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imuybemovoko · 4 years ago

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My beliefs now

I set this blog up for a bunch of different purposes including conlangs/worldbuilding stuff, my writing, and my views on religion and maybe also politics. So far, mostly, I’ve ranted a lot about the beliefs I left behind. Now that I’ve let that particular sketchy brand of Christianity, now that I’ve discovered the ways it and my conservative family background were probably turning me into a fascist while I was still in all that, I figure I might as well try to hash out where I stand now. I’m around eleven months out from my deconversion, and a lot has already changed. I might try to attempt a before and after thing but there’s a lot to unpack about how I used to think and I’m not sure I’ve understood everything yet. I think I made the mistake of thinking that not very long before that repressed memory about “Sharon” and her Jonah display came crashing back in March. This is current to late July 2020 and may not include everything.

So without any further ado, let’s talk background. First, some things I’ve already either mentioned or given more than enough evidence for. I used to be a Christian fundamentalist. (Clearly. I rant about it a lot.) I got into that because I was raised religious, then let myself fall right the fuck into what I’ll call “deep end lite” shortly before senior year in high school. Some local churches in my small town arranged a missions trip thing and the way I agreed to go along felt in the moment like surrendering to a voice that’s been speaking to me all along. In ...a way, it was. Just not the voice I thought. I’m pretty sure I didn’t want this god, at any point like ever, until that little part of me whispered that it would be easier to accept him. I have a megathread document that I’ve stored a lot of my “God stories” from my time as a Christian in. Unfortunately I didn’t remember many specific details of this experience to write down in there, but I did write a bit of a “life-story” thing that reminds me that, chronologically, that happened after a period of focused attempts by the church to indoctrinate me, some traumatic things my family did, social struggles, and feeling like an asshole because of things I’d done in the past. I remember having this growing sense over the previous year that I was approaching some kind of very dangerous breaking point, to the point where (trigger warning: mental instability, school shooter mention. Please either stop here or skip to where it says “in other words” in the next paragraph after this if that’s going to be an issue. It also keeps getting dark from there for a minute. Please, please tread with care if you need to. There is no shame at all if this becomes too much. Take care of yourself first and foremost.)

when discussing how I came to accept the faith, I told some of my Christian friends that I felt like there was a scary chance of me becoming a school shooter. I think this may have been a post-hoc projection, but I can’t quite be sure of that. I was in a bad place for a bit there in high school. I had a wild temper and some sketchy intrusive thoughts.

In other words, it hit at a perfect moment of weakness. That’s how oppressive forms of spirituality function, it’s how hate groups function... it’s a massive shit cocktail and I found a pretty bad influence in the form of people who promote that whole “born again experience” thing in Christianity. I’d say I’m glad I missed out on being dragged into a fascist ideology this way, but uh... I’m no longer convinced I didn’t grow up around something like that. More later.

From there I spiraled my way through my first attempts at college through the university’s chapter of the Chi Alpha campus ministry and, peripherally through that, Assemblies of God (holy shit those guys are wild), then through a local Baptist church (more peripherally) and Calvary Chapel (I was a worship guitarist here for like 18 months and helped with their youth ministry for almost as long) closer to home and a CRU chapter at my community college. With each passing year I slipped further and further into this weird shame-induced funk where I got like... addicted to Jesus and hated myself or something. It’s a bit hard to find words that don’t take multiple entire extra pages and I want to be concise, so I’ll simply call it “Jesus-flavored depression” for brevity and because that was enough of a genuinely bad time (and I’m still fucked up enough) that I might need some fairly serious therapy.

Near the end of 2018 I was reaching a breaking point, wondering why nothing ever seemed to change in my life from “sexual sin” (...which in my case literally consisted of being attracted to women and occasional self-pleasure, but they literally teach you to hate yourself for less than that in the spicier churches rip) to my direction in life to how trapped I felt by my family. I also started to have more questions about the violence in the Bible and some of the sketchier doctrines, and that was strongly reinforced by some of the things I saw in a creative writing class I took, including an atheist who shared a story of a profoundly negative experience involving being taught about hell at a very young age. All that led to the absolute disaster that was December 2018. It was my last semester at the community college I went to. Finals week was a fucking disaster, and the week before that too, and my grades were really good but at great cost. I won’t go into a ton of detail because 1. space concerns and 2. this time is still damn painful to discuss, but just know that I’m unconvinced I’d have survived that month without this song. (Yes, that’s Paramore. Shut up xD they’re still good.) I looped it for like three days straight and I think it was just enough to keep me going through what was the third time I had any suicidal kind of thoughts ever and by far the worst and longest period of it so far.

So the next several months (and I won’t go into a ton of detail about this, I intended this post more to describe my current position and I don’t wanna get too in the weeds with background) were a confusing period of questioning, starting with, of all things, my family dynamic. The spiral after the week before finals was ...considerably worsened by some comments my dad made, and between that and some experiences in the past that the creative writing class I took that fall reminded me of, I was exposed to a bit of a deeply toxic pattern. I might discuss that more deeply in another post, but for now suffice it to say that extensive youtube binges and some other research between about January and March told me the situation is probably adjacent to pathological narcissism in some way. I brought some of this up to the church I was attending at the time (a small town Calvary Chapel, if I haven’t mentioned that already) and their responses were ...inconsistent. Some people blamed me, some people said “oh dang your dad is abusive”, and some people took the “your parents are trying their best” tack. In retrospect I think that made me doubt if God’s messaging to these people could really be trusted. Then, in about April, the question of hell came up again. I was helping in the church’s budding youth ministry at the time and we had about four regular attendees between the ages of 12 and 18. There were about three weeks in a row when one of the other adults (I’ll call her Kelly for the purposes of not doxxing; also more on her later) talked at length about how unbelief leads to hell. I remembered that atheist from creative writing, made the connection to these four kids, and thought, “what the hell are we doing?” (Pun not intended but rather convenient.) I immediately backed down from my role in the youth ministry, citing other equally valid but less pressing reasons involving stress from the issues with my dad, and tried to go on with life. But the floodgates were open.

In late May or early June, I was staring out a window one morning and suddenly a question crossed my mind unbidden: “Is God a narcissist?” I thought back to a relatively recent sermon by the associate pastor in which he explained that the purpose of the world was “for God’s glory”, to some apparent sudden flights of rage, and some other factors in the scriptures, and thought, “holy shit, I need to investigate this, because God is also very adjacent to narcissism.” It took a hot minute for the ball to really get rolling with that, but once it did... I came to a point by late June or early July where I delivered an ultimatum to God, something to the tune of “Ok, either show me how all these questions I have can be answered beyond a doubt or I’m done.”

There was no answer.

God was silent during this time, and the people in the church were shocked that I had the questions I did and either concerned or ...rather spicy. I joined an ex-Christian discord server to aid in a proper, thorough investigation. I aired my questions both there and on a Christian discord server. The Christian server was toxic as fuck and the ex-Christians started making a crazy amount of sense. I watched some videos from Cosmic Skeptic and TheraminTrees (most notably the latter’s deconversion story) for new perspectives and, by mid-August, had crashed out of the faith altogether.

So the last time I ever stepped into a church with the intent of attending service (I showed up after once in January of 2020 to kinda let them know and that went pretty badly lol) was about two weeks before I started college again in the fall. I burned all but one of my Bibles and a collection of gospel tracts I never did anything else with and stylized it like my limited understanding of what a satanic/pagan ritual looked like, complete with a chant in my conlang Aylaan for a more personal twist because of course, to feel edgy. (I did a lot of kind of weird shit to feel edgy; that’s one of two of them I’m sure I don’t regret.) And after that, things got ...ah, confusing?

Because of course when the linchpin of your understanding of the world gives way, everything becomes fucked for a hot minute.

So the first thing that happened was a couple months of anxiety and confusion. I slowly started to deconstruct my inherited political views too. (More on that later.) Then I had this really beautiful interesting moment in late September where I walked past a tree on the way to a class and had a sudden realization that I didn’t have to force the tree into a Christian framework anymore, it was just a beautiful mass of green shit and cellulose. I could appreciate it in whatever way I felt was best. I damn near broke down crying in the bathroom before class, it hit me that hard. So that’s fun xD

Since then I’ve kinda gone through a bunch of funky phases with this, including a couple of months of fairly salty atheism. Along with that process, I started questioning my sexuality in December (more on that in another post in a minute lmao it’s a trip) and literally shredding my politics in the face of Trump being a crackhead in a dangerous position getting away with confirmed illegal shit, COVID-19 and the ...dehumanizing responses of corporations and their sponsored politicians, and then what I noticed about the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd and the fallout from that. (In a nutshell, holy FUCK there’s a huge problem and it’s messed up that people don’t see it.) At this point, I’m socially progressive and pretty left leaning. I don’t know what the hell to do about it or how either other than some of the tense discussions I’ve been having, but I’d like to work against racism and discrimination too. So that’s cool and a lot better than where I was...

which... I regret deeply.

I don’t know exactly how to define my old political views, and they were marked by considerable cognitive dissonance. I’ll try to illustrate this as best I can but I don’t know what label I can use. Here goes.

Cursed images aside, I think the best way to explain this is through some background, i.e. what my parents believe, because my beliefs were largely inherited.

This might be majorly over-simplified and based on what I remember of my own pre-deconstruction views and what I hear them say lately. I’m doing my best, but take it with a grain of salt. Basically, it seems like they walk this weird line between constitutionalist and very authoritarian that I see a hell of a lot of in rural America. Kinda like the Republic party used to before they yeeted into Trump’s mindfuck wholeheartedly. They’re homophobic to a rather alarming degree (more on that in another post soon) and not ...overtly Christian-supremacist but you can tell that their ethics are dripping with it and they’re terrified of Islam and they’d like to legislate some aspects of Christian morality. They also support the second amendment, which is the one thing I still agree with them on that I’m aware of, but they take it to more of an extreme than I’m willing to. For further ...flavor, they also reject the premise that parts of our society are systemically racist (and maybe also the idea that such a thing is even possible because of course), subscribe to the “bootstrap theory” for everything they can think to apply it to, reject climate science, and have been extremely conspiratorial about COVID-19. Also they like making it out like everything is a Democrat conspiracy theory, compare the Democrats to Hitler and Stalin to a weird degree, have on at least one occasion called Fox Motherfucking News left-leaning, and think Alex Jones is wacky but sometimes raises valid points.

So that’s, in a nutshell, a bit of a look at my past political views, except I think I was a bit more Christian-dominionist than them and I think I had moments of “...does this really make any sense?” for years before I crashed out of everything. The first domino was my Christianity, but once that fell, my entire approach to the world went some places.

So ...yeah. Oof. I was sketchy as shit. Glad that’s changed.

So uh... I’ve already mentioned a vague (read: as much detail as I feel confident providing) description of my political views now, but after all this bullshit let’s finally get to the other half of my titular current beliefs. This ...isn’t going to be easy to explain either, but I feel more confident going into more detail. Buckle up :^)

Alright. So except for a couple of months where I was like “there is no god reeee” half because I was sOmE hYpErInTeLlEcTuAl SkEpTiC and half because of trauma from the toxic flavor of Christianity I left and some shitty developments in both politics and my social circles (I’ll talk at some length about “Kelly” in a sec here I think), since leaving Christianity I’ve always been what I’ll call “hopeful agnostic” (I think I stole this term from Rhett and/or Link lol). In a nutshell, what that means to me is “there may or may not be a god, but I hope there is at least one and they’re nice, or like, at least some spiritual thing that has a good aspect that can help me”. I also dabble in shitty rituals where I burn dead plants and occasionally also hate literature like gospel tracts (and, that one time, a couple of bibles) and basically call on “anyone who is listening and gives a fuck, else the placebo effect” for whatever my goal is. Like... witchy-adjacent but I don’t think about it very much at this stage. I kind of enjoy it, and I think for one reason or another it can be good for my mental health, but I’m wary of any kind of commitment or even more serious experimentation, even as I hope to find something good, because ...trauma, and maybe even absent that a desire to not be wrong in a way that’s dangerous to anyone else again. So that’s fun :^)

So if you’ve made it this far through this weird bullshit, thanks, this story is kind of important to me xD and if you couldn’t, and you’re not reading this ending thingy because it got too dark or it pissed you off or something, that’s cool too and you’re beautiful and valid. Whoever you are, I hope you find whatever healing you need. :)

#ex christian #spirituality #politics

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mysticjagiya606 · 6 years ago

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I have always thought it was strange that V and Rika have known the Choi boys since their childhood…The boys being 21 in the game and V being 26.

The only logical age difference would be that the boys were 12 when they were rescued and V would have been 17 years old. (That is being generous since they look about 6 in the photo, but you never know with anime styled artwork).

Considering that Rika and V only broke up shortly before MC joined the RFA, you have to calculate how long the couple had to have been together…9 years. Rika and V have been together for nearly a decade.

V bought Rikas apartment, which would be logically assumed to be directly after she moved out from her adoptive parent’s house.

As soon as V was starting to flourish with his photography and as Rika was just experiencing adolescence and looking for more than the misery she felt with her adoptive parents. Granted, V was the only form of love she knew. They were very young…it makes sense as to why they had an idealized idea of love. Rika wanted to be loved unconditionally…and V wanted to love unconditionally, like his mother described before she died.

Obviously, when they learned about the two abused children from church, they would step in to help. Rika was always wanting to help others and V had a good heart.

Here is what we learned in the Secret Endings, as well as in Saeyoung’s flashbacks.

Saeyoung was offered a job in the agency, by V. To be safe from their politician father, the two had to be split up. After Saeyoung was rescued, Saeran was still at the home. He was being tortured and questioned by his mother…truly believing that his brother abandoned him.

V and Rika wanted to save Saeran too, but it went downhill. The mother refused to give him up and Rika (canon) ends up accidentally killing the twins’ mother in self defense. That is the kind of secret you take to your grave.

Here we are…the GAP.

There is a Wikia saying that Rika kidnaps Saeran into Mint Eye….but Mint Eye doesn’t form until a couple of years before MC appears. This conclusion is drawn from Another Story…which isnt linked to the Canon route.

What really happens in between? When V and Rika are still together?

Like I said, no one explains the gap and the journals in Another Story are not canon. The journals in Another Story only account for if Mint Eye were formed when Saeran was a very young child….which it wasn’t.

So there we have it. The only logical place Saeran could have been is with V and Rika, growing up. This is where the mistakes take root.

Rika and V were kids raising kids…They grew up way too fast and never had the chance to discover themselves or learn to love properly.

To protect Saeran, he would need to be secluded from the outside world. If anyone found out about him, there would be a lot of questions rasied.

V, still having contact with Saeyoung, could not allow the two to have contact with one another. V and Rika moved out into a secluded area by a cliff, which V said Rika suggested for his artistic flair, but honestly, its very convienient for raising a hidden child.

In every route, Searan is extremely familiar with Rika’s apartment. Rika and V also lived together for an unspecified amount of time once the cliff house was purchased and the two were engaged.

Years pass and the RFA is formed. The RFA includes Saeyoung…which is an excellent way to spend time with the boy and make sure he is okay. Again, he cannot contact Saeran, so Saeran would not be able to be invited.

However, Saeran always knew about the activities of the RFA and that his brother was out in the world being “Cheerful” and “happy without him.”

He would have seen his makeshift mom and dad, Rika and V, having fun, chatting and holding parties with the brother he would never be able to speak to again. On top of feeling abandoned, this would create a lot of resentment…

When Rika finally decides to create Mint Eye, we all know that her and V break up. She thinks V abandoned her, even though she left him. She thinks he doesnt want to help save others. She thinks he is a hypocrite and a liar.

Saeran would have seen all of this. He also would have seen V walk away from them and continue to spend time with/chat with the RFA members…including his brother. V didn’t even TRY to get Saeran from Rika. (Which I understand….how could he, without Saeyoung finding out? V isnt a bad person…he just didnt have any other choice.)

In Saerans eyes, it would be very easy to believe that V was a hypocrite who abandoned him…just like his brother did. Rika of course, has a hand in turning him against V, but a lot of it would have happened on it’s own. Rika was basically his MOM since his sorry excuse for a birth mom died…and Rika never left him like everyone else.

