died trying to get us there, a place called the “promised land.”                 

An Unspeakable Truth

First, this piece is not politically motivated or a referendum on anything currently going on.     Second, I want to state unequivocally that I do not claim or presume to be an expert on women’s trauma or sex abuse related issues. This is just one good man’s opinion on not all that women go through when they are sexually abused or assaulted, but on the truth that women, no matter how tough they are or how hard they try, never forget or even get by these horrific events in their life without issues no matter how much time passes. My opinion comes from being an active listener and the ability to garner trust with many people extremely quickly which is one of the reasons why I switched from mass communications in college to psychology. In the different positions I have held I have had countless conversations with women young and old and some on occasion have told me some very personal things or details of things that happened to them that they have never told anyone else. The fact that some of them told me about their rape, molestation, or sex abuse I still to this day find surprising because I can tell you these are things women do not like to share with anyone period and none have ever done so with me without either a tear entering their eyes or their voice cracking on, at least, the high points of the horrible event they were recanting to me. In my opinion, the idea that any woman who was a victim of any kind of sexual abuse wanting to speak about what happened to them in any kind of public forum, let alone testify about it a hearing, for profit or any kind of contrived purpose is utterly ludicrous. Sexual abuse and things of that nature that women at any age have endured are what I call unspeakable truths and if you are lucky enough to have heard one of these intensely personal stories from any woman of any age please realize that she only told you because she trusted you, for whatever reason, absolutely implicitly.

Over the years I have heard a few stories from women which include everything from violent rape to sexual abuse that were sometimes so gut wrenching or shocking to me that they left me stunned and without words which is a hard thing to imagine because I write, so I usually always have words. Despite that I write, I have never written a story based entirely on any sexual abuse or rape any woman has ever told me about and I never will because what was told to me was in confidence and I hold those kinds confidences more dear and near than a Catholic Priest holds a confession. I learned quickly from these women that their stories are known by a very select few people and in one case I am certain no one knew what happened to her when she was a young teen, not even her father or mother. Just imagine having some type of sexual abuse happen to you when you are a young woman or in your teenage years and never disclosing any portion of it to another living soul until many years later just simply because you felt no one would ever believe you, not even those closest to you. Imagine holding on to a terrible secret for years that may have eaten away at your self-esteem to a point that this one life incident has redefined your feelings of self-worth. Imagine trying to tell people what happened to you knowing full well that they will either not believe you or make you feel like you did something to cause what happened to you. Imagine asking yourself over and again “why me,” or “why did this happen to me” as if you were somehow selected to be raped or sexually abused. Imagine feeling so dirty, sullied, or fouled by an experience like this that no matter what you do you cannot physically or psychologically wash it away. Imagine constantly feeling like you have had something taken from you that you and only you had a right to give. Imagine taking anxiety medication for half your life to eliminate the memories, nightmares, or unrelenting moments of fear and emotions that just well up inside of you out of the blue because of single horrible event in your life that you had no control over. Imagine being haunted by a memory of some vile act done to you ten, twenty, or forty years ago and doing your best to live with it, live around it, to move on, to grow as a person personally and intellectually despite of it, but still, no matter how far you have come, never being able put the memory or memories of what happened to you to sleep permanently, an incident that almost certainly altered you or your life in some way whether you realize it or not. Now, imagine garnering the courage to publicly tell your story and after going through it all having some man say, “Well it was a longtime ago and after all boys will be boys.”  Yes, boys will be boys, but good boys know better and a truly good man or men should damn well know better.

Someone Up There has Got To Love Us

I wrote this piece for a thought provoking college class I am currently taking on Faith and Salvation online at Saint Leo University. I do not know yet what grade I will get on it, but I figured it was worth sharing with my readers up here.

