Choose to Be Amazing or Choose To Continue to Suck – A Rant!

I’m not going to waste one second with blog protocol or Google SEO nonsense, this blog is a Rant, this blog is all about assumptions and the sickening state of humanity. It’s a Rant about hypocrisy and ridiculousness and the absolute need for an ass whooping of us all.

When did we start to hate each other?  No, no, don’t answer that, because that doesn’t matter and that question will lead us into the despicable world of politics.  And for just a few minutes I want us to be humans, to be civil to understand each other and not to look for the holes in a story, or lay blame, but just to listen and to have compassion.  To, like, I dunno, just be people free of judgment and righteousness over stupid petty things.

Do you still have it in you to hear a person’s story and not judge them?  Trash.  Privileged.  Leech. Racist. Bigot. Hitler.  Right-Wing Religious Nut. Snowflake. Millenial.

It’s getting so old. So damn old. Whatever happened to just loving a person because they are human?  Read this quote …

“We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.” – Charles Bukowski

All I can do is scream and Rant,  “RIGHT?!?!?!?”

Now, for the most part I don’t let people or politics or stupidity get to me.  And if I do feel a Rant coming on, I say the Serenity Prayer on repeat until I’m feeling better, because, let’s face it, no blog, no video, no facebook rant new online slots, no meme has ever changed the world.  And most of these things are aimed at a group of people … democrats, republicans, Catholics, LGBT, cops, men, whomever, and it’s unacceptable. We have become animals.

How on earth are we supposed to raise compassionate, kind, loving, and generous kids in such a vile world?

That is the question Dan and I asked ourselves almost 5 years ago when we bought our RV and decided to start traveling full time.  Dropping out of society was the only way we could see to keep our kids hearts pure, loving, kind and compassionate.  It was truly the only way to maintain our influence and not have to fight the bureaucracy and become even more jaded ourselves.

So, basically, drop out is what we did.  And, in doing so, we maintained our love, our genuine love of humanity.  We are able to see beauty in people, for the most part, and make no judgments about who they are or where they came from.  I wish the same could be said for what appears to be the majority of society.

This blog post Rant, it’s fruition onto the Internet comes from the judgmental, politically obtuse, ignorance that so many have subscribed too. Now, before you call me a hypocrite for writing what I just wrote after writing what I wrote in the previous paragraph, let me tell you something.

When people open their mouths and spew hatred, their beauty gets clouded.  I no longer want to know them, I no longer desire to continue speaking … my love for humanity isn’t destroyed, however, simply my love for that one individuals way of thinking is altered.  It’s a natural consequence.

Further, I don’t judge every brown haired, blue eyed, 50-something, slender, Caucasian woman by one less than stellar persons idiocy.  I start anew with each individual person.  If I meet a rude uncaring Christian, I don’t paint all Christians with that brush.  Likewise, if I meet one lazy, unmotivated millennial, I don’t assume all people in that age group are the same.  It would behoove the majority of society to take on this mentality!

But not only that, but even more so, to chill about another family’s stinking choices for their family!

But, I digress.  Heres my Rant.  And with this build-up, I’m sure you’re assuming it’s a wretched display of human nature.  No, it is just the stone that broke the camel’s back.  This woman ruffled my already in a bunch feathers and I was moved to write this all-encompassing Rant.  So without further ado …

The other day, I ran into a friend who in the course of our conversation introduced me to one of her friends.  She said she was an attorney, a mom with two middle-school aged kids and had just moved here from Massachusetts.

Nice.  Right?

She introduced me as a mom to 12, homeschooler and a travel writer.

Usually the 12 kids thing makes people’s mouths gape, but for Shauna, (name has NOT been changed) it was the homeschooling thing. Literally she wasn’t fazed by 12 kids, but when she heard I homeschooled she rolled her eyes and groaned.

I smiled.  I thought I got it.  Here she was an attorney, dressed to the nines, not a hair out of place and impeccable makeup, looking at me, hair up as it always is, leggings, boots, a bunch of cute, yet straggling looking kids who’d been on the mountain boarding all day, cart full of organic stuff … granola mom.  I knew she thought I was a crunchy momma.

Believe it or not, people either think I’m a saint or assume I’m a hippie granola mom.  Personally, I would love to be both, but I fail miserably on both counts.

But, no, she didn’t think I was a granola mom —  that was not it.  She took it upon herself to inform me that she was a “great supporter of our public schools” and that it was lovely that I was “privileged enough to homeschool”, but … and here she went on to grand-stand like she was delivering her closing argument to a jury …

However, I heard nothing after that phrase, “privileged enough to homeschool”.  I could feel the anger building up.  I could feel the heat, my pulse … it’s an Irish thing, the struggle is real, hence the need to Rant to y’all.