His seclusion explains why he is so socially OFF….(not including Ray, because he isnt canon). This explains why he is so utterly devoted to Rika, even without the presence of the elixer. (ignoring the childhood forced elixer because that isnt canon or possible in Seven’s route.) This explains why V couldn’t do anything to save Saeran before it was too late.

V also knew that Rika targeted the RFA members as her primary prey for the Mint Eye. V felt like he had to protect them, as they were never supposed to be dragged into this in the first place. He also felt the duty to preserve Rika’s honor…so the easiest way out was to claim that she died and cut her off entirely. Essentially…from Searans eyes…this would be abandonment. V and Rika saved his life. V was his father figure.

What’s weird is that Cheritz doesn’t really incorporate exactly how long that relationship really had to be and that Rika and V were basically parents.

If V and Rika were together from the twins’ being saved up until Mint Eye was formed (shortly before MC appears), then the story of Rika kidnapping Searan as a child is impossible. That is another reason why Cheritz could not make it canon. It would never fit with the canon route of 707 and the secret endings.

Now, if we want to go ahead and believe in this theory as a possibility…then it would explain other things as well. I am hoping that Rika’s route will come out and explain (canonly) some of the gap…even if it isnt released as canon, it could shed light on some possibilities.

Understanding all of the above, it explains why Rika absolutely LOSES it when V claims their love wasn’t real. Imagine being told that your engagement and 10 year relationship was a lie…after finally leaving foster care and believing that someone finally loves you, unconditionally. After the trauma bonding they ALREADY went through in the past.

It also explains why V has such an extremely hard time coming clean. With this timeline, V has been lying for YEARS. Nearly a decade. He even lied to his very best friend, Jumin.

All of this is especially sad for Jumin, because V is his lifeline. He has no one else. Even as adult friends, they mainly live on memories to get by this phase of dishonesty and absense of V.

Imagine how difficult it would be to admit you were lying and did all of those questionable things?

He would have to admit the existance of Saeran…a child the couple kept secluded from the world. Saeyoung’s true identity…which would put everyone in danger… a child he shipped off to a deadly agency. The twins’ mom…which is a literal murder comitted by the Holy Rika.

It is just too much. It’s too dangerous to come clean. It’s just too much to explain.

The RFA were a group of friends. There was no reason for them to get involved or be put at risk. V puts so much effort into protecting the RFA…On top of that, his personal life is entirely irrelevant to holding charity parties.

Here we can see why V blames himself. He is always saying he does it to protect everyone. He blames himself for everything. Even without Mint Eye, if Rika remained sane, these problems would still exist. This is why he views everything as his mess to clean…even without his idea that his ideal view of love ruined Rika. Now Rika wanted the RFA members to herself in her new cult. It was a mess. Because of this, he is willing to sacrifice himself if it means everything can be fixed. He doesnt care about himself, he cares about protecting everyone else from “his” mistakes. (as he sees it)

We see them repeatedly rejecting getting help from the cops. This may seem stupid, considering that we shouldn’t be encouraging our players to avoid the authorities. Yet, considering the situation, it makes sense.

The murder…the agency…the hidden child…

Even without the cult, everyone would be in danger and in BIG trouble if this was taken to the police. If V were to use the police against Rika and her cult, not only would she not have a chance to be “saved”, but the past would be easily dug up as well. That would be one huge, reputation-ruining, legal fiasco.

The drama would destroy the livelihoods of everyone he cared about. V, a famous photographer…Rika, a well-known coordinator…Jumin, heir to an extremely powerful and known company called C&R…Zen, a rising actor…Saeyoung would be killed by the agency…Only Jaehee and Yoosung would scrape by.

V and Rika made very sketchy and very bad decisions together…even if they had pure intentions at the time. Remember…they were just teenagers when this started.

The mistakes started WAY before Mint Eye was ever an idea. Way before Rika caved into her darkness.

Considering how many years go by….whether Cheritz intended this or not…it would explain SO MUCH. You could make a whole anime or drama out of the eyes of V alone. Perhaps, a lot of this will change once more routes come out.

All I know is that the Choi boys were screwed no matter what and took some serious trauma out of this.

And this, my dudes, is why I REALLY want a Rika route to be released. I want the light shed on what could have happened between saving the boys and forming Mint Eye.

#mysme #mysme theory #mystic messenger #mysme v #jihyun kim #jumin han #saeyoung choi #saeran choi #707 #mysme 707 #mysme rika #yoosung #zen hyun ryu #zenny #jaehee kang #cheritz

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 5 years ago

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The two captors of the Dutch family held for 9 years had both been members of the Family Federation or Unification Church

Published October 17, 2019. Updated October 18 - 22, 2019.

‘John Eagles’ is Gerrit Jan van Dorsten – who ‘imprisoned’ six of his own children on a farm.

Police have rescued six young adults (four women and two men, aged 18-25) of the van Dorsten family living at a remote Dutch farm. Police were alerted when Jan Zon van Dorsten, a 25-year-old man, walked into a local bar. He looked dirty and was wearing old-fashioned clothes. He said he had not had a haircut in nine years. The bar-owner raised the alarm with police after Jan revealed he had never been to school and said he had run away and needed help. He said he wanted his lifestyle to “come to an end.” Jan said he was the oldest of the six children.

The Police came to investigate on Tuesday and found a hidden staircase behind a cabinet in the living room of the farmhouse. At the point when they were discovered, the five other siblings thought that they were the only people left on earth, the broadcaster RTV Drenthe reported. According to reports, they could barely speak and communicated in a “fantasy language” parts of which were “incomprehensible.” The father of the six young adults, Gerrit Jan van Dorsten, 67, was found bed-ridden. He had suffered a stroke about two years previous.

Josef Brunner, 58, who had rented the farm was arrested at the property. Reports say the farm was equipped with motion detectors and security cameras. Locals also claimed Brunner locked the gate and kept watch using binoculars. He’d reportedly chase away anyone who came too close to the secluded property.

After the young adults were released and living in a safe place, the former ‘prisoners’ were observed to be taking part in frequent rituals where they moved in circles. They were then taken to a more private safe location where they are being given appropriate care. The police want to understand what happened over the past decade, but are being considerate of their psychological needs.

Josef Brunner appeared before an examining magistrate on Thursday and was detained for 14 days on suspicion of unlawfully depriving the children of their liberty and money laundering. Later, Gerrit Jan van Dorsten was also arrested.

Brunner was born on March 3, 1961 in Waldhausen, Austria and was one of five peasant children. He completed a carpentry apprenticeship with distinction, but while enrolled in the army in Linz he joined a sect.

He met a Japanese woman who introduced him to the Unification Church (now the Family Federation for World Peace). He had two children with her. Through the ‘Moonies’, Josef Brunner came into contact with Gerrit Jan van Dorsten in the late 1990s. Gerrit Jan had been a member of the Unification Church in the 1980s. He left in 1987 but to this day he still embraces many of their ideas. LINK

Together Joseph Brunner, known as the Austrian, and Gerrit Jan moved to the farm in 2010. Joseph was a carpenter and lived in a caravan behind his workshop. It was some four miles from the farmhouse. Neighbors saw him regularly visit the farm in his Volvo where he dropped off groceries and supplies.

Joseph Brunner’s brother, Franz, claims Joseph became delusional after joining the Unification Church. He said, “Josef has a very strong persuasiveness.”

Franz said Josef had been married to a Japanese woman.

“In 2006 or 2007, Josef left his wife and children behind in Austria and went to the Netherlands.” Franz told NL Times.

“Josef regularly visited Gerrit Jan van Dorsten with his wife and daughters.”

“Josef’s daughters, now adults, tried in vain to get in touch with him in 2017.”

The two arrested men had close business ties. Brunner paid the rent on van Dorsten’s toy craft store in Mepple and another storage unit nearby – as well as the rent for the farm.

According to a van Dorsten family statement. “Eight years ago, three older children of Gerrit Jan – Dino (Endino), Shin and Marjan, 29 – fled the family in Hasselt and contacted their brother from a previous marriage, their grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins.”

"The family has taken notice of the events in Ruinerwold with dismay," the statement, translated from Dutch, says.

"Mr Gerrit Jan van Dorsten broke all ties with his immediate family in the 1980s. He told us not to make any attempt to find his place of residence."

"At present, it is the express wish of the family to support the discovered family," the statement said.

Gerrit Jan’s children were never registered with local officials or went to school.

Janny Knol, North Netherlands deputy police chief, said "on the farm there was actually a separate, closed-off area and its main aim was to keep the outside world out," she told Dutch TV.

She said the imprisoned family were kept in an 'enclosed space' that was 'divided into small compartments.' The room was hidden behind a staircase, behind a locked door. Daylight was allowed inside, and children were occasionally allowed into the yard but they didn't go beyond farm's perimeter fence during nine years of captivity. She said, “We are investigating whether a certain religion or philosophy forms the cause of their living situation.”

Police found “tens of thousands of euros of laundered money” hidden on the property.

Jan Zon van Dorsten, 25, stated that his mother died in 2004 and “every day we are happy to take care of Dad”.

Gerrit Jan was initially believed to be one of the victims of Josef Brunner, but he has now been charged as “co-perpetrator of unlawful deprivation of liberty and of abuse, in the sense of prejudicing the health of others and money laundering.”

When Gerrit Jan and his brother, Derek, both joined the UC in the 1980s, their devoutly Protestant parents were very much against it. The father was a prolific author of Christian novels. Gerrit Jan was active in the UC in Amsterdam.

Gerrit Jan van Dorsten was a member in 1984. He worked as a Munich correspondent for the New York City Tribune at that time.

Gerrit Jan left the Unification Church in 1987. His estranged brother Derek van Dorsten, a long-time member of the UC said, "I have not heard from my brother since 1984."

A Church spokesman, Willem Koetsier, said “Sometimes people with spiritual inclinations found their own church or movement. I think this was the case with him. It could be that he thought he had a special mission.”

After a few years in the UC Gerrit Jan appears to have become ill at ease. According to reports in the Dutch media, he retreated from the church after announcing that he had begun “receiving signals” from Moon’s son, who is regarded as a prophetic figure within the faith. That son was Heung Jin Moon who had died in a car accident on January 2, 1984.

Heung Jin was buried in Korea on January 8, 1984. A week later, Rev. Moon proclaimed that his son had a new mission and that he was free to travel between his spirit world and our physical world. Rev. Moon also proclaimed that Heung Jin became a leader to Jesus in the spirit realm and that he had assumed the role of “the commander-in-chief” to those who are unmarried in the spirit realm.”

▲ Sun Myung Moon wrote this calligraphy for his son: “Absolute Victory of Moon Heung Jin 文興進 as Commander-in-Chief of Heaven.”

On February 28, 1984, Heung Jin was married postmortem to Hoon-Sook Pak, the daughter of Colonel Bo Hi Pak, one of Moon’s top aides.

Colonel Pak was the president of the Washington Times at that time.

▲ At the wedding Julia Hoon-Sook Pak held a photograph of her new husband.

Colonel Pak stated that his son-in-law’s sacriﬁce “carries far greater importance then the cruciﬁxion of Jesus Christ.” According to Rev. Moon, his son needed to be married in order to move from prince to king in the spirit realm. Hoon-Sook was positive about her unusual marriage. “I will never forget in my whole life and for eternity this greatest honor of being Heung Jin Nim’s bride, which I do not deserve.”

Shortly after the death of Heung Jin, Uniﬁcationists in different parts of the world claimed to be receiving messages from him. Most of the alleged revelations took place in 1984, and in 1987 and were published in book form under the title The Victory of Love.

Revelations are also claimed from St. Francis, St. Paul, Kierkegaard, and Jesus. The last speaks both of his submission to Heung Jin and the True Parents. “I will show them that the Lord of lords and the King of kings and the king of glory is our precious Lord Sun Myung Moon and his beloved bride Hak Ja Han. They reign as king and queen of the entire universe. I, Jesus of Nazareth, known as the Christ, bow in humility before them. Any who will follow me must do the same.”

From 1984 Gerrit Jan also received messages from Jesus and Heung Jin Moon.

According to Algemeen Dagblad, Gerrit Jan ascribed “supernatural powers” to himself.

Older Unification Church members who knew Gerrit Jan in the 1980s had described him as a very "ritual" person who had set up his own group with his family.

Gerrit Jan’s wife, the mother of nine known children, died in 2004. It is possible he has even more children, the newspaper reported.

In an interview with De Telegraaf, a cousin said, “Gerrit Jan broke with the rest of the family a long time ago,” the 32-year-old cousin said.

“About thirty years ago anyway. There was a lot of disagreement between my parents and my uncle, and between my uncle and the Unification Church. At a certain moment he ran away angry. That was before I was born.”

Joseph Brunner and Gerrit Jan van Dorsten lived next door to each other in Hasselt, south of Ruinerwold before moving to the farmhouse in 2010.

Shortly after Brunner moved in next door to the van Dorsten family, they removed a fence that separated their backyards, according to a neighbor, Sandra Soer. Brunner left the block first, and then in 2004, Geert announced his wife had died of colon cancer, which came as a shock as no one knew she had been sick, Soer said. The family left not long after.

In an interview with the Netherlands' English language news outlet NL Times, the older brother of Josef Brunner said he was not surprised to learn his brother had been arrested.

Franz Brunner described Josef as "greedy, calculating and unpredictable" and the pair had not been in contact for a decade. "He always wanted money and was always after his own advantage.”

The brothers quarrelled over their parent's farm and fell out with Joseph moving out.

In Austria, Josef's brothers told the Kronen Zeitung website that he had joined a sect and had not turned up for the funerals of his parents in the past four years. "He thought he was better than Jesus," brother Franz told the paper. “We've had no contact with him for 10 years. I told him to get lost when he wanted me to become his financial guarantor.”

Police have admitted going to the farm in the past, following up reports of a cannabis farm on the property, but say they never entered the building.

A team of 30 police are now trying to solve the mystery of the farm at Ruinerwold. The farmhouse is still being investigated and other properties have also been searched.

Police will question Gerrit Jan van Dorsten why he reported to Dutch immigration in 2009 that he had emigrated.

A large white board found pinned to a wall had a series of mysterious drawings and numbers in black felt ink. They went from top to bottom, side-to-side and ran across each other without making any sense. The board, and a set of books and records kept by the two men, have been taken away by detectives for analysis and forensic examination.

Police have brought in thermal imaging cameras to search under the soil of the fields around the farmhouse and sniffer dogs to examine underneath floor boards.

In a statement the police said, “We are investigating whether a certain religion or philosophy forms the cause of their living situation. Currently, a great deal of new information is received by us every day. It is our duty to verify the veracity of this information, and its relevance for our investigation. The circumstances the suspects and persons involved lived in require that we be extra careful when conducting our investigation.”

________________________________

‘John Eagles’ is Gerrit Jan van Dorsten – who ‘imprisoned’ six of his own children on a farm.

John Eagles video: “Each Soul is a Mirror”

Gerrit Jan van Dorsten, ‘Father Moon’ and the Divine Principle in his providence

Suspected of sexual abuse, ‘John Eagles’ aka Gerrit Jan van Dorsten is father of all nine children

Rev. Young Whi Kim testifies about Gerrit Jan van Dorsten

Jessica Villerius is making a documentary about the van Dorsten children of Ruinerwold

“Five beers and a plea for help is all it took” – Frank F

January 21, 2020 Gerrit Jan van D. sexually abused two of his children in Ruinerwold

________________________________

Black Heung Jin Moon – Violence in the FFWPU

The FFWPU / Unification Church and Shamanism

Hong Soon-ae, the mother of Hak Ja Han, was jailed for killing a young man in a shaman ritual

The FFWPU is unequivocally not Christian

A Korean perspective on Moon and his ‘Fall of Man’ teaching

How “God’s Day” was established on January 1, 1968

Rolling Stone: Children of Recluse Dutch Family Thought They Were the Only People Left on Earth

https://wikimili.com/en/Heung_Jin_Moon

#FFWPU #prisoners #Unification Church #Moonies #Netherlands #Gerrit van Dorsten #Family Federation for World Peace #Ruinerwold #Josef Brunner #John Eagles #captive children

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doomedandstoned · 6 years ago

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Closer To The End (part III)

I contend that human beings are not suited for the world we've fashioned for ourselves. Cases of anxiety and depression are practically ubiquitous, and suicide in all age groups is once again on the rise. Some will suffer mental afflictions that last years -- perhaps even for a lifetime. This is the third and final part of my story.

