Epitaph

There wasn't anything to do at work, so I left early, rather than keep the chair warm. Upon entering the freeway I found myself almost in the middle of the fast lane with this thought in my head: "Dear God, If you didn't want me to run, you shouldn't have let me out. Love, Elaine"

This is what I want for my epitaph.

I just finished applying for the bar, take 2

Rant Fest

Aint no such thing as a private choice. Sorry. Even our thoughts affect each other. On the other hand, I don't want to hear about your private choices unless you are in my life.

I love my brother who is gay and I think we should make many laws protecting beautiful gay folks like he is because they have been mistreated. But I don't think that means I should be pressured to believe the definition of marriage should change. Let them have all the rights associated with marriage. I'm just not ready to call marriage anything but between one man and one woman. Quit judging me for that. I  am an advocate for legislation that mitigates some of the horrible discrimination of the past in this area. It is not right to bully anyone, ever.  

Also, I am pro-life. that DNA in her body isn't HERS, it actually is NOT part of her body, it is someone else's DNA. It isn't her right to destroy it because it isn't truly her property, yes I said property because it is the same attitude we used to have about slaves. They are property. We have a right to them. No, we don't..Abortion is about the right to life, not the right to privacy, and the obstetrician is hopefully treating that "parasite" or "clump of cells" as though it is a new life, coming into being. I am a feminist but I don't believe abortion helps women, not even necessarily in the short term. We need support and better awareness and services related to adoption, not all of our media time pushing the idea that if you believe in life you therefore do not stand up for women's "rights". I am a pro-life feminist.

Population control: I am number six of eleven. I was neglected but I believe I was the exception. In general I think large families are the only thing that truly teach us how to coexist. Even in my experience our large family produced two doctors, two attorneys, a couple of engineers, an accountant, a contractor, a couple of nurses, a physicist and a couple of computer science gurus. We know how to coexist, we KNOW how to share a small house, meager resources, we KNOW how to share a bathroom. We are understandably confused by narcissism and the inability of most to look past their own noses. Large families are what society needs to learn how to play, no also WORK well together, to sacrifice for the greater good, to understand resources are finite, that if my friend comes to play today, all my siblings friends can't come on the same day, that parents are not perfect or immortal...all in all that we must work together if we are to survive. If society understood that working together is NOT a suggestion but a necessity, our society would be a lot different. Those things aren't understood well outside of the HOV lane.

Two things I know: 1) God is real. 2) I am not Him. Some spiritual "thoughts" that bug me: "God is within you, the power is within you." That along with "follow your truth and let everyone else follow theirs" and "everyone is right" and "evil is not real, only mental illness is real". There are so many lies/ half-truths. These "spiritual" sayings are shortly followed by efforts towards more individualism,  encouragements to walk away from our loved ones because they are "toxic", and the sooner and the more completely the better. Send these "toxic" people away as fast as you can, send them away from you so they will not disrupt your happy place. Send them to a therapist who will talk to them once a week and charge them lots of money and eventually put them on pills that really don't change the core issue that needs to be addressed. Send them the message no one loves them quite enough to listen, not even for half an hour, not without sending the bill. The core issue, in my opinion, with some of the mental health crisis, is that no one, not even loved ones, are willing to hang in there with someone for five minutes or five years, whatever it takes. The ideal being pushed on us to just look the other way but don't create conflict. That is the worst advice ever. That is called apathy at best, abandonment at worst, it isn't working, and I doubt it will. Sorry I KNOW there are real mental health issues, I have a few, my loved ones have a few. I am a nurse, I have studied the constitutional issues that go along with mental disability law. I know it is not this simple. But a lot of it really is.

There are things worth fighting for. This is as close as I have come to a full on fight. We are all shriveling into our corners, hoping someone else will do it.

End of a long study day. I needed to vent and I'm tried of smiling and waving.. If you made it to the end, thank you. Sorry if I overwhelmed or you don't agree. I'll still love you if you'll still love me.

Quit Walking Away

Over the last several years I have noticed a growing trend promoting, "getting rid of the negativity", which has evolved to sayings promoting getting rid of the negative people in your life. For your own good, they say. Turn away. Walk away. Save yourself. Let them get "help".  The problem with this is that it leaves the person without help. Being without help is one thing but feeling without help makes the nature of the problem even worse. Feelings count when it comes to negativity and other related afflictions. Sometimes an appointment can not happen immediately, sometimes it just can't happen in time, sometimes the right doctor or medication takes way too long to find.