 

Will man be saved by God? Who will be saved by God? Is one of the Catholic faith more likely to be saved by God than a Lutheran, a Presbyterian, or someone from another faith? Can a simple man who believes in God and occasionally reads the revealed word, but elects not to be connected to any church be saved by God? Would God even bother to try to save a true atheist or a non-believer in God and Heaven? Is there a way for a man to receive the grace of God and be saved and welcomed into God’s Kingdom on his own? I think any man, even those in Godly robes with full knowledge of the revealed word, that thinks he can answer these questions unequivocally to an absolute certainty is exhibiting a level of human audacity, so grand in dimension and size that even God himself is stunned by it. I have no absolute proof, just as no one else does about salvation, but I believe every time our human minds entertain questions which are purely in the hands of the divine one, God is sitting on his throne in heaven with his hand on his forehead going oy vey these wondrous creatures that I have created in my own image cannot even understand what is in their own hearts and minds, yet they presume to know what is in their creators heart and mind based only on those I spoke to or through centuries ago. However, I do believe despite it all that God loves us though and like a mother of many children, God is most protective of the creation, no matter how imperfect or screwed up, that is most like him. I do not believe “man set himself against God and sought to attain his goal apart from God,” because I do not believe there was a deliberate conscious effort on the part of humans to go against the creator. Any appearance that we set ourselves against God must be considered either a thoughtless action on our part or at the very worst an act of hubris in ourselves without regard to God. Pride or hubris is one of the seven deadly sins, but it is one of the sneakier sins because we often do not know it has a hold of us until it is too late. God knows all too well about man’s inclination toward sin because we have failed, starting with Adam, every test he has thrown in front of us, but God also has the wisdom to know that our inclination to sin is equaled with our inclination to do great good.

If we are truly all God’s children and he is our father in heaven as we have often been taught, he must forgive us of our sins for it is not within in a true father to stop loving, to stop caring, to stop being father. It is a job that never ends and with that job comes a lot of worry, pain, and sacrifice and the best any father can hope for, be he God or human, are a few fleeting moments of joy and pride in the being or beings born from the seed he planted.  I do not care whether you are Catholic, Baptist, or whatever, or you never go to church, or what nonsense you believe in, or think you know.  If he is a true father, “our father who thou art in heaven” will not forsake us because it is not in the nature or soul of a true father to do so. Our father will try to illuminate the path to heaven for us all, he will try to save us all if he can, and he will try keep us all from falling into the clutches of Satan’s grip because a true father will protect and defend his children to the end. Unfortunately, just because our father has the will and desire to try and save us all does not mean he will be able to do so. The desire and will to do something even if heaven sent does guarantee thy will be done or achieved. A baby growing in the womb of a mother is not guaranteed life in this world, so how could we expect our father in heaven, no matter how great and wonderful he is, to guarantee us ascension to heaven in the next life. We all know that natural life from start to finish holds no guarantees, so why would you think be you Catholic, Protestant, or a simple man with a deep abiding belief in God above think that a place in heaven is guaranteed to you. God, our father in heaven, does not guarantee us eternal life in his heavenly kingdom.  God merely offers us the promise of eternal life in his Kingdom if we manage to get there through his will and desire.

If it is all dependent on God’s will and desire, what role does the church or organized religion play? They are all well-worn pathways to realizing that promise, but it cannot be the only one otherwise far too many would be left out. If he were to select only Catholics, that would leave all the Protestants and Jews out. If were to select only those who attend some church, he would leave out all those who do not attend any kind of church. A loving forgiving father would not leave so many of his children out in the cold, so there must be other ways he can save them, to help them realize his promise. As our reading states, “the scriptures tell men that God wants everyone saved.” Whether it is a “supernatural salvation” God just grants to his non-Christian or non-believing children or he has some plan or some other way beyond man’s comprehension to save us, a pathway to realize his promise must exist for us all. As we have read, we are all afflicted with the burden of the “original sin,” so through no fault of our own we are all on the road to perdition from the moment we are born. If this is true, there must be more ways off that road. It cannot be all exclusive to one faith, like the Catholic Saints we have read have tried to convince us of for our father in heaven would not want one half or three quarters of his children to perish in the flames of hell just because they do not subscribe to the idea that a wise exalted old fellow in a funny hat is the only one that holds the keys to heaven gate.

