Failing Success – UYW March

In between birth and death, every human is tasked with making choices which will directly affect their future. However, we aren’t born with the maturity or wisdom necessary to choose right and guarantee a stable, secure, and comfortable life as an adult. We are given parents to teach and guide us until we are competent on our own. But… not everyone is so fortunate to be born into a family with both parents present, let alone have them be capable of providing the nurturing and support a child needs to tame the wild oats they love so much to sow. This can make a difference in the kind of life one will come to have as an adult.

Sometimes, it’s not even about the parents. Sometimes the child is just too adventurous and independent to be tamed by anyone other than himself. Either way, not everyone has the early foundation put in place to ensure they are prosperous in what they do. Sometimes their fixations with living on the edge will lead them down dangerous or unorthodox roads. When realized sooner, rather than later, it’s much easier to jump back on track and rebuild again. Eventually, though, time catches up with us, as it always does, and the hope for an easy, comfortable life is lost on them forever.

When one has to learn the hard way about everything, there’s undoubtedly a price to be paid. No amount of begging the universe, praying to a higher power, or wishing on a lucky star will change one’s fate – every choice, every decision, every action that is taken – leads us to where we are. People like to turn a blind eye while promising that it’s never too late, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Take my husband, for example. He was a mischievous little rebel who partied way too hard throughout his teens and twenties. This led to him spending the majority of his thirties battling various addictions, as he only managed to escape one by substituting it with another. From alcohol to prescription pills, excessive exercising/body image obsession to gambling, this man has experienced more layers of Hell in his mind then I even knew existed. He ended up with a pretty decent rap sheet on file with law enforcement, labeling him as a three-time felon, by the end of his wild oat sowing run.

There’s no taking any of it back. He would sell his soul to be able to, believe me, but he can’t. There is nothing more he can do but accept what is because of what was and make the most out of the situation he is in. Life is anything but easy or comfortable. Financial stability, not even security, is a merely a fantasy which will never come to fruition. Job options and opportunities are extremely limited for those like him, for the system was not designed to give anyone a second chance, let alone the benefit of doubt for their change of ways. Our justice system may have been founded on the premise of innocent until proven guilty, but society runs on the opposite line where people are always guilty until they prove, but, also, demonstrate and rescind their innocence for eternity to come. They call this, Democracy. I call this, bullshit.

No wonder mental health issues are on the rise. No wonder so many people are angry, cynical, and jaded. No wonder poverty is a cycle that sucks in generation after generation after generation of families. There is no wiggle room in the equation necessary to have the stereotypical successful life we are taught to covet through constant subliminal messaging about materialism and image projection. While there’s always an example of an exception to be found, those are merely an aberration formed in the alignment of perfect circumstances which rarely develop for the majority of folks. A stroke of sheer luck, to sound cliche if you will.

As it is, society’s definition of a successful life reads like Darwin’s theory on Survival Of The Fittest and Asch’s Social Conformity experiments merged while a blind eye was turned to the history of humanity which proves, time and time again, how oppressive this structure is for all but a select few.

I will never understand how such a superior animal species became so entirely self-serving and greed-driven. So neglectful and uncompassionate towards the well-being and comfort of their fellow citizens. Why there is only one respected avenue for success for which we judge all others by? To me, it seems, humans are not worthy of the superiority label they have claimed, for our standards of living are more barbaric and inclusive than any other species I have studied during my years of education.

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

Your words are:

late ~ job ~ fixation ~ star ~ make a difference

They were submitted by: http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com

Links to the other “Use Your Words” posts:

Baking In A Tornado 

Spatulas on Parade  

The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver 

On the Border 

Dinosaur Superhero Mommy 

The Bergham Chronicles 

Simply Shannon   

Confessions of a part time working mom 

Southern Belle Charm 

Climaxed

Not That Sarah Michelle

 

Seeing The Gray In A Black & White World

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My subject is “Tell us a story from your childhood”.  It was submitted by http://Bakinginatornado.  Here goes:

Like many others, my childhood was the foundation for the person I grew to be today. My mind swirls as clips of memories dance around, each highlighting a frozen piece of time before my innocence was lost and the harshness of the cruel world became a frightening reality. There were good times and bad times aplenty- some seemingly storybook perfect and some so ugly, they’re best left buried within the hidden passages of lost time. Still, they are mine. The index which precedes the multitude of chapters my adult life has written.

