Unfiltered

Okay everyone has been there. When you are trying so hard to keep it all together and all you feel like doing is falling to pieces. Bed seems to be a formidable option to the existence that normally would lull you from its clutches. Gratitude for the people, events, and places in your life struggles to overcome the enlightenment of your overwhelming circumstances. I know that we have all been there when it is trying and difficult to maintain a balance between what pulls you down and what props you up.
I live an existence that permits me to find joy in the little things and to experience the benevolence of open minded people. I fight a stereotype that constantly tries to overpower my existence. I have tried to undermine these and play them as insignificant factors in what determines my day to day survival. I use the term survival because that is what beckons at my door when I lose a moment of focus or succumb to illness. It is difficult in a system that is set against me, to rise up and regain my composure.
I do this through my work. I work at being healthy, I work hard. I work at financial stability, I work hard. I work at raising children, I work hard. I work at all of my extra endeavors and yes I work hard there too. And yet my stereotype tells me that I could work harder. That I should work harder. That I can succeed if I just work harder. This is what our society believes, wants to believe. If the system is unjust, if it could happen to us, if the story of overcoming all obstacles isn't true, than we don't want to exist in that world. We have to believe that hard work is the answer. We shade the truth with rose colored glasses because we crave simplicity. It hurts me that people believe that if we solve our complex problems we shall succeed. This flosses and glosses over the reality that it is today a crap shoot and tomorrow we all could be victims of a system. We blind ourselves to those that need because we all have pain and misery. How unfortunate that we rob ourselves of true generosity. That we refuse to give unless there is a benefit, unless there is progress, unless we see the results, unless we ourselves are perfectly stable. How unfortunate that we tell millions of people that they are to blame, and they are the reason, and they made their choices. How ignorant.
I am exhausted in refuting the belief that I have not earned an existence beyond what I have. That I have not made the choices necessary or absorbed the knowledge deemed vital.
I am sickened by the superiority to which people exclaim that they have earned it because of what they have gone through, what they have endured. Emotional, physical, and spiritual health do not grant or guarantee. Those who work hard in their jobs forget that they did not have to work harder than their jobs (or 5 jobs) to get to somewhere, anywhere. They were allowed their brass ring, their extravagance while making mistakes and remaining unwhole. Their outcome was not determined by their status. Their status was determined by their outcome.
I am for the majority happy and content. Every person has their demon and mine tends to be one of those that draws little to no empathy or sympathy. Yet I have found where I need to be to love, and laugh, and live, and yes to give.
Despite your situation, and without your belief, stand and help, stand and give. You shall receive no joy or hope, you are not supposed too. To benefit a broken system we all must rise and exclaim loudly through our actions, "The world will benefit from my existence despite and because of my stereotype and my fight."


My goal this year is to unfilter as much as possible and to dispel the myths of a generation. I can't wait to share how it goes.........