First, the word privileged has been destroyed for me for all time.  The word actually makes my blood boil. And when the blood begins to boil I cannot be held responsible for my actions.

Bear with me for a minute …

Personally, I really don’t think anyone is privileged in this life.  It’s a made up concept, used to make each individual person feel better about their immobility, their lack of inspiration in any given area, their guilt, their ‘lot in life” as they call it. (You know, that’s a tricky thing to write, right there, I know what’s coming, but I don’t have the space to address it here, so I’ll sit on it and wait for it.)

But, you see, everyone struggles and everyone suffers.  None of us make it out of this life unscathed.  That’s the way it is.  Just because someone has more money than me sure as shiot doesn’t make them privileged, in fact, if you read the Bible, it kinda makes them screwed.

“When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.””  Matthew 19:22-24

Everyone on this earth has a cross to bear, what matters is how you deal with your cross.  A lot of people, as we’ve seen in recent years, carry it poorly.  But, what you don’t see is the many, more than the former, that carry it with strength and honor. I know more people in this latter category … huge struggles, but unless you knew them personally, you’d never ever know it!

Second, the word privileged should never ever be used in the same sentence as homeschooling.  Plain and simple, homeschooling is a sacrifice, y’all. A real, in the trenches sacrificial choice.  A choice that has a ton of sacrifice attached to it, and absolutely no luxury! Is it clear?  Choice and Sacrifice go alongside the homeschool…”Privileged” my butt!

Obviously, I don’t work, which means Dan bears all the responsibility to provide for all of us.  He works his, albeit sexy, butt off to provide for his family with only one income in a society, that everyone will agree is very much a two-income society!  Luxurious?  Hardly.

It’s a choice that means we have an enormous responsibility to educate our children … parents of school kids complain of copious amounts of homework, I used to too — imagine that times a bazillion, every single day.  I scour curriculum each year, second guess my choices, wake up in the middle of the night to scour curriculum again, debate purchases because, you know, budget.  I stress about what we didn’t do, what I could do better, what the kids don’t know, there simply isn’t enough time in the day, so this stress moves into the night, into the recesses of my brain and accosts me in my sleep!  Privileged?  Not even close.

It’s a choice that means I don’t get a lunch break or sick days or personal days or even 60 minutes to myself for lunch.  Everything I do, I do surrounded by my children.  I workout with them, I shower with them, heck I even pee with them! Luxurious? Pssssh, depends on your definition of luxurious.  Privileged?  What the hell does this word even mean?

It’s a choice that means I have no peace until about 10 pm, when I drag myself through the shower so that I look presentable to my husband who has been working even harder for longer.  Luxurious?  Privileged?  An argument could be made for after-hours luxury, but privileged? Puhleese, we work our collective asses off to keep our marriage strong, resilient and passionate.  That ain’t privilege, that’s hard work.

Homeschooling our kids is a choice that we made and would make again and again because despite all the sacrifices of literally ALL the things that our society values, the alone time, the big house, the luxury cars, the gym memberships, the botox, the high-value vacations, the designer clothes, the therapy sessions, it all means nothing to us.  Nothing.

Now I’m not saying or implying in any way that any of you value the above things either.  All I’m saying is that life is a series of choices, good choices, bad choices and neutral choices.  And everything in our lives flow from these choices.

I simply see our lives, your life, and the lives of everyone around us as a blessing.  We are so blessed to be here, I mean with the odds of becoming a living breathing human being who roams the earth increasingly becoming less and less likely, it’s amazing we are here at all.

Now, in a typical blog, is when I would start saying things like the following,

“So, let’s stop hurling derogatory epithets at each other and start supporting each other, raising each other up, pushing each other to be better versions of ourselves and being open-minded enough to realize that what works for one family, while obviously not necessarily the gold standard, just simply works for that one family.  

We all want a society filled with thriving families.  And remember my choices for my family are not a judgment on your choices that you’ve made for your family any more than your choices are a direct discernment regarding my choices.”

But I’m not going to.  Instead I’m going to end here, with this quick little bit because, I’m still annoyed, you know.  I’m still frustrated, and I’m still not that Saint or the calm little crunchy mommy who does yoga to alleviate her stress  … 🙂

The irony is not lost on me that a lawyer, whose husband, I later learned, is some huge power-house CEO, would call some middle-class mom, who she’s never met, “privileged”.  And to lecture a complete stranger on their supposed privilege?  Bitch please.