I haven’t been to Sunday services in a church in decades, but sitting behind me on my book shelf right at this moment rests several different Bibles. Do I believe every word in the Bible? Absolutely not because literal interpretations of that wonderful book causes people do stupid appalling things in the heavenly father’s name.  God is wonderful, God is great, God loves us and forgives us for our trespasses, but not even divine intervention can fix certain kinds of stupid. Do I believe in God? You bet I do because one not believing in God is far to frightening to contemplate. Two, if any creature on earth ever needed a divine Sheppard to watch over them, it is man because no creature on earth is more hell bent on their own destruction than man. Three, only God could help us make sense of this beautiful chaos we call life. We can only pray that one day we will get the chance to stand in the light of our heavenly father and receive the answers to all the questions religious wars have been fought over, the answers that have always been just out of our minds reach, the answers that have at times both mystified our minds and tortured our mortal souls.

Spirit Of Santa Claus

Whether you choose to call him Santa Claus, Pere Noel, Papai Noel, Viejo Pacuero (“Old Man Christmas”), Dun Che Lao Ren (“Christmas Old Man”), Kerstman, Joulupukki, Weihnachtsmann( Christmas Man”), Kanakaloka, Mikulas ( St. Nicholas), Babbo Natale, Hoteiosho (“A God or Priest who bears gifts”), Julenissen ( “Christmas gnome”), Swiety Mikolaj (“St. Nicholas”), Ded Moroz, (“Grandfather Frost”) Jultonten (“Chritsmas brownie”), Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, or SinterKlass let us not forget the meaning behind Santa Claus. A meaning that is not just built around the religious significance of Christmas. A meaning that we should hold dearly in our hearts each day of the year. A meaning that demands that we strive toward or constantly reach for the better angels of our nature even when it seems impossible to do so. This season is representation of a spirit of goodness, kindness, compassion, and love that should exist within us all the whole year long. A spirit that demands we open our hearts to others without out any expectation from them, but as an example for them to follow. This is the season where the feet of doing the right thing hits the pavement knowing the right thing to do and the realization that the only thing you will get in return for your efforts is the good feeling you get in your heart for doing it. As I used to tell my bus students and now patients, “it is not hard doing the right thing. What is hard is knowing what the right thing is.”  The right thing is that which demands the best from you in the worst of circumstances, that summons that better person inside you, that person you never realized you were capable of being, that person who realizes that doing the right thing routinely comes without awards, gifts, and sometimes without even a simple thank you, but does so just because of how it makes them feel inside.

Merry Christmas To All

Kim Morrison

My Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

I remember a Christmas growing up in the mountains of upstate New York when things were hard, money was shorter than usual, and my father was not around much. As we approached Christmas that year, it looked like my mother and I were not even going to have a Christmas tree. I was only about twelve or thirteen that year, but the idea of not having a Christmas tree that year just didn’t set well with me, so without my mother knowing I got up early one morning and gathered up a hand saw and my father’s double-bladed axe. It had snowed the night before and it was very cold as it usually was up there that time of year. However, I was determined to have a Christmas tree one way or another, so I trudged through about four inches of snow into the woods behind my house with the saw in one hand and a double-bladed axe over my shoulder.  Even being bundled up good I was getting cold, so I knew I had to find a tree soon. The best tree I could find was a tall oddly thick pine tree. I could not use the whole tree because it was too tall, so I climbed half way up the tree carrying the handsaw and cut the top off. I tossed the saw down just before I cut through it all the way and pushed the tree top with my shoulder just enough to make it crack and tumble to the ground. When I got down, I tied the saw and axe on the tree with a piece of rope I had stuck in my pocket and dragged my Christmas tree through the snow to my house about a mile or so away. I was really freezing by the time I got back and my hands because I had to remove my gloves to use the saw felt like they were not far from frostbite, so I went in to get warm and to pull out the tree stand. I told my mother I got tree and she looked at it from the window and said, “I do not think that old pine tree is going to work because the needles are going to fall off quicker.” I said, “I guess will just have to make it last somehow.” After warming back up, I went back outside and shaved the trunk flat, brought it in the house, and stood it up in the tree stand. I looked at it and thought well at least my tree looks better than “Charlie Brown’s.” We decorated the pine tree with just about every decoration and light we had that year and it wound up being one of the best Christmas trees we have ever had and the aspirins we put in the tree water did make those needles stay on into the next year. We didn’t have much more than my “Charlie Brown Christmas tree,” but it still wound up being very special Christmas because we made our own Christmas that year.