A police officer’s daughter, I was kept sheltered from the evils that lurk around every corner, hiding not only in the shadows but plain sight, as well. We lived in a predominantly white, upper-middle class suburbia on the outskirts of Detroit, where it was easy for my parents to pull the wool over my eyes about the ways of the world. I believed that everyone, everywhere, worth a damn, lived the same way we did or better. I thought to graduate high school, attend a good college, establish a career which would provide financial security, get married in a church and begin a family was the circle of life which only the good people of the world followed. That anyone who didn’t adhere to this plan were the bad people I was warned about, time and time again.

I was the epitome of privileged children across the nation.

Then the house next door to ours was put up for sale one day when I was 8. It was bought by a pretentious, ornery, fur-coat-wearing old lady who’s rouge could be spotted coming towards you long before her actual face was distinguishable. Only, she never moved in. A family with four young children did. The oldest being a girl who was going into the fourth grade that school year, just the same as me. I was swimming in my humongous, above ground pool the first time we met. Her mother had just talked to my step-mother and she was promptly sent to introduce herself to me. Like any kid, I immediately invited her to go grab her suit and come in with me. It struck me as odd when she turned down my proposal and sadly went back home. What kid wouldn’t want to jump in and cool off on a blistering late-August afternoon? Strange, indeed.

As the days rambled on, she continued to make excuses for not wanting to go swimming. We played tag, hide-n-go-seek, red rover, and dungeon master with her three siblings and my brother without a hitch. She came inside to play Barbies and house with me in my bedroom, but I had yet to go over to hers. They were still unpacking, she would say. Her mom wasn’t ready for a houseful of kids, yet. All the while, still refusing to go into my pool with me. I didn’t care, though. I was beyond thrilled to have a new friend. And a girl, at that. All the kids my age within a few blocks were boys. She was right next door to me, nonetheless, and that was just the coolest thing ever in my youthful naivety. We quickly became inseparable. Besties.

When school started, the icing on the friendship cake came when we discovered we had been placed in the same teacher’s class. Life couldn’t have been more perfect at that moment. At least, for me, that is. I had no idea of the truth was hidden behind her closed front door.

You see, the difference between kids and adults is the fact that children live directly in the moment, unaffected by either the past or the future. They don’t care where you’ve been or where you come from. They could care less about what hasn’t happened yet or what’s predicted to happen at a later date. Their only concern is the here and now unless it involves the anticipation of Christmas and the presents Santa will bring. It was months into our relationship before I ever wondered where my BFF next door had lived before moving in next to me. It had never really interested me enough since it wasn’t like she had come from someplace exotic in the mind of a newly turned 9yo- like another state.

Her revelation began the unveiling of the wool my parents had so carefully placed over my eyes.

My new best friend had come from Detroit. Whereas most major cities across the nation are flourishing to some extent, with only the inner-city areas reflecting the underprivileged, long forgotten about, outcasted members of society, Detroit is different. It is all one giant inner-city except a small protected area in the middle of downtown, where corporate businesses and entertainment arenas are sheltered away from the slums (especially at this point in time). No one with financial stability resided within its borders; a fact that even the most privileged and well-off rich kids knew about, regardless of how thick the wool was layered on fresh outta the womb. I actually thought this girl might have been lying to sound cool in an era where hip-hop and gangsta rap began flourishing across the airwaves with hits from NWA, Tupac, and Biggie Smalls. (Ahhhh….the early nineties. Good times, eh?)

She wasn’t, though. It wasn’t long after this that I was finally invited inside of her house. Fall was changing quickly to winter and the weather was getting too nasty for us kids to play outside. Walking in her front door for the first time presented a huge shock for my culturally-impaired, suburban brat self. Her home was nothing like my own – and my own was on the lowly end of what other classmates homes looked like on the inside, to begin with. Being shielded from the ugliness of the world on the wrong side of the tracks, I had never come face to face with anyone who was truly living in poverty, until I saw inside my best friend’s home. Worn out couches and crooked-legged end tables filled her living room. Outdated curtains hung limply across the windows. Shabby rugs, beaten out more times than they could withstand, lay scattered across the floors as if they had died in vain.

I instantly felt ashamed for every time I had ever wished my family was more well-to-do, for every tantrum I ever threw for wanting more than I could have, for every complaint I ever made because what I had wasn’t good enough.

My best friend never came swimming in my pool because not only could she not swim, she had never even owned a bathing suit before. My best friend “borrowed” all my Barbies and the piles of extra Barbie clothes I had for them because she had never owned more than one, with only the outfit it came dressed in. My best friend begged to eat dinner with us every night because there wasn’t enough food to go around at home. The most humbling moment came at the beginning of spring when her mother shamefully asked my father to pull our garden hose over the fence and into their kitchen window. They couldn’t afford to pay their water bill and their service had been shut off. They only lived in this pretentious suburbia of white privilege because their great-grandmother had taken pity on the kids being raised in the ghetto and bought the house for them.