~By Billy Goate~

Cover art by Ruso Tsig additional art by Karl Briullov

I'm so tired of hearing that I'm wrong Everyone laughs at me, why me? I'm so tired of being pushed around I feel like I've been betrayed

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We take each other's love, forget to give back Isn't it a pity, how we break each other's hearts I know we're only human and not to blame But who the hell are you to cause so much pain Why...

MEDICATION

My parents have been anti-establishment for as long as I can remember. In the climate of the 1980s, the institutions of the day were being called seriously into question. One of them was the authoritarian nature of public education (there's a reason why Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" resonated so strongly with people). It's no surprise that my family got caught up in the first wave of the homeschooling movement. Other areas of modern life began to be called into question, as well, taking the family down a dark, windy road that led into conspiracy culture, extreme libertarianism, and religious dogmatism.

This distrust of the "experts" put us at odds with the medical establishment, too. "Doctors only know how to do two things," mom would often proclaim loudly in one of her famous rants, "cut you open or prescribe you pills." Natural medicine held the keys to recovery from all ills, be it cancer or the common cold. "All those chemicals aren’t good for your body," she insisted. "God put everything we need for healing in the ground." I’m not here to knock naturopathy (I was an ardent follower of this way of life for years) nor my mother for her convictions, but there are some things that can’t be cured by Saint John's Wort and herbal tea -- major depression being one of them.

At one point, my anxiety, melancholy, and a generalized feeling of social isolation reached such a heightened state I turned to hypnotism, enamored by an obscure radio program hosted by Roy Masters and his Foundation for Human Understanding. I was too young to understand the significance of most of the bullshit he was spewing, but it was the comprehensive approach to life that appealed to me. I wanted answers -- all of them. About the only thing I got out of it, though, was learning how to make my own arm go numb through self-hypnosis.

Later, I'd get caught up in a movement of Biblical counseling that rejected psychiatry altogether. "Christ has given us all things we need for life and godliness," says the holy writ, ergo we need none other than Jesus to cure our mental ills. Furthermore, the thesis said, since "God has not given us a spirit of fear" it must mean that the root of depression and anxiety is ultimately sin against God. The answer? Confess your sins and walk by faith, not by sight. In short, pray the sadness away. All of this had limited effectiveness in coping with the claustrophobic cloud of melancholy that was constantly with me.

Cough & Windhand: Reflection of the Negative by Windhand

The stigma of psychiatry and modern medicine kept me from treating my depression for damn near a decade. Somewhere in my late twenties, after a prolonged and particularly dark depressive spell, I decided to talk to my medical doctor about antidepressants. He started me on the industry standard, the well-known and well-marketed Prozac, which became a household name in the '90s. I took the first dose at bedtime and when I woke up, I was seriously hating the daylight. Feeling extraordinarily fatigued, all I wanted to do was sleep. I called in a rare sick day from work. The next day I was feeling groggy, but well enough to return. Giving it the good ol' college try, I took Prozac for several weeks as directed, but the side-effects just weren't worth it for me. That’s when I was referred to my first psychiatrist.

It was a weird feeling sitting in the waiting room for my appointment. I felt like I’d joined the ranks of the fragile, broken, and confused, perhaps even the insane. It was hard for me to see myself sharing anything in common with the others that shared the tiny lobby. The psychiatrist who greeted me looked like a regular chucklehead -- you know, one of those sidekicks from a sitcom that's not coming to me now. (It just came to me: Glen from the Tom Green Show.) A paunchy man in his 30s with wavy dirty blonde hair parted to the side donning wire-rimmed glasses, the shrink pulled out a notebook and started asking me about my background, while he busily took notes. Turned out, the man was very methodical in his approach. Over the course of the year, we cycled through all kinds of drugs -- Paxil, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Lexapro, Zoloft, and a lot of other names I'm not remembering, before finally settling on Cymbalta.

Certainly, this was something I didn't want to share with my coworkers, much less mom and dad. The first time I told my brother I was taking antidepressants, he was outraged. “You don’t need that stuff in your body. You don’t need pills to feel good.” I don’t know what it is about antidepressant medication that offends people so badly, but some people feel it is their personal mission in life to get you off of them. Why all the evangelical fervor? Are they secretly afraid they are "nuts," too? It’s not like I’m trying to get everyone else to take my medication, but suddenly these people, well-meaning or not, are trying to get you off of your meds.

I’ve seen YouTube videos from a guy claiming that God has cured him of his bipolar disorder and he flushed all his pills down the toilet (bad idea, by the way). Then a month later, he comes back online crying uncontrollably, talking about how he feels like God is testing him and asking viewers to pray to stop Satan’s onslaught. Moral of the story: It's dangerous to let people's religious opinions and untested hunches drive the agenda for our mental health.

I'm very reluctant these days to talk to anyone about my depression, because of all the rush to judgement involved. Ironically, it's this breakdown of community that I believe is at the heart of much of our mental health issues as a society. Look at the comments on any confessional video addressing burnout, depression, or anxiety and you'll find everyone is suddenly an expert who knows so well the precise and perfect solution to your problems. Well-meaning or not, it's incredibly annoying and I'd rather not have trouble with it. Hell, it took me two years to finish this article.

Depressed people are often viewed with the same cynical dismissiveness ascribed to angsty hormonal teens. "It's just a phase, you'll get through it," you're told with the reassuring wave of a hand. Besides, they remind you, "Happiness is a choice!" Because they are feeling chipper today, they have little patience for you dampening their mood. Others call you edgy when you say the pressures of life are so great that you feel like just turning off the lights on all of it. Still others will view you as selfish for leaving the family reunion early (or not wanting to participate in holidays at all). When you spend the whole weekend in bed sleeping, they'll accuse you of being indulgent, not realizing sleep gives you a respite from the hurt, guilt, and regret of painful memories or the misery of an unstable home life. Or the well-meaning "It Gets Better!" It doesn't always get better as life moves on.

Then there are those who try to talk you off your meds, entirely (cue: the ridiculously overwrought Facebook posts). We've all been privy to those conversations that strike a conspiratorial tone about how it was really the pharmaceutical companies that led to Chris Cornell's death. "You should just get off the stuff," they argue -- be it from noble intentions or just pride from clinging to an opinion they've stubbornly invested in.

Then there are those who are convinced that since Jesus (or Buddha, Allah Oprah, Jordan Peterson or juicing) gave them an escape from their depression, certainly it is the universal cure for all that ails you. Understand that I was a committed Christian for decades. I know what it is like to feel spiritually serene and I value many of the things the church gave me as a young adult, namely the fellowship, tolerance, and love. I know the feeling of peace that comes from believing in someone who reigns over the chaos and cares about your every need -- an ultimate being who will make sense of the nonsense one day.

I don't wish to diminish anyone's faith or diminish your personal experiences. The fact is, however, that major depression is as much a physical illness as cancer is. Certainly, there are transitional feelings of unhappiness, emptiness, and despair that come from facing situations that seem out of one's control -- the nightmare roommate, being laid off from a job, losing a loved one. It's also true that in most cases, this sadness can be overcome by a new perspective, trying better strategies, or simply allowing the passage of time to do its healing work. Depression can be impacted by one's beliefs, but there is a kind of depression that exists independently of one's perspective on life.

SUICIDAL TENDENCIES

Apart from this series of articles (which took me a good two years to publish), I've stopped sharing my depression with other people. It's annoying, because most people don't know how to listen and empathize. They want to jump in with a solution that, if implemented by nightfall, just might make a difference by daybreak. It's just more hassle than it's worth. Over time, I've gone from being someone with an intense need to belong, to not caring what people think about me at all. I'll often go out of my way to avoid anything deeper than transactional relationships. Once a social butterfly, you'll find me quite the hermit these days. As a consequence, while I was once open to sharing my feelings of loneliness and despair, I rarely mention them any more on social media and practically never to my IRL friends. I would be the last person to call a suicide hotline, by the way. Judge me if you wish, but I'm just being honest. If you want to know what is going on in the head of a severely depressed person with suicidal ideation, here's a least one brain you can peer into.

There's a general consensus that suicide is a selfish decision, even a cowardly act. This was a casual opinion of my own for years, as well. Not until suicide touches someone in your life -- or when you enter its despondent realm yourself -- does the ridiculousness of that notion becomes apparent. Understand that for a person to commit suicide, they have to overcome the brain's own strong predilection for self-preservation. It's not so easy to take the step of ending your life. Something has gone terribly wrong with the brain's ability to convincingly cry, "STOP!" for that to happen.

In my worst bout of depression, following the demise of long-term relationship, I reached the point where every waking moment was sheer misery. Some call this anhedonia -- the inability to feel pleasure. Normally, when we are feeling blue, we seek out something to stimulate our pleasure receptors. That's why ice cream, chocolate, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are popular go-tos for the bummed out. For me, it's always been music and movies. On this particular week, though, I had somehow lost the capacity to find any joy whatsoever in the usual pastimes. Anything that attempted to pacify my mood met with my contempt. The only thing I could do to escape the agony of just being alive and conscious was to sleep...and sleep I did. At first 8 hours a night, up from my usual 7. Then it advanced to 9, 10, 11, 12 hours. When dawn came, a wave of misery washed over my mind again.

Once, I woke up feeling so despondent that I knew with absolute clarity that I could end my life. Today, I could actually do it. Immediately upon this realization, I wept bitterly. I've not cried like that before or since. If anything, I've become more stoic about the idea of suicide. Don't get me wrong, my internal sense of self-preservation is still quite strong. The problem is that in moments of severe depression, that instinct is dampened. You'll do just about anything just to get rid of the feeling of misery making it unbearable to be awake.

DOOM AWAKENING

One of the most important developments in treating my depression, besides medication and therapy, was the discovery of doom. There's an old expression that misery loves company. I don't know about you, but when I listen to music it's not generally to cheer me up. No, I want my tunes to have a certain level of commiseration with what I'm feeling and going through at the time. When I discovered (quite by accident) Saint Vitus, I knew I'd found my soul food. I can't fully explain that eureka moment when Dave Chandler belted out that first downtuned note on the guitars on "Born Too Late" or when Wino joined with plaintive lyrics for "I Bleed Black." This resonated with me powerfully. It brought chills. This was medicine for my weary head, a kind of mental morphine to dull the pain. I'd come to the Roseland Theater for Down and left with Saint Vitus.

As a funny aside, my roommate (who accompanied me to the show) and I rehashed the bands of the night, giving our two cents on this or that. One thing he said still makes me smile a little inside. "What did you think of Saint Vitus?" I asked. "I don't think they're the kind of band that will withstand the test of time," he remarked. "Well," I rejoined, "they have been playing now for over 30 years and were the co-headliners on a national tour, so their sound must be resonating with a good number of people." Sure, it wasn't for everyone, but on that night my doom had come.

Every song on 'Born Too Late' (1986) so perfectly captures the malaise of the deeply wounded soul, not just in lyrics but in the whole vibe. There's a thick, smoky haze permeating the record and it reminds me a lot of what it feels like after you've poured out your heart until you've got no more tears left to cry. Come on, don't pretend you're so macho that normal human emotions elude you. It's hard to put doom into words, but I'll try: on the one hand you feel emotionally exhausted because you've emptied out all those pent up feelings of loss, fear, regret, and frustration, on the other hand there's a feeling of "reset" and it often makes things much clearer to sort through. For me, when I've exhausted all my emotional resources, I'm left with a feeling of blithe acceptance. A sense of being dealt a set of cards by the impartial hand of fate. That's the kind of vibe that Saint Vitus captures perfectly for me on this record.

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I spent entire weekends on those long, wonderful rabbit trails of discovery. "Dying Inside" led me to Trouble's "The Tempter" with its oh-so-tragic central riff. Lyrically, the songs I was running across could not have been more apropos.

Pentagram, The Skull, and Candlemass were not lingering far behind. Then came the more recent monoliths of doom: Electric Wizard, Windhand, High on Fire, Burning Witch, Khanate, Pilgrim, Serpentine Path, Usnea, Demon Lung, Ancient VVisdom, Dopelord, and the NOLA sludge scene, along with lesser known but equally as powerful acts like Undersmile, Shepherd's Crook, Reptile Master, Purple Hill Witch, Witchthroat Serpent, March Funèbre, Beldam, Hooded Priest, Regress, and 71TONMAN (listen to the Spotify playlist).

Doom metal spoke to me with a sharp realism that I connected with immediately. When you have no strength left to get angry at the world, you switch your listening habits from Car Bomb to Cough. You can say, I suppose, that doom was my salvation. It kept me hanging on a little while longer. The salve of those slow, low riffs gave me a strange feeling of consolation. "We know life sucks, too. Welcome to reality." It's like being awakened to the Matrix, but feeling there's not a damned thing you can do to change any of it. Your fate is sealed. It's an honesty that is both refreshing and freeing, I suppose, though one does wish to reclaim the notion of hope.

Believe it or not, even after writing all of this, optimism is my default mode. When I'm feeling well, and even when my depression is at low levels, the needle always leans towards inspiration, creativity, even a mischievous sense of humor and an aw, shucks smile that people tend to notice. I don't want to be depressed. The problem is that severe depression can make you feel, illusion or not, like you're paralyzed from doing anything about it.

As I've experienced more and more cuts and scrapes of life, I've become increasingly numb to it all, like the massive build-up of scar tissue. Things that upset me easily in the past might still hurt, but I've come to expect them, so they have the impact of a dull table knife. Perhaps I'm becoming a nihilist, despite my optimistic tendencies. It's hard not to be. Don't worry about me, though. If anything, I want to stick around to see what's going to happen next. It's the inborn curiosity we all have inside of us -- the same thing that I imagine kept Stephen Hawking going for decades after being wrecked by a disease that cruelly mangled his body into its famously misshapen form, stealing away his most basic expressive freedoms -- save for the power of his eyes and the thoughts behind them.

I've also made a deliberate attempt to pursue treatment (both psychiatric and psychological care) for my depression, which I urge you to do if you are likewise laboring under its crushing weight. The perspective of time, coupled with a remedy for mind and body can have a significant impact on your perspective, if not your life circumstances.

THE WINDY ROAD AHEAD

Learn from your mistakes, don't dwell on them. Repeated affirmations like this one may seem trite, but they are ultimately true. You can be free from the chains of guilt and move forward, as one performer puts it, "from strength to strength."

Don't kill yourself (literally or metaphorically) for someone else or for someone else's decisions. It may bum you out that a roomie decided to take your money and run or that you were rebuffed by a long-time crush or made jobless through corporate-wide cuts. You don't own that, they do.

Walks

Get off the couch, move that bod. Something as simple as a walk down the block or a drive out of town can do wonders for your perspective. As a homeschool teen living under the strict rule of a radical fundamentalist household in rural East Texas, my one salvation were those long walks in the open field -- especially when my parents started having loud, intense fights related to my mom's own mental health. I sorted through so many of life's problems (most of which seemed much larger then than they do now) through those solitary, hour-long strolls.

I really miss that where I live now, in a more congested neighborhood, so I have to find other ways of getting away from it all (getting up and out a half-hour before the other walkers, for instance, helps). Even if I don't want to rustle myself awake and move around to do as simple a task as taking out the trash, sometimes the feeling...let me revise that...quite often the feeling follows after the decision has been made and the body is in motion.

Projects

Another piece of advice I have for coping with depression is to channel your frustrations in projects. When I'm depressed, I throw myself into my work. Hell, Doomed & Stoned started because I needed a project to pour myself into. My counselor asked me once, "If you woke up tomorrow without depression, what would be different about your world?"

She encouraged me to start with the things that were in my immediate vicinity. "Well, there wouldn't be mail strewn all over the floor. My dirty clothes would be in the hamper, my clean clothes folded and put away. I'd take the time to cook myself a meal, instead of running out the door eating a quick bite out of some package."

Good, let's make a list and start there. Do at least one of the things on your list between now and the time we meet again next week.