When we think about Christmas we need to realize that it isn’t just about Santa Clause, presents, or even Jesus Christ, but about tradition. It is about doing those things your family has always done despite what is going on in your life, the passage of time, or the loss of loved ones and friends along the way. The traditions you follow may seem trivial, or unimportant to anyone else, but they are what makes your holiday season special to you. The little things people and families do every Christmas is where the spirit of this season comes from. I make a Christmas cookie from a recipe that has been in my family for a hundred years around every Christmas. I certainly do not need the cookies because I am diabetic, but it is one of the smells of Christmas I remember as child when my mother made them and others. I have Christmas bulbs on my tree now that have hung on my families Christmas tree since my birth and I am fifty-six years old. They say people are usually a little kinder and gentler this time of year. If you believe that they are, it is not just because it is Jesus’s birthday, but because of all of us following our traditions during this special season and doing the things our families have always done for years. The sights, sounds, smells and everything that is wonderful about this holiday are born out of the traditions of families.  Santa Clause is alive in the hearts of small children and the spirit of Christmas is alive and well in the hearts of many during this season because of things big and small that families throughout history have always done. We make this wonderful season what it is to us by the little things we do every year. It doesn’t take much to make a Christmas special or memorable. Sometimes all it takes is a “Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.”

 

One Adorable Train Wreck

It’s a long ride young lady. Why don’t you tell me your story?

Why? Why should you care? You’re just my ride to the methadone clinic. Oh, what the hell do I have to lose? I’ve got to talk to somebody about all this before I go totally bat shit crazy. Why not talk about my life to a perfect stranger? How could you possibly make it any fucking worse? It is not like you are actually going to give a shit anyway. Oh Christ! My life is such a fucking mess that I don’t even know where to start. Nothing has turned out the way I hoped or wanted it to, and right now my future isn’t looking too bright either. I’m a recovering drug addict clinging to sobriety by the thinnest of threads because drugs are everywhere and they are still a part of my fucking life even though I am trying real hard not to use anymore.

At first, I liked getting high because it seemed like a cool distraction from the everyday bullshit of life. Later it numbed the pain and hid the sadness caused by those I loved and those I thought loved me who constantly let me down and in one case even brutalized me to the point of permanent physical injury. At some point, even my fucking little romance with chemicals let me down because after a while nothing eased the pain, and profound sadness I felt. But like all druggies I kept on using until there was nothing left but the drugs and the additional suffering and loss they brought on me.

If it weren’t for the three children I lost custody of and the one now growing inside me, I am quite sure I would have taken a lethal cocktail of drugs at some point and just ended my fucked up life. I had gotten to such a low point in my life that I didn’t think anyone would miss me, but the thought of my children being left without a mother was more than I could bear. Their fathers are fucking assholes, but I do love all of my children. Despite my issues and what some might tell you, I know I was a better mother to my children than most of the stupid bitches that come through the clinic. I am only twenty-six years old, but between the drugs and bad relationships I feel like an old woman.