The more I learned about her family, the quicker my eyes began to see the world as it really is- a cruel, heartless place where people only care about what directly affects them. Where people would rather have the best of everything and squander in greed than lend a helping hand to those who were dealt a shitty hand. Her mother had grown up poor, as well, and was forced to drop out of school to support her own family. She married young because of this, trying to escape the life of poverty. Her husband, however, was an abusive drunk. She had no choice but to leave with her four children after her youngest twins were born, to save her life. No matter how hard she worked, life was continuously hard on her. There was no privilege to fall back on. 

Opportunity had never come knocking at her door. 

My best friend and her family wiped the privileged attitude right out of me. I vowed never to turn my back on those with less than me. To always do what I could to support the underdogs in life for as long as I lived.

Now, as this country is at odds again with race, equality, and political and religious beliefs, with discontent and unrest rippling from coast to coast, I couldn’t be more grateful for the girl who moved in next door from my childhood. She changed my life in ways I could never have comprehended as a young child. Without her, the wool would have remained firmly in place until I, too, became another Sheeple who was blindly led to chase the pretty things falsely valued in this world. Without her, I wouldn’t be able to see beauty on the side of life deemed ugly by those of privilege.

My childhood best friend freed me so I could see the many shades of gray hidden beneath a black and white world.

Writing this as the world is today, I can’t thank her enough because I can’t think of anything worse than living in the lies of the privileged. Even living in poverty like she had, as I, myself, experienced first hand not that very long ago.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

• Baking In A Tornado 
•  Not That Sarah Michelle 
• The Bergham Chronicles 
• Spatulas on Parade 
• The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver  
• The Lieber Family Blog 
• Dinosaur Superhero Mommy 
• Never Ever Give Up Hope 
• Simply Shannon 
• A Little Piece of Peace 
• Confessions of a part time working mom 
• Climaxed

The Paradox of Darkness

Feeling so small and insignificant, lost and floating in empty space.

Wishing I could dissipate, leave behind nothing. Not a trace.

The sounds coming in are deafening, my head is left to spin.

Always at war against the world, a battle I will never win.

So different from the others, a mistake of genetics, perhaps.

Eyes seeing more than they should, time passes in a lapse.

Moment by moment, always searching for a purpose beyond the box.

I drift along in vain, suffocating in this emotional paradox.

You Might As Well Be A Gorilla – When The Village Fails Its Parents

The recent incident at the Cincinnati Zoo where a young male gorilla was dispatched without care for interacting with an unharmed child after it fell into the exhibit has gotten many people into an uproar. Most of the raging controversy stems from whether or not the gorilla should have been shot dead or not. There is, however, a whole onslaught of pandemonium rising over the blame of the parents for allowing such a tragic, and deadly for the young, endangered gorilla, experience from taking place. Everyone thinks they are the worst parents now. They should be punished for neglect. They are to blame. They should have been vigilant over their child and none of this should have happened. The gorilla would still be alive if it weren’t for their inattentiveness.

But it is NOT their fault. Not alone, at least.

Only in a perfect world could it ever be remotely logical to hold those parents solely responsible. If blame must be placed and anyone needs to be held accountable, it is the entire community as a whole. Society, if you will. Hundreds of people were in that zoo. All of them congregating in the same place, yet completely unaware of one another. A place designed for families, nonetheless. The majority of these visitors were probably families with kids in tow. Everybody was only concerned about themselves, paying no heed to anything going on around them that wasn’t part of the animal attractions they were there for. All those people mingling in each other’s personal space, coming from the same common  ground as parents making memories with their children, and not one felt any sense of unity in being there together; lost in their own worlds. Where were any one of those people who bore witness to the terrifying events that occurred as the child made it’s way through not one, but two barricades before falling two-stories down into a moat of water?

OH, YEAH. That’s right. They were standing right there lost in their own memory makings with those they belong to and the animals they came to see, with no care for anyone else around.

None of the other life around them was worth their attention for a split second. Not that all the hundreds of people that were there that day were all at that one gorilla exhibit simultaneously, but I’ll be damned if there was at least one adult standing there, the news reports account at least a dozen it seems. Either way, each and every one of those people could have prevented this entire ordeal from happening. They were unaware as much as the parents who weren’t even as close, as the child had ran off a bit. As children do. It happens to the very best of parents. Grandparents. Nannies. Babysitters.