Talks

Despite my isolationist ways, I begrudgingly admit that talking often helps, too. Though I'm an introvert and am horrified at the idea of sharing my feelings with others, I've reached points in my depression where I was compelled to tell others about it. It's as natural to do that as to cry out when your body is experiencing jolting pain. I'm one of those verbal processors that tends to sort through my problems by talking to someone else. Often, pride or shame or lack of trust gets in the way of sharing with our family and friends, so at the very least the much talked about Suicide Prevention Hotline could actually help you gain perspective on your situation.

Journals

If you don't talk, at least journal. Again, I'm not a journaler and this is the first time in almost three decades that I've written about anything related to my depression. Role play with me. You're a scientist studying the human psyche. How would you describe those feelings you call depression? When I was first asked to describe it to a counselor, I found myself at a loss for words. She helped me with prompts:

Can you tell me what it feels like?

"I walk around feeling like a dark, thick raincloud is hovering all around me all the time."

Do you feel it in a part of your body?

"Well, yeah, I guess. The head. And the chest. It feels like there's pressure building from all around me, like my head is going to explode. My heart feels like it's going to leap out of my chest."

What's happening around you when these feelings arise?

I'd then go on to detail some recent happenings. She'd press me further to describe the kinds of thoughts racing through my head in these situations. All of this was really helpful in getting me to define this nebulous, gray malaise that was following me everywhere I went.

I don't keep a journal, per se. Something about it feels needlessly egotistical, a vain attempt to reinforce the illusion in our YouTube fame crazy world that my life is worth discovering and remembering at some point in the distant future. And yet, writing down one's thoughts can be another effective way of untangling that anxious ball of feelings that keeps me from thinking rationally about the depression I'm feeling.

Today is my birthday, but I couldn't care less. It's not about getting old. I stopped caring about that 10 years ago. It's something about celebration, specifically when the attention is on me. I can't adequately describe how contemptuous I find it. My last birthday was spent alone in an empty house and a bottle of Scotch, catching up with past seasons of Game of Thrones. I was so glad it was over and the happy birthday wishes stopped. There's nothing special about this day for me.

At some point, my family stopped celebrating birthdays and holidays. I'm not sure when it happened or why. Certainly not for religious reasons, more probably for financial ones. I grew up in a family that barely scraped by, so birthdays seemed a luxury we couldn't afford. Now, it just feels indulgent. More than that, it feels sad. It reminds me of all the disappointments, hurts, and failures of the past year. It's not as though it's all bad, of course. If nothing else my birthday gives the illusion that a chapter has turned, with new possibilities for the future. I also have to come to terms with how many people out there actually seem to care about me, maybe even love me.

And later that day, I forced myself to go to a show I was quite enthused about, but didn't factor in depression being the party pooper.

I can't account for what it is that comes over me. There are people here that genuinely like me, who probably even want to get to know me better, but I push them away. Not so much directly, but indirectly, by excusing myself to use the restroom and then changing my mind midway and just leaving the venue -- without even the courtesy of a "goodbye" to friends or a "great show" to the bands. I feel awful about it afterwards, but in that moment it's like a flood of emotional pain washes over me and it feels like I'm carrying an anchor chained around my neck. I feel the great urge to find my way to unlit corners. To look busy and preoccupied. Would it hurt me to say hello? To smile? Perhaps not, but right now my psyche is tingling like some kind of Spidey Sense telling me, "Get out of here! Just get your shit and leave...NOW."

As dour and hopeless as that may feel, just the act of writing it down afforded me a release, which incidentally I did not feel until the writing was all said and done.

Hope, a new beginning Time, time to start living Just like just before we died

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Hurt, falling through fingers Trust, trust in the feeling There's something left inside There's no going back to the place we started from.

ONE MORE THING

For those of you who are wondering what you can do for a friend, family member, coworker or just someone you know casually from shows you both frequent, I couldn't say it better than one of my longtime fellow travelers in doom, who offered up this advice:

"While it's all very well and fucking dandy that there are so many people telling those who are struggling to reach out to them, I don't think people are quite understanding just how mental illness works sometimes. People quite often don't reach out, because those that are suffering from mental illness, at times, feel like they are a burden by unloading their shit onto someone else, despite the invitation to do so. It's generally the same concept that leads on to suicide.

I obviously can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself when I say the last thing I want to do is reach out to anyone because I feel like I am a burden and everyone would be better off without me -- and that is ultimately why I don't reach out. The point that I'm trying to get at is if you see someone struggling YOU reach the fuck out. If you don't see someone who used to be around, YOU reach the fuck out. Think about it. It's not that hard."

Well said and completely on the mark. At the same time, if you're feeling alone and uncared for, you may look at people’s lack of inquiry as more confirmation that you are worthless trash. You may interpret a busy person's slight as utter rejection. Don't worry about what others may or may not think of you. You need to take care of you, for you. The future is fickle. Your fortunes can change on a dime, so why base your self-worth and your decision about whether to live or die by how you feel right now? Ride it out, seek out help, get a game plan in play.

I say this as someone who knows how hard it can be to get mental health. I was double insured -- through my employer and the Veterans Administration -- and I couldn't get a god damned psychiatric appointment to reevaluate and adjust my meds. I called all over town trying to get in with someone. "Sorry, we're not accepting new patients" was the universal refrain. The VA would just be too many month's wait, I told myself, based upon how long it has taken me in the past to get a conventional medical appointment. In desperation, I called up my primary care doctor who asked if I was suicidal. For the first time in my life, I knew with full certainty the answer was yes. The more miserable I felt, the more I contemplated dying. If I did it, it would be something quick and sudden, I would daydream in my most despondent moment. "You need to check yourself into the hospital now," she told me adamantly. I did exactly that. I walked into the ER and told them I was suicidal. They led me to a room, had me take off all my clothes, and put on a hospital gown. I stayed in a padded room waiting for a social worker to see me. It was a desperate move, but it did pay off in getting me fast-tracked to see a psychiatrist.

One thing I learned about medication from my new psychiatrist (because he was very caring, very careful, and hence very effective at his job) is that everyone’s brain chemistry is uniquely different. There can be other issues impacting mood, too, such as thyroid, environmental stressors, sleep problems, vitamin deficiencies, and so on. Again, it’s often hard to see whether the cart is leading the horse or the horse is leading the cart, in terms of the mind-body connection. Long story short, this doctor adjusted my meds to near perfection to get me through the rare summer-long depression I was experiencing.

Just a few months later, he got hired away to work for the County and I was left back in the same boat once again. I got a great referral, but didn't realize until bills came in I couldn't pay that the doctor was out of my insurance network. Believe me, many people prefer to go without care entirely than to go into debt and I was one of them (truthfully, I still am). I went another year until I couldn't take it anymore and this time in my desperation reached back out to the VA. Surprisingly, they saw me within a week and prioritized my suicidal depression. I'm now in a good spot as a result, but it was a long, windy, uncertain road getting here. I know it's hard to find help. Sometimes you don't know what's available to you until you knock a little louder and get people's attention.

The older I get, it seems the more stubborn I am, particularly when it comes to reaching out and asking for help. Perhaps I've always been that way and am only now realizing it's become a liability. After taking off three weeks during the holidays to catch up with the many projects that were piling up around me, I realized that my depression was sometimes stronger than my will to power through and do my best work. I would find myself sitting at the computer for hours trying to get started with a story, trying to edit audio for a podcast, trying to prepare a team member's submission for publication, and every time I would find myself coming up against something painful, perhaps similar to the long recognized creative crimp known as writer's block. I describe it as an inhibitor chip in my brain that sends pain signals to my psyche whenever I contemplate moving forward.

Of course, rationally, I know it's all just a matter of the will, right? That's what those who aren't experiencing depression will tell you, at least. They don't want to go to the gym, but they make the choice to do it anyway, so why can't you just "man up" and do what needs to be done? Well, those aren't so much the messages other people give me, as they are my own conscience. The guilt itself from a day coming and going without results adds its own layer of complication to my mood. Thankfully, I have a wonderful counselor who understands and is helping me to tackle this with cognitive strategies. This, coupled with sensible medical treatment, has at least helped me to find "even flow" again.

Finally, you're going to have some bad days where you may even want to be productive, but your body feels like it's in revolt. As a creative person who loves to pour myself into as many projects as I can when I'm feeling good, it can be extraordinarily frustrating to not even feel the will to check email, open a letter, or listen to a stitch of music. Most days, I'm trying to work in concert with my body's natural rhythms. I'm more of a morning person and get my best work done between 8AM and 11AM. Anything after that is going to be hit or miss with diminishing returns. With that in mind, I have to hold back from starting new projects before the ones already on my plate are finished, because when I'm feeling good, I think I can take on the world.

This is all a part of me rediscovering what it's like to feel balanced, bright, and in love with life. It can be frustrating to have that feeling back, only to watch it wither away as the week progresses. Since I have very high expectations of myself, it's natural for me to heap guilt upon guilt for all the missed opportunities, but beating myself up only compounds the problem (it took me a long time to really get this about myself, too). Every day is a struggle, but I've decided I'm staying in the fight for the long haul.

In short: Be patient with yourself. Be fair with yourself. Be good to yourself. Remember, this too shall pass.

"Someday you're going to die, just like some day I'm going to die. But until then, you fight like hell to stay alive, you get that?!"

-- William Holden, The Earthling (1980)

#Closer To The End #Depression #Suicide #Doom #Metal #Saint Vitus #Trouble #Alice in Chains #Windhand #Doomed & Stoned

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mypersonalbest11 · 7 years ago

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Family Matters

One of my favorite American holidays is Thanksgiving. It’s a day that’s about being appreciative and thankful for what we have. Also, it’s a holiday traditionally spent with family. It’s celebrated every Fall, November 23rd, when the leaves have already turned orange and fall to the ground. My family usually gets together but this year was different. Due to unfortunate circumstances there was no family party. Despite this, all my cousins and I gathered a few days after to hangout. Family is a value that we all hold seriously. In a place where people are largely financially self-sufficient, occupied, and don’t really seek support, maybe a long history of friendship is what keeps us together.

Above is a picture of some of my cousins and I. I’m in the back and on the left wearing glasses. Almost all of my dad’s family migrated to the United States. We ate together, shared about our lives, laughed about things, and played games. In the United States, people work 40 hours a week and people live far from each other. It’s hard to meet all the time and be close. It’s a normal part of life. We try.

I had written in one of my posts, What I Hope To Achieve, that one of my goals is to make a positive difference in the lives of my family. They are a big reason as to why I chose San Jose to live in. The following are a few highlights of my interactions with them.

Furthest to the right is my my younger cousin Jason. He recently began attending one of the top universities in the country and a big fan of video games. His nuclear family is Catholic and, for them, God was more of an afterthought. I moved to San Jose almost and lived in his house after attaining employment. I set a good example and invited him and accompanied him to a youth group with young adults his age to learn about God and make friends. He enjoyed it but he eventually stopped attending because he wanted to play video games more. His judgement was shocking, puzzling, and I couldn’t persuade him. It discouraged me into giving up. Last Thanksgiving, he happily shared with me that he joined a Christian club at school and that he liked it a lot and was very involved. I planted a seed of faith and God is moving to finish the work started. It reminds me that God is working to bring his work to completion.

Next to me in the picture is my cousin Joanne. Joanne is the older sister of Jason and is very social, kind, and easy to get along with. She was a baby Christian for a long time and exploring spirituality. Wanting to provide guidance in a world of many philosophies, I invited her to visit my church, The River. She now often goes with me to Sunday services. A few Sunday’s ago when we were together, the pastor spoke about speaking God’s blessing over other people’s lives. Time was given to anoint each other with oil and bless one another with a short passage. I prayed for her and affirmed her identity in Christ as His precious daughter on a journey in the world. I opened my eyes to see her in tears. It felt that she had discovered her purpose in the world. I got her napkins. Her life is truly falling behind Godly purpose and I’m amazed how he is working out difficult strongholds in her life.

These are just a couple of my relationships. I believe family is important because the family is God’s design for support in the world. I do that now in the form of guidance and friendship.

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epacer · 6 years ago

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Rolando, San Diego

This is from a three-part series that ran in Rolando's community newsletter last year. I'd interviewed people who grew up in the area between the late '50s and early '80s, but the self-indulgent second part was the one best received and now featured permanently on the RCC website. Kevin B. Staff, February 15, 2019

Growing Up in Rolando, 1960s - early 1970s

On a hot summer day in 1960, a young musical group piled into a car for a drive to North County. They called themselves Rosie and the Originals. Their destination was an airplane hangar in San Marcos that doubled as a recording studio. Their saxophonist was missing because he had committed to mowing a lawn, and his mom wouldn’t let him out of it. Another group member knew the rudiments of blowing a simple instrumental break, and the unpolished nature of the recording that resulted is probably part of what makes it so hauntingly appealing, as if emanating from no particular place or time.

By fall, Rosie’s “Angel Baby” had become popular locally. By Christmas, it was an international hit.

In mid-September 1960, as the song was first getting airplay, our next-door neighbor on College Avenue walked me to Henry Clay School for my first day of afternoon kindergarten. My mom had broken a toe while chasing my little brother and me around the coffee table in our living room. The plan was to show me a definite route to follow—from College to Acorn Street to Seminole Drive to Solita—and, after a week of escort, to let me walk it on my own. There were no sidewalks along College Avenue in those days, but I was able to make the walk.

During that first week, a kid kept crying in class, and on one occasion tried to escape. Old Ms. Leber seemed to leap across the room in a single bound as she grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back. Resistance was futile. My best childhood friend, a year younger than I, spent several days with me trying to build an airplane out of bamboo strips and pinwheels that we thought we could use to fly away in, so that I wouldn’t have to go to school.

I came to like kindergarten after a while. I began to walk with a girl who lived in the back unit of a duplex near the corner of College and Acorn. I tried to impress her by breaking glass bottles on the wall of the Campus Drive-In until an old lady came out and made me sweep it up and that was the end of that. One day, I came to the girl’s door just as her father was rushing off to work. The screen door hit me and knocked me into a cactus garden by the side of the house. He actually seemed relieved to be able to call in late. While her mom telephoned my mom to explain what had happened, he took me into the bathroom, had me pull down my pants, removed a number of cactus needles from my bum and rubbed the area with Bactine. It was quite embarrassing.

The rest of my elementary school flew by, in retrospect, although a year seems to take forever when you’re a kid. Kennedy was inaugurated in January 1961, To me, he was President for a long time. It was hard to think of him as young, since all adults seemed old and he was even older than my dad! He was assassinated while I was in third grade. We heard about it just before recess and did talk about it on the playground, but it wasn’t as if the world had stopped. We played ball and ate our lunches; I even bought a bag of Planter’s peanuts for a nickel that day.

We moved to our new house on Seminole Drive on Veterans’ Day 1965. Although it was less than a mile away, I didn’t see as much of old friends and started hanging out with a different set of kids. The area west of Henry Clay had been developing steadily since the early ‘60s. The apartments on the south side of Acorn Street went up around 1963; we used to climb around on the building materials until the workers chased us off. An old-style ranch house with a big front porch was torn down, and four houses, including the one we moved into, went up on the west side of Seminole. The shopping center where the BLVD63 apartments now stand started out as a large dirt lot with just a De Falco’s Food Giant on the east end.

As the rest of the shopping center developed, Thrifty Drug Store and College Theater opened, with a few small retail businesses between them. There was a vacancy between Thrifty and Von’s for several years, until Straw Hat Pizza Palace opened. It showed old Laurel and Hardy films and such, and instantly became a favorite hangout for older kids. The back of Thrifty had a tall flat wall and a good-sized parking lot that quickly became a place for playing handball and racquetball. We got to know most of Thrifty’s employees, who let us go up to the roof to retrieve our ball if we somehow hit it up there. We bought candy bars that over the years went from five cents to ten cents to fifteen cents while becoming smaller and smaller, and could get a scoop of ice cream on a cone for a nickel, with two scoops for a dime.

