Dirty Laundry Blog 1/20/2013

I am living with a former roommate and his once "little" boy. Today, I took this 12 year old out to lunch and to the laundromat. He's a really strange little man, shares some of the high points of MY sense of humor and to be honest I kinda like the kid, besides being a filthy, vile 12 year old male, of course. He brought his own laundry this time. He did it all by himself, from wash to fold. His father spends zero time with him, he won't even try to get to know the kid. It's HIS loss too, because the child is fun, smart, goofy, and creative. He is artistic and he can sing like no 12 year old I've ever heard. 

Paranoid and neurotic, one of those "doomsday prepper", conspiracy theorists, the father almost never leaves his room unless he's gone to work. He is so on edge all the time, enraged at the world, afraid "they" are coming to take his guns, "ready" to defend his rights, angry that he doesn't have a wife, humiliated and embarrassed that his son doesn't know how to do pre-teen boy things like use tools and operate a lawn mower. 

Can someone please tell me how a young boy learns how to use tools or operate lawnmowers? I must be stupid, I don't understand this skill developing with hand-eye coordination during some early pubescent osmosis, I thought these things were taught  to a son by his father. In this house, I am the one who puts snow blowers together and changes tires and jump starts the cars... All of these things were taught to (this girl) by a father and a few ex-boyfriends who were taught by their fathers or father figures. Is it MY responsibility to teach the boy how to do these things now as well? Does it matter to me one bit whether the kid ever learns this stuff? Yeah, it matters, and if the kid doesn't learn, I get stuck doing it anyway... 

I work all week, I try to make some sort of social life for myself, I spend time with the boy and teach him some sort of a life skill. He's learning to cook, he's really pretty good at it and he loves to do it, however... cleaning isn't his favorite part ;) No biggie, he's growing up a little more every day and he's learning about living among diverse groups and how to respect others in his community. He's interacting more with cashiers, waitresses, and service workers. His father teaches him how to hate, how to be rude, and how to be angry. The kid really isn't interested in the racism, rhetoric, or propaganda that his father pulls off the internet and preaches to him. He enjoys the time he spends with his friends, at school, and with me. He's increasingly disgusted with his father, saying heartbreaking things, he cannot please him no matter what he does, he's really reluctant to continue to try.

He's not my son, he calls me Mom, he hugs me when I come home at night. He tells me all about his day and wants to hang out with me until he goes to bed. I don't want to hurt this kid, I won't tell him what I think of his father's decisions or thought processes. I can't be the person he bad mouths his own father to, I can't be the one he runs to when he's decided not to listen to him anymore. I am not willing or able to be that person. I need this time to be productive time for me to pull my head out of my ass and support myself better, not take care of everybody else.  Why's it got to be so fucking painful? I am overwhelmed with the guilt of having not played this role in my own child's life, and now I am in this situation where another child of no relation is crying out to me for guidance. I can't NOT do anything.

Take the POWER Back, BREAK FREE, THINK FREELY

You and I couldn't possibly have anything in common today because: __________.
I'm black and you're white, I'm short and you're tall, I'm fat and you're thin, you went to Yale and I was in jail, I'm a Democrat and you're a Republican, you're Jewish and I'm Buddhist, you like cats and I like dogs, you prefer the city and I love the countryside.

As children, we are taught from a very young age to recognize and identify that which is "different" from ourselves. In some cases, this is where the hate seed is planted.


We all have a very human tendency to comprehend things in any number of different ways. Each one of us can hear the same story and interpret it differently, so consider the variety of factors, such as how the information is introduced or is explained to us, our level of understanding, how it is interpreted by us, and how we use the information, what if any will be incorporated into our lives.

What is the most powerful tool they have against us? 
The answer is us. 

With so many layers of fundamental differences, how could we actually ever see the root of our trouble is so simple?

This is precisely why there is such emphasis on our differences. Separation feeds ignorance and that will feed fear. This has gone on for generations and generations, and governments use it to cloud the fact that they are not the voice of the majority.

Unity builds strength to overcome and conquer.

Walk with me down the hallway of a very well known children's hospital, in one of these rooms to the right or left you may find your child desperately clinging to life while waiting for an organ transplant. For your entire life, you've been programmed to believe any combination of hateful things about a specific group of people living among us. Are you going to stop the very surgery which could save your child's life just to make sure that the organ she was matched with didn't come from one of your sworn "enemies"? Of course, you wouldn't. 

Can you now see that whether you see things biologically, fundamentally, emotionally, socially, or psychologically...  At our very core, we are all the same. We all have the instinct to bond with and be nursed by our mothers. We all long for companionship, learning, fun, love, sex, excitement, etc. We all require food, water, sunlight, sleep, and shelter to survive. We all have the same internal organs.

Perhaps before we take on marketing for "everyone on earth", we are best to start at the rudimentary. Shut off the TV and try to keep it simple by looking in the mirror with an honest focus. See ways we can break the cycle of negativity starting with things that we actually can control, ourselves. Maybe come up with a list of positives in our lives... 

What are we grateful for? What makes us smile?

Then take those answers and share them with another person that we may not appear to have anything in common with. Look at a stranger and find a positive about them, and pay them a compliment. Not to receive one back, but to know we dropped a hit of positive energy in their day whether they asked for it or not. Make a game of it, but be genuine in our words toward each other, even if we do this just once a day, it will change our whole world for the better. Providing our world with the counterbalance is imperative. It won't be long before we find out just how much the little things DO matter! 

We would probably benefit greatly by putting down the gadgets and "reality TV" and other tripe we've lowered our standards to be subjected to. This would provide us with a real-world ability to increase our awareness of real events happening in our world. People still do nice things, animals still save lives, kids can still be kind to each other, sunny days come after the storm which was needed as a way to cleanse the land, at times people recover from cancer and other diseases, accidents can often be prevented, tragedy narrowly averted, marriages can sometimes be saved, communities unite in times of disaster, even criminals are sometimes rehabilitated and choose to devote their lives to helping others. 

Test yourselves. Try to take a day, or even a week off... from TV and the so-called "news" that is being fed to us by the negatively biased media outlets. If we actually LIVE a little rather than EXIST allowing life to be force-fed to us from some man-made digital God, we might stop actively seeking the BAD in every culture, person, place, idea, opinion, or situation, and maybe even allow our minds to let in a few rays of GOOD again. 

If you ever wonder why small children are so full of love,

it's because they haven't been PROGRAMMED by news reports, in fact, when the news is on, they find something else to explore and enjoy... Perhaps it's an instinct or an allergy to bullshit!

We CAN all be happier, more content, and more motivated to make the NEXT positive change in our lives if we would just open our eyes a little wider, expand our focus, get off our ASSES, and use our brain the way it was designed... To think FREELY and to LEARN. 

WE STILL RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DECIDE HOW MUCH SHIT WE ARE WILLING TO TAKE!