In fact, my husband and I accompanied our four year old to the zoo for a preschool field trip. She is a very curious, strong-willed, and free-spirited child who fears nothing and embraces her independence. She ran off on us no less than a half dozen times. Once while we were checking with staff about an animal who looked by all means dead in the exhibit (thankfully, the weirdos just sleep that way and it is very hard to see them breathing, even that close up). At this age, impulse control is worse than ever because the littles have gotten a taste of the existential freedoms life outside of Mom and Dad’s protective arms hold. Older toddlers and young preschoolers are hardwired for such inquisitivity to foster learning development. You may as well have a pet rodent at this stage – 3- and 4-year olds are lightening quick, rather sneaky, good at blending in, focus-driven yet simultaneously indecisive, and extremely eager to test all boundaries and obstacles, especially when they have a mission in mind needing to be accomplished. They will give their parents hell all in the name of growing up. There is no way to keep them still and tame their wanderlust, short of putting them on a leash or strapping them down to something they cannot unbuckle on their own; revoking the freedom they treasure as greatly as the love of their parents and nurtures their love of knowledge and discovery. (Good luck enjoying your family adventure after doing as much, too, because you’ll find the mood of your preschooler as constricted as they are while physically under restraint – much like the very animals they came to see.)

People wouldn’t need to worry about incidences like this one if society still held any value in the village raising the child. We could have faith that in the struggle to keep up with someone younger, prettier, and lighter on their feet all while trying to assert the boundaries and self-control you are working to instill in them, you know there is the support of the community surrounding you to back you up. To step in if it becomes apparent your child could be in serious danger. To offer you a hand when you look worn out or confused about how to handle a situation. To be a second of set of eyes, hands, and legs always present in a crowd. Not in a “you’re doing it wrong and someone needs to teach you to parent right” perspective, but in a “been there, done/doing that and we’re all just trying to figure it out and do what is best for our own families” way. It takes more than ten seconds to climb through two barriers before falling into harm’s path.

If we cared for humanity a little more and our outward appearances and possessions a little less, someone would have had eyes on that child as it slipped away.

We are all to blame for failing not only the child, but the child’s parents and the gorilla, too, in this situation. There’s no two ways about it.

And while we’re casting the blame around instead of taking the high road of compassion, let’s bring up the fact that every single one of those bystanders who allowed the child past them unnoticed, did nothing to protect anyone but their own shared DNA by ignoring the going ons around them. Only when it was too late did anyone decide they finally wanted to get involved. By screaming. Running and panicking, like a herd of antelope with hyenas biting on their heels; no logic or reason to their actions at all, just sheer panic. Definitely not very conducive to saving the life of a child who’s fallen in the home of a scared and confused wild animal of powerful force. Or the poor animal wondering why this is all happening to his typically calm, quiet environment. Panicking is something untamed, uneducated animals do. Not humans who can think conscious thoughts and rationalize in a situation using the higher intelligence we were gifted with, being at the top of the animal kingdom and all. It didn’t take a genius to know the zoo staff would handle the crisis and any unusual noise and ruckus could make the situation go from bad to worse. Yeah, it was probably scary sight to see. There’s no denying that. Yet, here people are, verbally beating down a mother for her child’s lack of impulse control while overlooking the fact that those bystanders couldn’t even control their own impulse to freak the freak out – something that accomplished nothing more than riling up the gorilla more than it already was with the surprise package that dropped over the side of its enclosure.

Shit happens. That’s why humans are social creatures. We live in communities and build families so we can support one another. Lend help, lift each other up, and stand behind others so they can accomplish, succeed, and overcome all that life throws in the way. Trashing parents for something purely accidental, no matter how tragic the event actually was, just proves how far we have come away from our humanity, the very thing defining us above all other species. We are receding back towards the ways of our not-so distant cousins – those same overly territorial gorillas who have no problems killing others of their own kind for not being of the same bloodline. Selling each other out for a moment of superiority is something expected from an animal with no empathy or compassion, not a human being.

It is way beyond time to bring back the village mentality. Stop throwing around blame and looking to judge others for faults and failures we are all equally susceptible to. Unless, of course, we prefer to be apes again – because that is all we are doing when casting stones for the sake of a temporary sense of power – acting like the very animals we cage in the zoo. Might as well just be a gorilla then.

Baggage Restrictions On Easy Street

This post is part of a Blog Challenge called Secret Subject Swap. Details can be found at the end. My “Secret Subject” was:
May is National Recommitment Month. Is there something in your past that you’ve started and never finished? Why did you quit? Is it something you can recommit yourself to?