Sixth grade at Henry Clay ended in June 1967, just before the weekend of the much-remembered Monterey Pop Festival and several weeks after the release of the Beatles’ much- overrated Sergeant Pepper album. In the fall, I moved on to Horace Mann. Because I went to Sunday school in the College Area and had joined the church-sponsored Scout troop, I already had a collection of acquaintances from other elementary schools that I now saw every day. It was quite a change, having to go to different classrooms and listen to bells ringing every hour. Miniskirts were much in fashion, and we guys were beginning to notice.

For those who went through adolescence in the late ‘60s, the era has always been something of an enigma. That time in a kid’s life is chaotic and confusing enough, but we also had to deal with living in one of the most tumultuous eras in modern history. There was a lot of anti-establishment posturing by kids my age—mainly aping older siblings, I suspect. At heart, I think, teenagers are the most reactionary of conformists. If you were going to rebel against society, there was a very definite way to dress and behave. But political posturing aside, kids will be kids. We enjoyed going through what we called the A&W and Uni-mart storm drains, identified by the businesses nearest the tunnel entrances. We had raucous impromptu after-school football, basketball, and soccer games. We took off on long bike rides without bothering to tell our parents where we were going or when we’d be back. We threw water balloons at each other in hot weather.

In fall 1970 I started high school in 10th grade at Crawford. It seemed a much more easygoing place than Horace Mann, with basically no dress code and fewer ringing bells and public announcements. I didn’t take part in many extracurricular activities, having embraced the current drop-out-of-society ethos. That fall I took drivers training, then offered by public schools. Dad occasionally let me borrow the car, but I really wanted a motorcycle. In July, after working a few months at Campus Chuck Wagon, I was able to buy a little Honda CB160. By the middle of my high school years, several of us had small bikes and would take them on weekend camping trips in the backcountry. Although my Honda wasn’t built for off-roading, we did a bit of that too, often in the area that is now Mission Trails Park. There weren’t a lot of restrictions on where you could ride then. Soon enough, the noise and dust got on people’s nerves and laws changed.

I participated irregularly in wrestling and track, but for the most part was uninterested in school-related activities. I did stay active in the Boy Scout troop throughout high school because of its outdoor program. A half-dozen other boys my age felt the same way and we’d all become friends. It was through the troop’s outdoor program that I got to know most of San Diego County, particularly Anza Borrego State Park. We climbed Mount San Jacinto in the San Bernardino mountains each year, in preparation for an annual week-long trek through the Sierras. I’d climbed Mount Whitney twice by the time I was 16!

Watergate was just getting underway when I graduated from high school and American participation in the Vietnam War had ended earlier that year. For us, the feeling was that the ‘60s were definitely over but nothing particularly cool had come along to take its place. There was a lot of soft rock music, and it was considered fashionable to be a “sensitive male.” On the other hand, it was the era of the Guitar Hero–all about making a lot of noise while playing fast. To me, most of the hard rock seemed much less tuneful than ‘60s music.

I left San Diego that fall of 1973 to become an auto mechanic in Arizona. It seemed like a practical thing to do until I realized I intensely disliked the work. After a year, I joined the army. Although I came back to San Diego for short periods, I didn’t live here permanently again until 1997. The Rolando area was basically recognizable as the place where I grew up, until about ten years ago when the shopping center was demolished to be replaced by BLVD63, the Thrifty became Rite Aid and moved to its present location by the Post Office, and Henry Clay got some upgrades.

When I taught at Palomar College in San Marcos, I had the chance to ask Rosie Hamlin, the lead singer of Rosie and the Originals, if she remembered the location of the hangar where they recorded “Angel Baby,” but it was all too long ago and far away from her current life. In March of last year, Ms. Hamlin died. *The author of this article is Kevin Bradshaw Staff, Class of 1973 and is on the Rolando News Staff.

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dcnativegal · 8 years ago

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I miss Black people

A tall Black man came into the office in Christmas Valley last week to introduce himself as a social services worker for parts of Deschutes County and north Lake County, too. My door and my fellow therapist’s door were open, and we introduced ourselves and chatted amicably. When he and I discovered we had both lived in DC, I became Chatty Cathy, waxing poetic about Ethiopian Food. It became clear that he wasn’t that familiar with it, couldn’t remember the word ‘injera’… but that was okay. I was talking to a Black man who knew DC. I’m pretty sure I embarrassed myself. My colleague was friendly and professional. I was irrationally glad to see him out of all proportion to the occasion.

He probably left thinking to himself, white people are weird. Guilty as charged.

I am one of those white people who study Black people. Their experience, history, personalities, and the systemic, systematic way in which they’ve been imprisoned in one big internment camp called the United States of America. Everything about them, with the possible exception of current music beyond a superficial point. My kids listen to nothing but music made by Black people, so we, as a family, have that covered.

Formative books: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The Color Purple. Beloved. Also, Why do all the Black kids sit together in the Cafeteria, and When Race Became Real. Between the World and Me is the most recent.

Formative movies: Sounder (with music by Taj Mahal). Anything by Spike Lee (with the possible exception of Inside Job, which is excellent, but not about Black experience.) Moonlight. Daughters of the Dust. I am Not Your Negro is the most recent. Anything by Ava DuVernay, most recently, 13th. (I dare you, white reader, to watch it, on Netflix, and not have your mind blown.)

Music: Otis Redding. Songs in the Key of Life by Stevie Wonder. Early Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five. Tracy Chapman. India Arie.

I could go on and on… Perhaps I’ll stop with this link to 100 Woke Black women to follow: http://www.essence.com/news/woke-100-women

“Study” does not mean to keep at arms-length. I have been a marshmallow in a sea of cocoa since I can remember being alive. And since, many times, in different schools and neighborhoods, I was one of the few white kids, it behooved me to observe how we are similar and different. When you are the minority, you study the majority.

Little differences, in hygiene practices (Black women are more fastidious), in pronunciation (Andrea is pronounced An DRE uh by Black folks, AN dreeah by white. Darrell is DaRELLE for Black people and DAR rul for white.) In Happy Birthday songs: Black folks sing the Stevie Wonder version. In mythical secret jokes. Some Black people think that white people smell bad when wet. I’m serious. Based on how stinky the white men were when they came across the Atlantic to kidnap Black people. I mentioned this one day to a church friend, a PhD in Math, descended from Jamaicans, and she gasped! How did I know?! (I read it in a book, silly.)

I notice how much African American Vernacular English is used by white people. “You go, girl.” “24/7.” “I’m down.” “Word.” White folks don’t necessarily notice. I do. I try not to use AAVE. For fear of being scolded by my daughter. But also, because it is not appropriate. I struggle with this appropriateness thing. Because it’s the right thing to do. I keep learning how much culture has been stolen from Black Americans. Elvis Presley is just the tip of the iceburg. White people have stolen from Black people for millennia, and not just culturally. I look for examples of this, and find it, daily. I look out of long habit, so that I can give credit where credit is due.

It is absolutely true that Black people have transformed my life again and again. A Black 10th grade English teacher told me I was a good writer and should check out the Urban Journalism Workshop. I did, I applied, I got in, I learned to write, and the article I wrote earned an honorable mention from the Robert Kennedy Journalism awards. It was about the gentrification of Mount Pleasant, a neighborhood in DC. In 1976. I’m pretty sure I got into Oberlin College because of the Urban Journalism Workshop. Because I had zero extracurriculars besides running away from home. Thank you, Mrs. Feely.

I spent 40 years in the grooviest episcopal church on the planet (IMHO) because of a Black seminarian I almost married. He was 9 years my senior, I was 17, when we met. St Stephen & the Incarnation became my spiritual home because he was assigned there. And after I realized I was too young to marry, it stayed my parish home until I moved to the Oregon Outback in August 2016. Thank you, Eddie.

I miss my Black friends. Gay and straight women, with a few gay Black men in there, too. I know a lot of wonderful straight Black men, but I can’t say I’d call any of them in the middle of the night to take me to the emergency room. (One of my criteria for being a real friend. I’m sure they’d take me; I would just be so embarrassed.) Each of my friends is amazing. Of course, that is also true of my white friends. I’ve been mulling over the difference between my white and Black friends.

I’m reminded of something I read years ago about being friends across the racial chasm: the Black woman’s advice to her white friend was, “Forget I am Black. And, never forget that I am Black.” The zen koan of being friends with a Black person.

I feel lucky when a Black person will deign to be my friend. They could so easily reserve their precious energies for other people of color, especially people of the African diaspora. Out of self-care. (deign: verb, do something that one considers to be beneath one's dignity. "she did not deign to answer the maid's question" Archaic condescend to give [something.] "He had deigned an apology.") When I am hanging out with my Black friends who are activists and seemingly tireless in their work for justice in all kinds of situations, I am amazed that they have time for me. I know in fact that they are tired. And I do my best to be someone they can relax with. Even though I am white.

I have a Black friend who grew up in Crown Heights Brooklyn, where my son lives now in an apartment with many roommates. Her parents were from Guyana, an African-Caribbean country. Crown Heights is gentrifying, but it seems to still hold a special mix of Caribbean immigrants and Hasidim. S is a little younger than I am, and also has 2 kids, one in college (same one as my daughter) and the other graduated (as is my son.) My kids’ dad and I met their family when we each had only one baby in diapers and one parent each were home, and craving adult conversation. Play group in Brookland DC used to meet once a week until the community-organizing father of my children got hold of it, and then it met 3 times a week.

Our oldest boys were friends. We had second children. We developed a tradition of going to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a week every summer and sharing an old beach house that was right on the water, one family per bedroom. We’d have 4 families give or take, and take turns cooking, looking after munchkins, and going on field trips to the Wright Brothers Museum, Walmart, and movies.

When it was time to figure out where to have the oldest boys go to school, our two families combined forces. In DC, finding a decent public school requires a strategy. We got pretty elaborate: what are our criteria for excellence? How much did each value weigh in the decision? We teamed up, with S and I spending the night in her car one icy January to get on the list for a popular bilingual Spanish/English immersion school (Oyster Elementary). My kids’ dad and her husband hit a number of schools that were apparently much less popular but still made our list. My kid got into Oyster, and S, who was right after me, did not. We decided that our boys would go to a DC public Montessori program instead of risking separation.

By the way, S met a nice Jewish young man from Iowa when they both attended Harvard, and married him. After many years, she decided to convert to Judaism, and both boys had bar mitzvahs, which were very cool to attend.

Both families switched to another DC public Montessori program when the original one seemed in steep decline, and enjoyed that community for a while. It became clear that my son wasn’t doing as well in that context, so I got him on a waiting list for a phenomenal charter school that uses the Expeditionary Learning model (affiliated with Outward Bound.)

We remained friends as families, going to the beach, joining the pool just over the DC line that many Brooklanders belonged to. Our boys grew apart, but we still hung out. One amazing bit of fate is that it was S and her son who introduced my boy to film-making at around 6th grade. He now makes his living as a filmmaker and is a Tisch film school graduate.

S is one of those women who is rather butch, and also straight. She is not femme: never wears make up, keeps her hair very short for minimum of fuss, and never wears skirts or dresses (except in her wedding.) I taught her to knit on one of our beach weeks, and she’s gone on to become expert and imaginative. I figured out at one point that I had a crush on her, but I stomped that out, and we have had a great 20+ year friendship.

When my marriage ended, S and her husband extended dinner invitations to both me and my ex, separately, but only I responded. My ex is introverted, and for some reason he let his connection to these folks wither. I was grateful to hold onto the friendship, and enjoyed coming to their house for amazing food prepared by Ed, the son of the Iowan baker. Lots of far ranging conversation. We’d solve the problems of the world, and then I’d go home. We also share a love of movies. I had to call Ed once to get me to an emergency department, and he did with calm kindness.

Neither S nor her husband are on Facebook much, which is where I keep in touch with most of my social connections from DC. I’ll have to actually write them a letter, which I used to do routinely. I miss these people very much. Maybe I should just call them up. How novel.

S was my friend first, and Black incidentally.

B became my friend and her Blackness was way more prominent. Whereas S never uses AAVE, B uses it a lot, and with her I feel like I can say “GIIRRRRRLLLL” in greeting.

B is from a large African-American Catholic family, originally from Florida. Old school Black, which is to say, ancestors enslaved and brought to the mainland United States, then reared here after Emancipation, and always in the minority. Whereas Island folks, from what was formerly known as the West Indies, were also enslaved, they freed themselves from colonial power, and became majority Black countries. B taught me that some Caribbean folks look down on the old school Black folks. I learned a lot about hierarchies within Blackness from Brigette.

We met at a card game for women in our neighborhood. Her son was a year older than mine, and she lived within a block of us. I started to pursue her as a friend; we attended a Black-taught “all sizes welcomed” yoga class in the neighborhood, and would walk there and back every Saturday morning. On those walks we got to know each other.

She is so accomplished; a law degree, an all but dissertation PhD drop out, an author, a management consultant, a philanthropist. I was honored to be the one white person present for a discernment committee she gathered, Quaker style, to help her make a decision. She influenced me a great deal. I hope I was a good friend to her. She was, probably still is, extremely busy, always, involved in one justice-promoting effort after another. I felt like a slacker in her presence. And she was not judging me. She simply lived every waking moment as an opportunity for social change. I also know there is pain underneath that activity, not just ‘post-traumatic slavery syndrome.’ Our sons are out in the world making art. She is making change. I miss her.

There are many others… Imani, D, Isaiah, Fern, Paulette, Liane…and powerful Facebook friends... Claudia, Alan, Reuben, KM

When I see a Black person out here in Oregon, I am riveted and try not to stare. Black people in white places are used to this, it is the ‘white gaze’, just like women are conscious of the ‘male gaze.’ For the observed, this vigilance is automatic and barely conscious until there is a perceived danger. Is that man (of whatever color) following me down this street? Is that white woman following me in this store? I regret that I am adding to this vigilance for people of color in Oregon.

In Eugene Oregon at a huge hippy extravaganza called Country Fair, I took to counting Black people. Less than 20. I follow the SURJ-Eugene Chapter on Facebook. It’s the closest chapter to where I live. (Standing up for Racial Justice is a white person’s organization that hopes to support Black Lives Matter efforts. White folks can ask other white folks to call each other out and help each other grow. This is not the job of Black People.) Oregon is a very white place.

I am an anti-racist organization of one. Which is not to say I am the only one who cares about racism against Black people, systemic and individualized here in Lake County. I have not yet met anyone as steeped as I am, but it’s always possible. (Where are you?) Anybody out here willing to start a book club to read Witnessing Whiteness? It’s for white people who want to reveal and counteract the racism that lives within all of us.

From the context of my upbringing, and my choice, the collective and multi-hued Black American World is my north star. The Black/white conversation, the current animosity, the centuries-long history, is my cosmology: “noun, the science of the origin and development of the universe.” My social universe. The foundation upon which I build my politics, my theology of justice, my self-image. My corrective. Also, my joy.

I am a white person who works on her racism. Even when there are no Black people in my Oregon Outback world, except a phlebotomist, one former client, and the girlfriend of another. My moral universe is constructed around the fact of the injustice of slavery and its current unjust sequelae. (Noun. se·que·la. a condition that is the consequence of a previous disease or injury.) Part of the post-slavery curse is the anti-government bias that is ripping further the tattered safety net. It is hard work to help white folks in mostly white contexts to see how anti-Black racism seeps into every bit of politics and also harms them individually. I’m working on this. I find it exhausting when the occasional conversation starts with “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” I was so spoiled in D.C.

Yes, I believe in reparations. TaNehisi Coates’ work on this in The Atlantic is a paradigm-shifter. (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/06/the-case-for-reparations/361631/)

I only recently read a book on the native American experience, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s epic, “An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States.” Now I can include the injustice wrought against native peoples into my cosmology. Except I did not grow up as a white person in a majority First Nation context. A whole new arena to familiarize myself with. First Nations are deeply relevant to life out here due to water rights. (You can watch Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz read from the book here: https://youtu.be/Pn4QTS6S3WU.) And you can read about water rights and the Klamath Nation here: (https://www.rotary.org/en/rotarian-helping-klamath-river-dispute)

I will continue to be a Black-identified white woman living in Whitelandia. I will try not to be obnoxious when I hear something flatly racist, although I will counter it. Someone said something about Black on Black crime early on. I said something, and now she knows I’m a ‘liberal.’ I share about Black experience on Facebook because I rejoice at the artistry and profound accomplishments of people who Overcome, every day. Maybe my new friends in Oregon will have a couple of stereotypes dashed by following my Facebook posts. Maybe not. Some of the clients at our mental health center are white ex-offenders with Aryan nation tattoos. Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.