Driver, this ride isn’t long enough to tell you about all my bad relationships, but there is enough there to fill a cheap romance novel. Sadly, parts of it would be scary enough to send Freddy Krueger screaming back to his silly dream world. Simply saying that I have sucked at picking guys to have intimate relationships with is a huge understatement. I don’t know what it is about me, but I gravitate toward guys that will hurt me, cheat on me, or let me down. The good guys or unusually sensitive guys that I should want to be with tend to be clingy and needy, and unfortunately too much of that shit brings out the bitch in me, so I wind up hurting them. I don’t know what it is about you men, but you all seem to go from being insensitive pricks to overly sensitive little mama’s boys with little in between. The crazy thing is I really do love men, I enjoy being with men, and I enjoy talking to men, but my trust in guys is in the crapper and at this point I don’t think I could tolerate being hurt again. The funny thing is despite having a few health issues, being on methadone, being pregnant, being half-asleep all the time, and in general being a train wreck of a young woman that may not even survive her pregnancy; I can still attract men of all ages. Unfortunately, all of you crazy guys think I am some kind of broken doll that needs to be fixed and I am not even sure I can fix myself sometimes. Oh Hell! I can’t even figure out why I am burdening an almost total stranger with my fucking life story. The fact that you’re a man makes it seem even weirder. I do know what it is about you, driver, but I get the sense that you’re different in some way and for some odd reason… I feel really safe with you-as a matter of fact, safer than I have felt in a very long time.

Well if you’re a train wreck, you’re one of the most adorable train wrecks I have ever met. We all have stories and I’m glad you felt safe enough to tell me yours. Yes I do care, but the truth is we all should care about young women with stories like yours. Look around any corner and you’ll find a woman who has gone through at least some if not all of what you have gone through or a young girl who will go through some if not all of what you have gone through. The only thing unique about stories like yours is that they are rarely ever heard because first, you are a woman in what is still very much a man’s world; second, you are a single mom and that is all your fault and responsibility even though a penis attached to another person helped put you in that condition; and third, you are a drug addict, so put them all together and you are in the druggie single mom group which, not unlike the homeless in this country, are considered a shit stain on the social fabric of America that we as a collective group choose to ignore or pretend doesn’t exist. The truth is that some individuals will care and some will try to help in different ways, but the reality here is that the buck stops with you, young lady, so the question on the table is not whether someone cares, but what are you prepared to do to change your current situation? You can sit there and try to boohoo your problems away, but to my knowledge nary a tear has ever solved a problem. The only thing you accomplish by crying is wasting a lot of tissues you can’t afford. You can sit there and be angry at the former men in your life who helped put you in your current situation and hope they help you without forcing them to make a court appearance, but that would be like wishing in one hand and shitting in the other and we all know which one of those hands usually gets full first. You can continue to use drugs and keep trying to medicate your pain and problems away until you accidentally take too much or mix the wrong drugs and in the not too distant future leave the children that you say you love so much standing over a tombstone or a box of ashes crying over a mother they never really knew because you chose to spend most of your life and all of theirs fucked up on drugs. What you should be doing first is staying the course in this drug program you are in to free yourself from your addiction. The narcotic turnpike you’re barreling down only leads to a place where potential withers on the vine, hopes become a dust swirl in the dry wind, and the seeds of dreams die in the parched soil. The final toll will be the destruction of everything you were, everything you are, and everything you could have been. This is no kind of road for a bright young woman like yourself to be traveling down , so take the exit ramp now before it is too fucking late, and never look back. The second thing you should be doing is trying to figure out how to build a life for you and your children without a man and judging by the number of children you already have and the size of your belly you have already had enough of that to meet the Biblical quota of “be fruitful and multiply.” What you need to do now is work on yourself. Start by redefining yourself and knowing your true worth.