Often a person just needs someone in their life to commit to them, come what may.

"They are just trying to get attention" is the thing that is often said about people who talk about suicide but "aren't really serious".

I submit anyone talking about suicide, while not necessarily an imminent threat to themselves, needs your love and attention, and not your walking away. Sometimes the emergency room will send your negative person right back home because they don't have a "plan".

We have a lot of turning away happening. We have a lot of people going on more and more medications, medications that are not fixing our basic human deficit, the failure to care for each other. It is time we turned back to each other, it is time we took care of each other, it is time we realized we are all family.

My son posted this blog post yesterday: http://outlivemd.blogspot.com/2014/12/thoughts-on-suicide.html

 I agree with it and would encourage you to consider it before you look away thinking, "they are just trying to get attention". They are. They need it. We all need each other. It is that simple.

Am I too late?

What is your worst pet peeve when you drive? Mine is a slower car who gets in front of me, forcing me to slow down. Don't do that. Don't do it to me driving, or at church, or in a doorway, or in any other way that impedes my progress. I get in my own way enough that when someone else gets in my way, it is an acute reminder. A serious and constant urgency has fueled my life, an urgency that there is a lot to do, a great impatience for the time it takes to get from point A to point B. Deep breathing is often employed by me in these situations. Lately, I have a new recognition of just how urgently I feel, of how fast the years are flying by, of how little I have done compared to what I want to do. I want to be of use, but it seems sometimes the best thing I can do is simply to let another car in when the traffic is bad. I hope that gesture helps, I hope it has ripple effects, I hope it was good I got up this morning.

This week I arrived for class two minutes late and was not allowed in. I was actually quite prepared for class that day but had somehow had not added enough time for traffic. I was too late and lost points for not attending.

Am I too late to be here on earth? I am here on earth when it seems unlikely it will go back to Christian values (instead Christian values are changing, now we are tolerant of almost all behaviors and intolerant of people with "old-fashioned" values). All the stuff I believe in? No one wants to hear it, except others who believe it too. What good will my fervent belief do for others?

I got a divorce, after 24 years. Now I am in another rather tenuous marriage, and I am wondering if I am too late to have an intact family. Ever.

I am told I have a "mission in life", that I should "prepare myself with knowledge". But was it then? Is it over now? Will my three degrees help me to be of any real use?

I want to have more integrity about the way I spend my time. Are my habits too engrained?

I work in the elder law clinic. There are many divorces in the silver years. Not a lot can be had but solitude. They literally fight over social security checks, they literally get back together even though one has tried to hurt the other in some way.

I'm pretty sure I'm not too late for grandkids.

"Peace is not the absence of war, it is..."

I googled the above statement and found lots of endings to that sentence.
Many feel peace IS the absence of war, that if we just all be "nice" to each other, that would equal peace. What do you think? There is definitely a lot of value to being nice. Just holding the tongue, not to mention the fist or the gunfire, could prevent a lot of problems! But should we stuff things? Should we not deal? How far should we take "nice"?

My life experience begs to differ; in fact, the sweeping of issues under the rug, or the unwillingness to stand for truth in the name of "being nice" is not a Christlike policy. This mentality, in my experience, eventually breeds rage. It could be argued this version of "peace" actually leads to war.


4 Nephi 1:15
...There was no contention in the land, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the people.

Matthew 10:34

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

I also do not believe killing evil people results in peace. OBL has just been killed; he was an icon for terrorism so that is a huge moral boost. However, I have noticed that in the "war on terrorism", when we kill one, another pops up.

To me, it is all about dealing from the basis of a love of God. The God I know is a God of action; He does not look the other way when His precious children are being stopped in their progress, but is a fierce defender of agency, of whatever promotes life, which is not the same as the deadness that is the result of ignoring truth.

What is peace to you?

By the way...
Apparently I had set my comments to "moderate" and never knew. I just found a bunch of comments from over a year ago. If anyone stumbles across this who took the brunt of my ignorance, I am sorry!

intolerance, hate, or politics?

The blurring of the lines of demeaning behavior is killing us... What is demeaning behavior? It is behavior that demeans us. It is bullying, but also it is immorality. It needs to be okay to be against an action; it needs to not be forced onto us that because we are against an action (any action), we are therefore intolerant of that person. We should be intolerant of immorality, especially that immorality that encourages us to view each other as less than. The more we "get" how precious we each are, the happier we will be as individuals and as a society.

The Declaration of Independence, an excerpt

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness---
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,---
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness....(W)hen a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.