In honor of Sigmund Freud’s birthday today, I took a psychoanalytic approach to my subject instead. Enjoy!

People are quitters by nature. Very few have the gumption to hold out and see something through to the finish, especially if they hit a snag, snare, or pothole along the way – and that is perfectly okay.

We are creatures of developmental comforts. Complex simplicity. Habitual pursuits. As individuals, and as the whole of society, we strive continuously to make our lives easier to endure within the confines of our systematic culture. Humans constantly complicate things further with a frenzy of chaos – all done to find the most effortless way to live, as of yet. Just the same as humans have done since the dawning of their time.

It is true of me, despite my soul’s contradicting desire to break free and roam the universe without limit. I, too, at some point since my birth, have tentatively resigned myself to the fact that I want to take the easy way in life as much as the next person. The path of least resistance has always been the most tempting, even if the way to Easy Street was found on the road less traveled, (because I never said I wanted to travel with everyone else; I said, ‘like’).

A lone bird may not flock with the other birds of a feather, but the instinct to migrate remains. There’s no point in fighting the urge. When the time comes to head to warmer climates, the lone bird still drops everything and takes flight. No questions asked. That same instinct to take flight when I feel the calling for a more desirable comfort- with no regard to my current commitments, is in me. It is in all of us, to some degree or another; a distinguishing trait of nature found in most living creatures.

The broken commitments of my past migrations are just as responsible for where I stand today, as the ones kept and seen through. I am comprised of every admitted failure, called timeout, plea for mercy, and tossing in of the towel I have made up to this point. Every change of direction and conscious decision to walk away, too. If I change the outcome of any one of my past convictions, it would change who I was to become over time… potentially causing me to develop into an entirely different woman all together.

That, in itself, is a very tantalizing and alluring thought. Why? Because I instantly thought of having myself a life far easier and steadier on course than the one I have right now. My mind instinctively presumed that finishing any commitment I neglected to follow through with would produce a better life. Yet there is no certainty it would work out so. No guarantees. Just probability.

Would I like to see what the future would’ve had in store if I had stuck out that relationship with my first love when we were too young to understand compromise? Of course. Would I want to go back in time and find the motivation to finish nursing school and walk away from my rebellious overdrive? Hell yeah! Would I desire a second chance at the great job I lost out of sheer immaturity, to prove my sincere loyalty to the position? Without a doubt.

The wise, old soul, hidden within, tells me that enduring those struggles would have paved my way towards Easy Street, undoubtedly. Life would have turned out a little simpler, more predictable, and provide greater comforts than the road I am currently traveling down – in the moment of completion. But would finishing those past failed commitments prevented life from challenging me at all farther down the way? Nope. Not at all.

Had those birds stuck around to finish what they started when the time to migrate arrived, whether they planned to follow the group or not, they very well might have been signing their own death warrants. Perfecting it’s nest or finding the ripest berry could leave them victim of the first freeze or a patient predator. The instinctual urge to move along to the next best thing, leaving prior commitments hanging in the balance, whispers to you with great purpose. Rationalizing the reasoning of Karma is preposterously unfeasible.

Listen to the desires of your soul and follow your heart wherever it may lead, as nature intended by your fate. Don’t look back on that which you left unfinished with guilt or shame, for it was what made you who you are today. Seek out new beginnings, instead. If something is calling you back to it, with the purest of intentions for the betterment of yourself, then start with a fresh slate – you are no longer the same person who made the original commitment.

The idea of recommital seems like another way for our psyche to carry the weight of the past into the future. If you take a peek, you will see that I’ve already surpassed my carry-on luggage allowance and left no room in the cargo deck for anyone else’s on this flight. Another suitcase might just crash this flight on The Curse Of Life airline.

This week 13 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:
Baking In A Tornado             
Southern Belle Charm                      
Not That Sarah Michelle            
Spatulas on Parade                    
The Bergham Chronicles                    
The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver Dinosaur Superhero Mommy            
My Brain on Kids                            
The Lieber Family Blog                  
Never Ever Give Up Hope                
Climaxed                                      
Confessions of a part time working mom    

Just Human

Underneath the skin it’s all the same,
Every bone, organ, muscle, and vein.
How is it that humans came to see,
Colors of the universe so differently.
A species that defines it’s very people,
By it’s designation of colors perceivable.
This representation made for visual arts,
Never intended to tear apart these hearts.
Whoever decided that we all must go along,
Why accepting one another is so very wrong.
Those false perceptions of association,
Are only of humans own mind’s creation.
Every bone, organ, muscle, and vein,
Underneath the skin it’s all the same.