My job is to enlighten white people, somehow, with humility, because i know next to nothing. I need to tell the truth, but tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson wrote, so the truth will dazzle gradually. My job is to live with integrity wherever I am, as inclusively as possible, mining my own deep veins of ignorance (see, Native American History, also, the racist history of Oregon vis a vis Sundown laws, et al.) Counteracting the deep ignorance of the public discourse about the roots of our current politics in my own thinking. And praying to know how to be a bridge builder.

Written on the immensely tall wall of the Lincoln Memorial are words from the 2nd Innaugural address. To quote Wikipedia, “Lincoln suggests that the death and destruction wrought by the [Civil] war was divine retribution to the U.S. for possessing slavery, saying that God may will that the war continue "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword", and that the war was the country's "woe due".’ What I believe is that the great Civil War in the USA right now is the price we are paying for the sin of slavery, the divide of have and have not, early white immigrant/imperialist versus newer immigrant especially from South and Central America, the disconnect of white republican voters-for-trump and the fact of their deep dependence on the government. My cousin, President Lincoln, (4th cousin, 5 times removed) was more right than he knew.

I will be an ally no matter where I am, however (deeply) imperfect. I can’t help it.

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oh-saturdaysun · 5 years ago

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New Year’s Eve

Here we are, just barely into 2020. I guess this post can be a reflecting on the past 365 days.

This year has been so full of events, emotions, happenings, and new beginnings. For starters, I began day shift at my job as a nurse. Getting off night shift was like a breath of air after being underwater drowning.

I went to Europe for 2 weeks with my cousin and visited 4 countries. Just before this, I met my boyfriend at a bar while being out with friends celebrating one of my best friend’s birthdays.

Him and I kept in touch via text and snapchat during my vacation, and he admitted that he was seriously rather nervous of me meeting a European man. Yes, I did meet a few men while overseas (kissed them and danced with them, but nothing more), yet I was reluctant to stay in touch due to the reality of seeing any of them. All while I was away, he was on my mind. A week after I returned, we agreed to meet up. He drove two hours across the state to go putt putting with me and grab a drink. That was when it mostly began.

Having him in my life this year has been such a change. I was so attuned to being single, using dating apps, getting to know new men, going on dates, getting disappointing. Now I have a foundation. One with someone I know loves me more than I ever imagined a man could love me. Unconditionally. Without doubt. It’s rather impressive.

My sister got married. The wedding was one for the books, so elegant and full of hours of dancing, drinks, and fun. My sister’s husband is perfect for her. I had the joy of being her MOH and saying a speech. My boyfriend was my date and graciously took in all my family and my crazy dancy.

My period started again. After 7 years of not having one due to dieting and overexercising, I got it back. Earlier this year, I gave up crossfit and switched over to more bodybuilding/strength training. Along with the decrease in cardio-based workouts and eating more, I also gained about 20 pounds. Some days, I miss my old body. Others, I feel confident in my larger, curvier body. The bigger boobs are definitely nice. I’m sure my boyfriend would agree. The fact that I met someone I love and loves me at the heaviest I have ever been is kind of ironic. Especially since I always dieted to be more attractive, telling myself maybe I’d find someone when I achieved my “dream figure”.

I joined a group at my church with my best friend. In simple terms, a women’s bible study that I meet with once a week. Although I wasn’t as consistent with it as I would have liked, it opened my eyes to the faith of other women and their love for the Lord. I was also able to go to the young adults worship group that meets once a week at the same church.

Last, but certainly not least, I had my bunion surgery. Going into a New Year with limited abilities is somewhat serene. I feel as if I have more time to relax and ponder what I really want out of the New Year. I am really not one for resolutions, but I do believe in the importance of looking at the year and knowing what you want out of it. But, that is a post for another day. This one is already far too long.

My foot looks so much different just within a week. Seeing it evolve from a ballooned up, red, puffy, bruised, and barely even resembling a foot to a slightly puffy and bruised foot is quite amazing. The human body is incredible. My pain is almost nonexistent (except in the mornings), and the doctor said I could try to ditch the crutches. All of this within 16 days. Only 26-40 days until I should be all healed to begin nursing again.

Today I woke up and read Tuesday’s With Morrie. My dad is making me eggs since I cooked him some yesterday. I’m about to play some of my game, practice my piano, shower, study for my head to toe assessment, and later I’m going to my best friend friend’s house for New Year’s Eve. I didn’t make any plans for the night since my foot, but decided to do something lowkey since last year I spent with my parents as well.

I’ll try to write tomorrow.

#journalentry #diary #newyears #reflections #2019 reflection

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nolimitsongrace · 5 years ago

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November 5: How To Behave in the House of God

How To Behave in the House of GodNovember 5, 2019

These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. — 1 Timothy 3:14,15

Growing up in church, there were many opportunities for my parents to teach me how I ought to behave in the house of God. Today I see that many parents are not teaching their children about these things, and it’s a shame. Children must learn to respect the house of God and the atmosphere where God works among people corporately.

But children must be taught this kind of appropriate behavior in order to learn it; it doesn’t come to them naturally. When I was a boy, my church friends and I didn’t always do so well at behaving correctly in church. But each time I erred, I paid for it handsomely when the service was over and my father and mother disciplined me at home!

For example, there was the notorious Sunday night service when we kids were seated on a cracked pew in church. Every time we bounced up and down on that pew, it squeaked. I was a young boy at the time, and the thought of making our seat squeak every time I bounced on it just elated me! So I started vigorously bouncing — up and down, up and down, up and down. My friends sitting with me joined in the fun, and we all bounced until I (and everyone else in the auditorium) heard a huge, cracking noise like the splitting of timber. It was our pew cracking all the way through, from one end to the other!

*[If you started reading this from your email, begin reading here.]

As that pew split and cracked, it sloped down to the ground — and everyone sitting on it slid onto the floor and under the pew in front of us! It was quite a sight and sound, interrupting the whole service as men, women, and children came crawling out from under the pew in front of us to find another seat in the auditorium.

I knew that I was going to be in serious trouble after church that night — and I was right! My father gave me a strong lesson, never to be forgotten, about how I was to behave in the house of God!

Then there was another time when, during a Wednesday night service, a group of us boys skipped the service and — for some unknown, unexplainable reason — decided to climb onto the roof of the church auditorium just for fun. We each scaled the wall of one side of the building and scrambled all the way to the peak of the main auditorium — while the service was simultaneously being held!

We boys all noticed what a cool, “hollow” sound we could produce if we stomped on the roof, so we started entertaining ourselves by stomping and stomping — until the side door of the auditorium was flung open, and the pastor himself emerged! He called out to us to get off the roof and find our seats in the service!

That was another night I’ll never forget! I paid a dear price not only for skipping the service, but also for interrupting the preaching of the Word and the work of the Holy Spirit taking place inside the auditorium beneath our stomping feet!

Another memory of my behavior in church as a young boy is from a time when my parents sang in the church choir. Choir rehearsal was always after the Wednesday night service. While my parents practiced with all the other adults, the Renner kids and some other kids of parents in the choir had nothing to do. So we would run around the church, scamper around the auditorium, and often prove to be a distraction to the choir rehearsal, which was led by our pastor.

One Wednesday night, we kids were especially disruptive, so our pastor yelled, “Renner kids and all you other kids, get up here!” We shook at his tone of voice because we knew that we had crossed a line that night and were about to get in trouble. We all stood before him on the church platform waiting to be rebuked. But instead of scolding us, he said, “I’ll give you a dime to leave the church building and go across the street to the gas station to buy a soda. But you have to promise to stay out of the auditorium until rehearsal is over.”

A soda! That was a big deal when I was a youngster, so we excitedly extended our palms toward him as he placed a dime into the hands of all us Renner kids and the other kids who were with us. We then ran down the aisle of the church, burst through the auditorium doors, and headed across the street to the gas station, where we each inserted our dime into the pop machine and bought ourselves a soda as the pastor suggested.

But when we returned home that night my father had a serious talk with me about my behavior in church. And every time I misbehaved in the house of God, he used the opportunity to teach me about right and wrong behavior in church. Because of my parents’ instruction as I was growing up, I learned how to behave appropriately in church — and that helped me know how to teach my own sons when Denise and I became parents.

This reminds me of First Timothy 3:14 and 15, where Paul wrote, “These things write I unto thee, hoping to come unto thee shortly: But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” In verse 15, Paul was addressing wider issues that affected the whole house of God. But there is a principle in this verse I wish to discuss: We “ought” to know how to behave in the house of God!

The word “ought” in verse 15 is the Greek word dei, which describes a necessity or something that isn’t optional. In other words, this is mandatory behavior. The word for “behaveth” is from the Greek word anastrepho, which means to conduct oneself appropriately. It is simply inappropriate to be disrespectful in the house of God or to act unbecomingly in the presence of other believers who are trying to seek God or to prepare for His work.

Paul said it is obligatory that we behave appropriately when we are in the house of God. This is something that must be taught and imparted, and it is why I am so dismayed at parents who do not teach their children how to behave properly when they are in church. Frequently children talk loudly, sit lackadaisically, or even move about the auditorium with no restrictions from their dad or mom.

We once had parents in our Moscow church who refused to discipline their son and teach him to sit quietly and listen during the service. They actually allowed him to run all over the auditorium, which disturbed everyone who was trying to hear the Word of God. These parents had been counseled multiple times about this problem, but to no avail. The disruptive behavior of their children continued without parental correction.

One Sunday, I’d finally had enough of the outrageous behavior of this child — although I realized the problem was not really with the child; it was with the parents who refused to discipline him. So I called the parents aside and told them that if they would not enforce a measure of order with their son when they came to church, they would no longer be welcome because they were so disruptive to others. That was the last time they ever came to our church.

This unchecked behavior in the house of God isn’t true only of children. We live in a society that has increasingly drifted so far from God that when people finally do come to church, they often talk out loud during the service, loudly chew gum, write notes back and forth to one another, send text messages on their phones, and do other things that are disruptive and disrespectful. As more mature believers, it is our God-given responsibility to gently teach them to respect the house of God and how to behave while they’re in church.

In early New Testament times, people were attending church for the very first time since they were newly converted. Neither men nor women knew how to behave in church and had to be taught. But they were taught, as we can see in First Timothy 3:15. Paul knew that people had to learn how to behave in the house of God; thus, he addressed the issue in this verse.

I ask you today to look at your own children or grandchildren and determine if they behave respectfully when the Word of God is being preached or taught. Do they move freely about during the service, write notes, chew gum, or do other things that are distracting or disruptive to the preaching of the Word and moving of the Spirit?

The house of God is a cherished place where we assemble corporately to worship Him, grow in Him, and serve Him together to further His purposes. That’s why it’s so important to allow Him to teach us — so we can then teach others that it is a place where respect and honor are mandatory. I encourage you to make a decision today that you and your house will always fit that description when in church, behaving in a way that helps others hear the Word of God and that does not disrupt the moving of His precious Holy Spirit!

MY PRAYER FOR TODAY

Father, I ask You to help me behave appropriately when I am in the house of God — not only when I am in a service, but also to behave appropriately as a Christian. May my lifestyle and behavior bring glory to the Lord Jesus Christ. Forgive me for the times I have acted out of order or done things that were inappropriate or disruptive. Help me develop a personal discipline in the way I conduct myself not only when I am in the house of God but also in every area of my life because I am, in fact, Your temple, and Your Spirit resides within me. Therefore, I desire to conduct myself worthily as I ought at all times in a dignified manner that reflects You, giving both You and the sanctuary where Your people gather the full respect that is due according to Your will.

I pray this in Jesus’ name!

MY CONFESSION FOR TODAY

I confess that I am mannerly, honoring, and respectful when I am in the house of God. I listen attentively, and I do not disturb others who are trying to hear the Word. I honor God in my behavior. When I see others, either young people or adults, who are disruptive and dishonoring, God shows me how to respectfully teach them how to behave and to conduct themselves in church. Because I am serious about my life with Christ, I behave seriously when I am in the house of God!

I declare this by faith in Jesus’ name!

QUESTIONS FOR YOU TO CONSIDER

If you grew up in church, can you recall times when you had to be corrected and taught how to behave in the house of God?

When you see how others behave inappropriately in the house of God — sending text messages to other people, talking out loud, and so forth — do you ignore it, or have you found a polite way to teach them that their behavior is incorrect?

Nothing is more serious than the proclamation of God’s Word and the moving of the Holy S What things have you witnessed that can disturb these holy moments?

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papermoth-bird-blog · 6 years ago

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The sunsets in Sedona & sunrises of California

My last few days in Sedona felt like heaven, but I felt myself being pulled towards the landscapes of California. It was like I was being presented with a question- Stay with the feeling of peace & sanctuary, or navigated the ups & downs of the outside world. As soon as I asked the question, I knew the right thing to do was to leave. I booked a train ticket early in the morning & told swamiji I would be leaving the day after tomorrow. Just as I did, I reached out to my Uncle Eric, who lives in Venice Beach. My cousin Mia surprised him by showing up that very day, and so, it aligned perfectly for me to surprise her. (because, of course it did).

The days of heaven at the ashram looked like peaceful adventure. I lay in the grass looking up at the bald eagle that would swoop down in the trees on the back on the property. I helped paint the temple with bright yellow (that reminded me so much of painting my dad’s stages as a kid... which were the exact same yellow colour). We crowned the temple while singing songs as a group.

We were able to spend the day going for a few different hikes through the red rocks. Rukmini and I went off the trail near the Cochina to find the cave she used to sleep in when she was younger. The cave was nestled between two huge rock formations. It had an amazing view of the whole vista- the reds of the earth, the bright blue sky and all the greens in between. The walls of the cave had pocks in in- that looked like letter slots. She told me that people used to write prayers on pieces of paper and tuck them inside the slots with an offering to the rocks. We didn’t have paper, but we left the heart shaped rocks we had found earlier with a prayer & our love. We helped some other women climb up the steep rocks gracefully & called out into the valley below. It’s funny how freeing it can feel to feel small in a large landscape. It’s as if you can viscerally look at the larger picture. We aimed too to climb doe mountain, but Swamiji’s body was not up for the steep climb, so we turned around halfway & instead walked along the winding Aerie Trail. At the end of the path, we caught the sun slowly sink down behind the distant mountains. While we sat on some large rocks there, Rukmini told me of one of the times she ran away from the world. She packed her car full of food and camping gear- left it in the desert & walked off with her belongings. She lasted a long while too- weeks if not months. Just her under the sky, amongst the desert plants. She knows a lot about the medicines of the land. I hope I have an opportunity in the future to learn more from her- I know she has so much to teach & I hope the universe provides her with eager & attentive students. She deserves that so much. Wendyana brought us bundles of Juniper berries she picked. We watched the sky turn to stars as we ate the sweet little fruits. Then packed up the car & headed back into Sedona to eat at Chocolate tree.

As I fell asleep, I was so aware of the landscape & sat vigil to it. The owls, coo’ed so loudly, they must have been in the tree right outside of the window. I was beautiful. When I woke, I tried my best to keep up with the regular ashram shcedule & helping Rukmini, but I was running around preparing to say goodbye too (not to mention packing). I Said goodbye to the bees, gathering the sleepy ones with a spoonful of sugar water.

Rukmini and I said goodbye in the kitchen over a few hours- it looked a lot like making lists. Writing down all the proper procedures for all the different household chores, to make it easier for future staff or guest orientation going forward. I handed her a postcard that I had made for her too- that was a picture of her in the sunset laying on a rock. On the back I wrote “Rukmini Rose, dances with the sky & tells me of all the desert medicines she had made friends with in this life/ and all the times she ran away/ and all the times she ran towards herself.” She ran to her room & came back with a couple of postcards for me- One with a Jackalope (from Utah, her home state) that she wrote something like “May the Jackalopes sing you sweet lullabyes! Rohini, my sister wife, world grandma ma! Take care of us babies like you always do! Thank you so much. I’m glad we are together.” The other was a lightning scene over the desert- with cacti , etc. That she left blank. We hugged a long while & said goodbye a few more times as I ran around doing final checks. Dharmajun went into Pheonix to visit his sister, so we didn’t get to say goodbye. As I got into the car, I called to Rukmini to “tell the old tree we know to say goodbye & give him my email address.”