Unfortunately, it is harder for a woman because from the time females are born in this country, they are socialized in a society designed by men, so women are patterned from the male expectation of what a woman should be and shamefully their worth is inexorably linked to that male concept. From birth, male and female roles are being established to define them and the future roles they will play in society. Almost immediately, baby girls are dressed in pretty pink and boys in the more masculine color of blue. Later little girls are given pretty dolls to play with and boys are given trucks to play with and the evolution of roles continues from there. Somewhere during the course of this evolution little girls become daddy’s little princesses and not very long after this young girls burgeoning into womanhood realize that if they look, and behave according to this male expectation of what girls and women should be that boys and later men will be nice to them, do things for them, and protect them. The reason why certain mental illnesses like anorexia and bulimia are associated more closely with females is that they are trying to meet or exceed our society’s expectation. This is patterned from the male conception, of what a woman should look like, so a female no matter how emaciated she becomes from these diseases will always see a woman in her mirror that is too fat to meet this expectation of what a woman should look like.

Men and women both might argue the point that our society is a male construct, but a quick look at how slow laws were passed for women and how the legal system treats women in general most clearly makes my point. Until just a couple of years ago it was perfectly acceptable to pay women less for the same job a man did and until 1973 a man could beat the shit out of his wife and not be arrested for it if the scared battered wife or a witness did not swear out a complaint against the husband. With the number of single moms trying to raise children on their own steadily increasing for years you would think passage of logical legislation like this would have come sooner, but it didn’t because men make the laws and males have always been perceived as the family bread winners in our society. I wonder how many men beat their wives to death before a group of men in the legislature decided it was a good idea to pass a law to give women some minimal protection against spouse abuse. I guess the socialized concept of a man being the king of his castle kept a lot of good men from seeing sooner that allowing the King to beat the Queen of his castle to death over bullshit wasn’t such a good idea. As far as how badly women are treated by our legal system, you only need to watch an episode of “Law and Order” to get a clue. It was determined a long time ago that rape is a crime of violence period, yet still to this day what a woman was wearing at the time of her rape and how many men she had sex with during the course of her life comes up in a rape trial as if it should be relevant to a jury or court to render a fair decision. Where is it written in the law that a vagina of promiscuous women is worth less than that of a virgin. If worth was the actuary used to determine the value of a vagina, one would think the one that has frequently entertained would be worth more, not less. In my opinion, if the rape victim were a prostitute, a charge of theft of services should go along with the rape charge. Why does it matter what the victim of a violent crime was wearing? If the woman was wearing a miniskirt at the time of her rape, how is she less of a victim than a woman wearing a pantsuit? Are women wearing miniskirts less of a victim because they are perceived to be granting the rapist easier access? What is the defense lawyer’s argument here? “Your honor my clients junk has mind of its own and saw that woman’s short skirt as an open invitation and it could not resist the temptation to quell its violent carnal desires.” Our socialization, in this example, makes us believe that women who like to screw a lot of men and wear miniskirts are helping to cause their rape, so in court they are raped again by a system that is supposed to protect everybody. The effect of this socialization is so strong that rape victims themselves will wonder what they did to cause a man to violently attack them. In a man’s world women operate from a different metric, but one that was created by men and unfortunately women define themselves and garner their self-worth from it. My point here is women have to define themselves and recognize their own worth beyond the male prism that they have been socialized to see themselves through. It is not wrong to want to be with a man, be in love with a man, and spend your life with a man as an equal partner, but in order to accomplish this you must first see yourself as something greater than just a hot baby-making receptacle for every cute swinging penis that comes your direction.

You must up your game and you start by getting off drugs, getting an education, and striving for your own personal independence. This is your “Fight Song” because this is how you take back your life. Yes, you might find your Prince Charming somewhere along the way “Sleeping Beauty” and get the fairy tale situation you always dreamed of as a little girl, but you must prepare yourself for likelihood of awakening from your deep slumber only to find that you are in a hard lip lock with a frog. Why should I care about you and all this you wonder? I am nothing but a guy who drives a train wreck to a methadone clinic everyday wondering how an adorable exceedingly bright feisty young woman like her wound up in this fucking circle of hell. One, who silently prays that this particular one has enough fight left in her to claw her way back to a life that doesn’t include a score or a hit? The question here should not be why I should care. A better question would be why don’t we all care? Adorable train wrecks like her are not very hard to find all you have to do is look around any corner.