Swamiji drove me into town. We wove through the canyon roads, looking at the flooded rivers & waterfalls pouring down from the rocks. We spoke only of wisdoms of life & then sat in silence- which felt good. He said I would probably benefit from a weekly, routine practice of Mouna. Which I know will be true. My brain has a lot of chatter trying to keep up with all the lovely people in my world- and the silence helps return me to stillness, so I can speak from peace & love without becoming overwhelmed. I contemplated the new routines I would bring into my life- Breath practices, asana practices & mindfulness- not because I feel any obligation to. Simply because I realized how much joy & balance they give me. It’s been truly beautiful to learn it all properly- in a way that sinks down deep. And furthermore, concretes the path I was already travelling on.

As we pulled into Flagstaff, I said my goodbyes to Swami. He said I was more then welcomed back at any point I wished- just as a guest, or as staff. I feel I will definitely return. Arizona is wild & vigorous, and peaceful and calm all at once. I feel a huge connection with the land & the people here. I had a few hours to myself, so I checked my big bag at the train station & walked around. Flagstaff is small, and so, most of the stores were closing as I walked. It definitely has a cool vibe about it- a surprising amount of young people & a palatable local art scene. Like Sedona, there are also plenty of stores that sell crystals & new-agey type stuff. I found a cute-college-vibe pizza place to grab something to eat- which by happy co-incidence, had my favourite slice on special. Artichoke heart, parm, fresh basil & sun-dried tomatoes. It was ideal. The people that worked there were all young, tattooed skater-types. I tried not to linger that long, but I quickly became very comfortable eating the slices of pizza & drawing funny creatures in my sketchbook. Around 8 I wandered back to the train station & made a nice butt groove there- again reading & drawing & sitting my thoughts. My train was originally scheduled for 9:30, but after several delays, finally arrived at 11pm. (That wasn’t the only train trouble--- they also over-charged me multiple times on my visa--- which I am still working on getting a refund for).

As I got on the train, there was a young girl in my seat- a senior in high school that was visiting her sister’s sorority this weekend for a formal. I let her know that she was in my seat, but she told me there was something on hers & so she couldn’t sit there. I looked around the train and there was no other seat available. So rather than fight her, I sat in the seat she refused. All out of love for her. It meant that I was sitting in train 0003, car three, seat 3 on the 3rd day of March (the third month!)--- so must have been a reallllly good sign. I think the little boy in front of us might have peed on it? I don’t know. I lay down a few magazines & a blanket and it was fine. She was feeling a little chatty, but it was the overnight train & so most people were trying to sleep. She told me I’d really like Venice Beach & asked me how old I was. I think she thought I was her age, until she realized I was an adult, despite my baby face. She told me of all her plans to go to community college, then university & then join the navy & see the world that way- but for now, she was in Ontario, California, living with her mother. Eventually, we both fell asleep... me first I think.

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California

When I woke up, the sun began to peek in through the curtains, we were just leaving the desert of Joshua tree national park & I did get to see, albeit briefly, some of those special/weirdo trees. I plan on coming back through that park for longer when I come back through California with my sisters in the next few years (which Petra & I made plans for on the train). I tried my best to keep still & listen to the world around me. There was a nun a few rows a head of me, and in between was a famil that were yelling at eachother, shoes all over the floor. It was a funny moment of human existence. The landscape flickered by- mountain scapes, dunescapes, decorated with the most vivid colours. The hills were covered in flowers- yellow, orange & purple. The houses all with that spanish-style terracotta roofing.

The LA train station is a brilliantly beautiful art-deco style building. It occurred to me, while I walked through it, that I had once written an architecture paper on it. The ceilings are high like a church, the seats low and leathery. The tiling was all done in jewel tones of the era & done in oriental-referenced geometric patterns. Another traveller dropped their bag by the grand piano & played Debussy’s ‘Claire de Lune’ I leaned on the poll & closed my eyes to listen for a long while. I’ve always loved that song, it’s gentle & beautiful. When I was ready, I texted Gopala that I had arrived. He pulled up outside the station & I through my bags in the back of the car dancing through traffic, then runnning around the front & sticking my hand through the window to jingle the passenger-side door open. I hopped in & was flooded back with memories of the Ashram that felt like so long ago in many ways, expect time itself. The inside of Gopala’s car is basically a shrine, with pictures of Gurus & Krishna, as well as prayer flags & sticker with uplifting quotes on it. Gopala told me all about the Sivanada centre there & I think he wanted me to stay there with him, but I reminded him that I have family here, that I was eager to spend lots of time with. That night was Shivaratri- The celebration of the high god Shiva. There was meant to be dancing, and singing & puja’s all night long. He advised me to sleep while I could- but all I knew for sure at that moment was that I was happy to be in LA & keen to see Mia.

The centre, as it turns out is quite close to Eric’s place on Catamaran street. We drove around looking for food, until my uncle Eric called me back, which he did, before we actually managed to find a place to eat. I tried my best not to fling the door open and crash-run into Mia, who turned out to be in the shower. Tom, Mia’s ex-boyfriend was sitting at the kitchen table with Caroline, Eric’s finace (who are both Australian). I basically rushed into the bathroom anyways & Mia and I rushed into a conversation. She did look surprised, but probably because she didn’t expect me to rush into the bathroom like that (which isn’t actually that unusual in our family actually). We all got ready & went out for lunch- which was, surprise surprise, Mexican food. Eric showed up there to join us & asked me if Mia looked surprised. Turned out, when I was on the phone with him earlier, Mia decided to snoop on his phone & so knew I was coming-- and just wanted the practice her acting skills. Which makes me laugh even now. She really did have me convinced I had surprised her. After lunch, we walked down to the beach- which is stunning, even considering it’s very much in the city. There were surfer’s in the water in full-winter suits. Mia & Tom had tried to go surfing earlier that day-- but it was too cold they claimed. It’s probably because I am used to the frigid Atlantic (not to mention multiple polar bear swims), but I rushed into the water & waded as deep I could manage without getting my shorts wet. It was so nice to meet that Ocean- the one that for so long, felt so far away & was suddenly at my feet.

MIa & I went back to the house to change our foot wear to prepare for a local hike in Runyon Canyon- which is a pretty popular spot for nature seekers within the contex of LA. We met up with Tom at the car rental place and were silly in the lobby of the fancy hotel in Mariana Del Rey The drive through the city had me captivated. There were SO many Tesla’s on the road there, and plenty more fancy, pantsy cars. We drove through Beverly Hills, and I gawked at all the fancy houses there & wondered who in the world could possibly live there. The entrance to the trail is in Hollywood, and so we drove through those busy streets as well- Sunset, Hollywood Blvd. The climb was steep & filled with fancy people in their fancy work out gear, but also regular looking people. It was actually surprisingly challenging at times, and I was so awed by some of the older ladys that managed those near, vertical inclines. One in particular seemed like an old pro- Pointing into the sprawling skyline “look, there’s capital records, there is *such and such* hotel, there is where I first worked when I first got to the city*. Mia & Tom & I stopped a few times to take pictures, which I haven’t been super great at doing. It felt nice to indulge for a little while. Especially for the sake of Mia & I having a picture together.

We got some groceries & returned to the house, kinda exhausted. Gopala had called me while I was out & hadn’t noticed.. because my phone is so full, it hardly register’s any notifications anymore. Gopala was still extremely keen for me to go to the ceremony, but I was already falling asleep & it was like 7pm... there was no way I was going to last that long comfortably, so I called him to say I wasn’t going to go & that I hoped he understood. I fell asleep on Mia’s bed with a belly full of fresh pasta & garlic bread & avocado toast. James & I also tried to catch after severally rounds of phone tag, until I passed out cold & somehow managed to crawl over to the couch.

I woke up yoga-time (extremely early) and sat and watched the sunrise from the terrace at the back of the apartment. I waited a slightly more reasonable amount of time before going to wake Mia- cause she said she’d wanted to join me in Yoga on the beach in the morning. Tom & I were both feeling more morning-y, Mia a little less so. We walked to the beach barefooted with towels to stretch out on. We watched the early morning surfer’s as I coached them through the breathing exercises. I let up a little, because I sensed they weren’t as into it as I was, so I continued my practice as they did their morning thing. That is-- until a sudden huge wave came up and soak us all- phones, shoes, towels and all. We decided to turn back to the house with our heavy clothing.

And now here I sit, in the living room of the apartment, writing this-- trying to sort out my banking stuff & figure out a way to clear up some space on my cellphone. We’ve got dreams of going to chinatown & Hollywood, and maybe a few thrift stores while we are here. But for now, we chillin’. Gopala wants to meet up today, and I might have a few friends that happen to be in this neck of the woods too-- who knows!

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randomrichards · 6 years ago

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OSCAR 2019 PREDICTIONS: BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

BLACK SHEEP

Having a black friend doesn’t mean you’re not racist. Case in Point: Cornelius Walker.

In 2000, 11-year-old Walker and his family moved out of London after the murder of 10-year-old Nigerian Immigrant Damilola Taylor. His parents think Cornelius will be safer moving to a housing estate in Essex. They are wrong. Not only do they stand out as the only black family in the community, but the neighbourhood is run by 2 gangs. Not long after moving in, Cornelius gets ambushed by a gang of teenage racists.

In a strange move, Cornelius decides to try to fit in. He not only tries to copy their clothing style and accents, but he even bleaches his skin and wears blue contacts to white. Surprisingly, it works. He starts hanging around with the very racists who beat him up. If this were a fictional story, Cornelius would teach them the error of their ways. But real life is not so cut and dry. Instead, they only corrupt them into their destructive habits, trashing cars and wrecking houses just for the hell of it. And being friends with Cornelius doesn’t stop them from being racist as they still spew racial slurs on other black locals.[1] What makes this heartbreaking is the fact Cornelius says nothing.

Now an adult, Cornelius Walker recalls his misguided attempt to “make friends with monsters” to director Ed Perkins. As he speaks, you can hear the hard-learned wisdom in his voice. You can also see guilt in his face when he describes an incident when he beat up an innocent person. After all these years, he comes to understand all this rage came from his trouble relationship with his father.

That troubled relationship brings a portrait of toxic masculinity. His dad acts like a big shot around his family, bragging “I’m a lion.” At that age, Cornelius looked up to his father and wanted to be like him. So, when he felt he had to keep the beatings to himself, fearing he wouldn’t look manly. But when his father loses his job, he becomes an angry man. And yet through it all, Cornelius still wanted his father’s love.

Ed Perkins intercuts the interview with reenactments of these events, with Kai Francis Lewis portraying the young Cornelius. This results in many powerful scenes, including one of a little kid racial slurs at Cornelius or the real Cornelius watching himself getting beaten up.

The one flaw in this movie is that we never know how Cornelius realized how he got out of the gang. It just cuts to the young and old Cornelius facing each other in a field. It feels like it hasn’t truly finished.

You can catch this one on YouTube.

· END GAME

Streaming on Netflix is this documentary about professionals and volunteers who help the ailing face the end of their lives.

We follow the work of medics and social workers in Medical Centres and Hospices across San Francisco as they meet with ailing patients to discuss difficult decisions. Do they want to go through with Chemo? Do they want to spend the last moments of their lives in a Hospice or at home with their family?

This film feels like a companion piece for the previous Oscar nominated documentary Extremis. Both follow the work of medics who assist ailing patients. Both documentaries face the uncomfortable issue of death with tender care. As a result, both films are very emotional short films that may cause the audience to tear up. On case in this film is for Mitra, a middle-aged wife and mother with thyroid cancer. When her husband shows pictures of her, it’s devastating to see how different she looks from now.

We also get a lot of words of wisdom from the doctors like “I think it’s healthy people who think about how they want to die and sick people who think about how they want to live.” Most of that wisdom comes from hospice caregiver BJ Miller, MD. Despite having no legs and only one hand, Miller still cares for ailing patients.

· LIFEBOAT

Every year, thousands of North Africans flee to the Mediterranean seas in hopes of migrating to Europe. They are forced into overcrowded rubber boats by human traffickers with no life jackets, no food and no water. Tragically, thousands drown on their way there. Fortunately, a German Non-profit organization Sea Watch dispatches volunteer ships to rescue boats in distress off the coasts of Libya. Lifeboat journeys with one such boat.

This documentary reminds me a lot of previous nominated documentary 4.1 Miles. They both deal with boats who rescue migrants trapped at sea in rubber boats. To be honest, I feel like I’ve already seen this short film and would probably be repeating myself. You can just read my previous review of that movie to know this movie. But then again, I see a strong importance making more documentaries like these because documentary shorts have a hard time getting an audience. The reason I was able to see these two was because Magazines like the New Yorker post them on YouTube.

One significant difference is that we hear from the refugees themselves. Coming from places like Cameroon or Cote D’ivore, these people talk about being kidnapped and imprisoned in Libya, and then blindfolded and thrown on these boats where they have no idea where they are going.

We also get some words of wisdom from Captain Jon Castle. “Rationality is overplayed. The brain and the mind are a useful tool, but the heart is where your real thinking comes from.”

You can catch this one on YouTube.

· A NIGHT AT THE GARDEN

On February 20, 1939, Madison Square Garden played host to the American Nazi Rally attended by 20,000 people. Director Marshall Curry presents footage of that night.

This event advertised itself as “An American Rally��. This is only a hint of how these people wrap their hateful group in a package of patriotism. Across the rally you see Nazis marching with American flags and Nazis making speeches in front of a giant portrait of George Washington. But under their empty rhetoric, they barely hide their hateful agenda ranting about the “Jewish Controlled Press.” It’s tragic we can still see this rhetoric being used to this day.

Then there’s a frightening moment, when a protester jumps on stage and gets attacked by the guards. You can only watch in horror as that protester gets swallowed up by the mob, while children laugh. What makes this moment sick is the smug smile of the presenter who puts on an aloof demeanor. It’s a reminder never to always see through for the façade of “civility.”

The only funny thing in this image of Hockey and Basketball games being advertised next to the Nazi Rally.

You can watch this on Vimeo.

· PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE

Well, here’s another reason it sucks to be a woman in a third world country. In India, many young women can’t afford sanitary pads, so they are forced to use old cloths for their periods. Many will drop out at school the moment they hit puberty. Of course, it doesn’t help that menstruation is still a taboo subject around these communities.[2] Churches won’t even allow any girls in during their periods.

But Arunachalam Muruganatham wants to change that. Determined to make India a 100% pad using country, he has invented a device to make safe, affordable pads. Many women seize on this opportunity to make these pads and sell them door to door. We witness the efforts of these women in this new Netflix Documentary short.

The film looks at the stigmatization of menstruation in India. First, director Rayka Zehtabchi asks teen boys and girls if they understand menstruation. Some girls are too embarrassed to answer. Boys ask if it’s “some kind of illness.” Then girls talk about the discomfort of using cloths for their period; one recalls her clothes getting soaked. And then there’s the social stigmatization. Many are afraid to buy pads because of all the men around.

With these in mind, the women regard the pad machine as a symbol of liberation. They even call the pads “Fly” because they “help girls rise and soar.”

We also meet with Sneba, a woman who dreams of joining the New Delhi Police. Believing girls don’t have much freedom she sets herself on this goal “to save [herself] from marriage.”

Who Will Win?

I’m going to say this will be a runoff between Black Sheep and Period. End of Sentence. The former makes you reevaluate your perceptions of race. The later sees women in third world countries changing their lives for the better.

[1] It clear they regard Cornelius as “one of the good ones.”

[2] Unfortunately, menstruation is still a bit taboo around here as well.

#Oscars #academy award nominee #2019 academy awards #academy awards #best documentary short #black sheep #end game #netflix documentary #lifeboat #a night at the garden #period end of sentence #the pad project

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ahmedgoderich76-blog · 7 years ago

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datingadviceonreddit · 7 years ago

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Joining #throwawaynation to tell this story. I have an awesome life. Great grades, cheerleader, great group of girl friends, awesome family support. One of my best friends is a guy, let's call him Chip. Chip has always had a terrible home and family life, both parents are addicts, etc. Chip is a big-time womanizer himself, cheating on the various beautiful and upstanding women he's dated, and has struggled with substance abuse and has trouble with authority figures sometimes. Despite all this, Chip is an outstanding athlete (scholarship offers in multiple sports), made a top-notch score on his college entrance exams (top five percent), sincerely loves people and has a winning personality, and is unquestionably the most popular and good-looking guy in our school. Literally all the teachers and other students love him, and most of the parents are charmed by his personality and feel bad for him because of his upbringing so they let his various indiscretions slide.Part of the reason he's so well-adjusted is because since we were young kids, several stable, religious families (mine included) in our school and community have taken an interest in Chip and sort of taken him in. He has a bedroom in my house in addition to similar guest room situations in several of our other friends' homes. My parents love him, he has a great relationship with my mom (who is my best friend), he mentors my little brother in baseball, he has attended Christmas dinners and weddings as my plus-one dozens of times. We have basically been brother-and-sister close for five years now. He has a similar relationship with another one of my best friends and her family, and a bunch of the guys he plays sports with are like his brothers as well.I'm sure you've seen where this is going, but I've basically been in love with Chip for the last three years. I've loved staying so close to him as friends, but there are times when its been really challenging to have him sleeping just on the other side of the wall from me while I lay in my bed imagining myself drawing his name in my notebook like a schoolgirl. I've never pushed the envelope with him romantically because we ARE such great friends and he is like part of the family; I wouldn't want to bust up the whole situation if he didn't reciprocate my feelings, or if we tried things and they didn't work out. He is also a legitimate serial cheater and most of his girlfriends are objectively prettier and more popular than me; I've got pretty good social standing but he literally has the pick of any female he wants on our campus.Around February, a few things started happening. He had recently started dating a new girl after a long-term relationship of over a year (in which he repeatedly cheated on a gorgeous sweetheart who was a scholarship athlete, religious girl, high academic achievement, etc). When he hit his first rough patch with new girl, let's call her Diana, he came to my house to talk to me about it. No big deal, happens all the time. Typical best friend stuff. I put my feelings for him aside and gave him the best advice I could. I've never tried to split him up with other girls or anything like that since I'm not sure I'd ever have the guts to make a move on him myself. Well, long story short, as we laid in his bed talking about things, watching tv, on our phones, we started getting weirdly closer together like physically. And when he got up to leave for the night and I followed, he turned around, grabbed my waist, and full-on kissed me on the lips. Sweetest moment of my young romantic life to that point, but we literally never brought it up again. The next day he was right back with Diana, and we were right back to being just best friends. It was never weird between us, but we literally NEVER mentioned anything about that night.Fast forward to this summer, family trip to see our closest Major League Baseball team, we invite Chip because he loves baseball, this team, and that's what he and my younger brother have bonded over. We go to the game, great time as a family, go to dinner afterward, well my mom and dad are wiped so they let Chip drive us back to the hotel which was a little ways outside the city center. I sat up front to help him navigate while the rest of the fam snoozed. Well again we start talking with low voices, I get that same vibe I got laying in the bed with him that night, and without a word he just slips his hand in mine and we hold hands silently in the dark for a few miles. I was so excited/nervous/happy. Just like last time, though, we never mentioned it. Just right back to best buds.Alright, so fast forward to what set this post in motion. I've of course replayed those two incidents in my mind a million times. Then this morning Chip came to church with my family, which he does frequently. It's almost like an homage to everything our families do for him. He sat between me and my mom, and I saw my mom kind of affectionately pat/rub his back when he leaned over with his elbows on his knees (that's kind of important for later). Midway through the sermon, he typed a note on his phone that said "Lunch date?" and passed it to me. We made plans to go eat together after church, but it was no big deal. Using the word "date" didn't stand out since he's still with Diana. His birthday was two days ago, and he and Diana are going into the metropolis nearest us to celebrate tonight with a fancy dinner, etc. After we got back to my house after having a nice, perfectly normal lunch together, he went into his room to take a nap. Like I'd done a thousand times before, I went in and laid next to him to catch a few winks myself. Literally we've been doing this for years. As he slept with his back to me, I reached out and started stroking his back lightly with my fingernails. No idea what came over me or why I did it other than I had seen my mom do it during church. After just a few seconds, he turned over to face me without opening his eyes. He grabbed the hand I'd been rubbing his back with, kissed it, then sort of loosely held it while he lay there sleeping. Again, not a word between us. A few minutes later, as I lay there basically shaking trying to figure all this out, he reaches out and starts playing with my hair (eyes still closed, not a word). After a few minutes of laying there loving it while simultaneously having my mind race at the possibilities, I got up and left the room. I was so confused and overwhelmed. He walked out an hour or two later to spend his evening celebrating his birthday with Diana like nothing had happened. Perfectly normal interactions with my whole family, including me.Reddit, I'm shook. I'm pretty sure I'm in love with him, as much as I can be at my age anyways. Being around him is intoxicating. I love people seeing us together, and some of my best memories are with him. But I love the stable relationship my family has with him and I know how important those relationships are to him, me, and the rest of my family. He is also still with Diana, who is a beautiful, brilliant pageant girl with a rockin' body who can party with him (I don't drink or use drugs and I'm a virgin by choice). I don't want to be one of the girls he sees on the side, and I don't want to do anything behind her back. There's also the fact that if we got together, it'd be hard for me to trust him since it's basically an open secret that he can't/won't stay faithful to any girl, and any outcome other than our marriage would basically cost us a family member. He's got problems, but he has a good heart and is as sweet, mature, and sincere as any man I've ever met. He's been taking care of himself since he was young and he's determined to use his talents to make his life as an adult what he never had as a child. I want to at least ask him about everything that's happened, but what if I'm misreading it all and we're just really affectionate friends, or he starts pressuring me to be a "side chick" which I have no interest in being, and it wrecks our whole situation? I can't picture him intentionally hurting or misleading me, but I feel like I'm in a really precarious spot here.Waaaay TL;DR my best friend has a tough family life and lives with my fam part time, I've been in love with him for years, he's sending mixed signals, help via /r/dating_advice

#dating #dating advice #reddit

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fatgirltales · 8 years ago

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Let me take you on a trip back to a much simpler time, when we didn’t have to worry about adult responsibilities and the complexities that come with them. So please, if you will, enter into my pseudo-TARDIS for a fun trip back in time to…

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]ay 1990

After a long, cold winter, it was finally springtime in Northeast Ohio; the trees and flowers were bursting forth in all of their glory and the air was warm once again. I just turned eighteen and looked forward to graduating high school in less than a month.

I was also beyond excited to attend my Senior Prom.

I’m sure this excitement for prom sounds normal for a typical teenage girl about to graduate high school, however, I wasn’t one to follow the crowd or popular trends – I was a rebellious Punk Rock teenager. Nonetheless, I decided to attend this conformist social gathering with my friends – in my outrageous non-conformist style, of course.

There was, however, one enormous obstacle standing between me and having the time of my life at my Senior Prom – Mom-ster.

Mom-ster said I wasn’t allowed to attend my prom because I was fat.

Mom-ster, in her infinite wisdom determined that not only would I never find a dress to fit me (mind you, I was a size 18) but if I managed to find a guy to take me, not only would he expect me to “put out”, but everyone at the prom would make fun of me behind my back.

“You’ll look like the dancing hippos from Fantasia in a prom dress!” She claimed she was saving me the embarrassment and heartache of ending up like Sissy Spacek in the 1976 movie adaptation of Stephen King’s horror novel, Carrie. Mom-ster always had a penchant for the melodramatic.

Being a brave and rebellious punk rock girl, I decided I would go to my prom, no matter what Mom-ster said.

I asked my “totally cool and awesome” friend Charlie, who graduated two years earlier, to escort me to the prom. I had a crush on Charlie my junior and senior years of high school, but it was only because he was such a devastatingly cool punk rock guy; those were a rare commodity in my circle of friends and in my school. We always had an awesome time together no matter what we did or who we were with. He, of course, said yes to taking me to the prom. I knew we were going to have a blast!

Deciding to have my dress made, not only because of what Mom-ster said about not being able to find one to fit me but because I wanted to look different, I shopped the pattern section of our local sewing shop. I found two different dresses: I liked the bodice and skirt of one and the sleeves of the other. My friends’ mom and grandmother made my dress for me.

I felt like a Punk Rock Cinderella getting ready for the ball.

Dad knew I was going to the Prom, but that was our little secret. In the event I got “busted” by Mom-ster, he would deny all knowledge. I agreed to his terms before he dropped me off at my friends’ house so I could get ready for the evening’s festivities.

My dress turned out even better than I had imagined. Crafted in taffeta, black of course, with a ruched bodice, flared and flowery straps with stretch lace sleeves, my dress looked amazing on my young, curvy body. I accessorized my look with a pair of hi-top black Converse “Chucks”. I was indeed a Punk Rock Cinderella.

Charlie, also dressed in all black, wore his Sid Vicious choker chain with a padlock instead of a tie, along with his slacks tucked into a handsome pair of shiny black 14 eyelet Doc Martens – the ultimate punk rock fashion accessory.

Between the both of us, my Punk Rock date and I had one set of eyes, since we both wore our bangs covering the left side of our faces. Looking back now, we were more Goth than Punk, but we always considered ourselves a hybrid of Punk and Goth.

I gave Charlie a black rose boutonniere (a white rose sprayed black), and he gave me an amazing armband corsage adorned with mini red roses and carnations. We were ready to (punk) rock it out at my Senior Prom!

Once Charlie and I arrived, everyone wanted our photo – Charlie and I were without question the coolest duo at my prom. We gladly obliged my classmates and posed for some photos.

There were no reenactments from the movie Carrie, as Mom-ster had predicted.

I brought heels and wore them for our formal photo – I really wish I hadn’t though. My friends’ mom told me, “You’ll want to have at least one normal photo from your Senior Prom when you’re a lot older and looking back. After all, you’re not going to be Punk Rock forever.”

I cringe now looking back at my prom photo, in which I wore black kitten heels with bows.

Punk, it turns out, was not some “teenage phase” Charlie and I were just going through.

Charlie and I spent some time after the prom at the Lake Erie shore, walking the local pier and listening to The Cure’s latest album, Disintegration. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect night. The best part was that unlike in the story Cinderella, I didn’t have to be home by midnight and nothing turned into a pumpkin.

Later that night when I got back to my friends’ house, she asked me if Charlie and I kissed – my immediate response was, “Ewww, no! It’s Charlie!” She was perplexed, as she knew I liked him.

Somewhere deep down inside, I knew Charlie didn’t like girls – and I’m sure he knew, too. Charlie was well-hidden, deep in the closet back then. We had a small group of friends we regularly hung out with – I am sure we all knew Charlie was gay before he finally came out and announced it.

Recently, while talking with an acquaintance about our proms, I shared this tale with him. He responded with roaring laughter and teased me, “So let me get this straight, unlike your prom date, you took a gay guy you had a crush on to your Senior Prom? Haha! That makes you a fat ass fag hag!”

Both agitated and enraged by his ignorance, I looked at him and replied, “So let ME get this straight, according to your backward and outdated thinking, I went to prom with a gay guy and he went with a big fat chick. That’s what you’re saying, right? What’s with the ridiculous labels? You’re no better than my mom!”

After a few moments of silence, followed by him turning about ten different shades of red and having sweat bead up on his forehead, he awkwardly apologized. Being completely embarrassed, he agreed that his thinking was ignorant and seriously needs updating – and that he needs to be more vigilant before opening his mouth.

Afterward, as I was driving home I thought to myself, why are there still people who need to label others? Didn’t these people get the memo that shaming someone for their sexuality or body type (or anything for that matter!) just isn’t acceptable behavior anymore?

This is, after all, the twenty-first century.

Sure, we might not have flying space cars like in the cartoon The Jetson’s, but we have come a long way. Unfortunately, there are some people out there who still have thinking that resembles The Flintstone’s – prehistoric and outdated.

Why do some people still feel the need to label, categorize and bash others for their differences? I’m certain the world would be so much better without all the ignorance.

We are all different, yet human. Let’s embrace that instead.

Charlie and I were two young adults who had a fun night together at my Senior Prom. I wouldn’t trade the time we shared or our lifelong friendship for anything.

To this day, Charlie and I still rock out in our Doc Martens and listen to the glorious Punk and dark wave music of our teen years. We have the attitude of those rebellious days still coursing through our veins. We had a blast when we were younger, especially at my Senior Prom, and we still happily reminisce about those wonderful and carefree days.

Charlie remains one of my very best friends, even though we don’t see each other all that often. I look forward to times spent not only with him but with his wonderful husband as well. Our amazing lifelong friendship is based on unconditional love, as it should be with all relationships.

I don’t call Charlie my “gay friend” and I’m quite sure he doesn’t call me his “big fat friend” – Charlie is my friend and I love him.

Period. End of discussion.

Charlie – 1988

Me & Charlie in our formal prom pic

Best prom duo ever!

My “Chucks” at prom

Me and Charlie at a high school alumni gathering in 2010

Charlie & Kevin 2010

The following playlist was carefully and excitedly put together by Charlie and myself, recalling those amazing, beautiful, sometimes challenging, yet extremely fun days of our youth. We hope you enjoy these songs as much as we do! 🙂

Prom 1990

Punk Rock Girl – The Dead Milkmen

Living In Oblivion (original version) – Anything Box

Why Can’t I Be You? – The Cure

Personal Jesus – Depeche Mode

Bizarre Love Triangle – New Order

She’s In Parties – Bauhaus

Devil Inside – INXS

Lips Like Sugar – Echo and the Bunnymen

Peek-A-Boo – Siouxsie & The Banshees

Orange Crush – R.E.M.

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

Under The Milky Way – The Church

Rock Lobster – The B-52’s

Love Is The Slug – Fuzzbox

Fascination Street – The Cure

The Ballroom Blitz – Sweet

How Soon Is Now – The Smiths

The Promise – When In Rome

Space Age Love Song – A Flock Of Seagulls

Don’t Let’s Start – They Might Be Giants

Add It Up – Violent Femmes

Head Like A Hole – Nine Inch Nails

Work For Love (extended version) – Ministry

Headhunter – Front 242

Join In The Chant – Nitzer Ebb

Lucretia My Reflection – The Sisters of Mercy

You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) – Dead or Alive

Chains Of Love – Erasure

Dead Man’s Party – Oingo Boingo

Mexican Radio – Wall Of Voodoo

The Reflex – Duran Duran

Red Red Wine – UB40

Sunday Bloody Sunday – U2

Beds Are Burning – Midnight Oil

The One I Love – R.E.M.

World Shut Your Mouth – Julian Cope

Rip It Up – Orange Juice

I Melt With You – Modern English

Dr. Martens Boots – Alexei Sayle

It’s A Sin – Pet Shop Boys

Things Can Only Get Better – Howard Jones

A Girl Like You – The Smithereens

One Way Or Another – Blondie

Dancing With Myself – Billy Idol

Never Let Me Down Again – Depeche Mode

The Sun Always Shines On TV – a-ha

Running Up That Hill – Kate Bush

Desire (Come and Get It) – Gene Loves Jezebel

(Keep Feeling) Fascination – The Human League

Pump It Up – Elvis Costello and The Attractions

Fever – The Cramps

The Great Commandment – Camouflage

Underneath The Radar – Underworld

West End Girls – Pet Shop Boys

Eighties – Killing Joke

Burning Down The House – Talking Heads

Green Haze – Elvis Hitler

Higher Ground – The Red Hot Chili Peppers

Story Of My Life – Social Distortion

Mountain Song – Jane’s Addiction

Anarchy In The UK – Sex Pistols

London Calling – The Clash

Holiday In Cambodia – The Dead Kennedys

I Wanna Be Sedated – The Ramones

My Way – Sid Vicious

My Big (Fat Gay) Punk Rock Prom #mixtape #playlist #prom #classicalternative #punk #goth #Ilovethe80s Let me take you on a trip back to a much simpler time, when we didn't have to worry about adult responsibilities and the complexities that come with them.

#classic alternative #high school memories #mix tape #mixtape #playlist #prom

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