justathought

As the world is getting a little crazy around us, the one thing I hold on to is the knowledge that within me is power.  The power to shape my reality and do whatever the heck I want to do with my life.   As each day passes, we are all getting older.  It is time to stop sitting on the sidelines and get in the game. 

In an age when you can see Callie Torres, a character from one of my favorite shows – Grey’s Anatomy, make a female co-worker “see trees” (if only for one episode), one would think that the fear and hysteria related to having a gay person in the family has long since faded.  Why do we have such a problem with accepting people where they are?  Why must everyone dance to someone else’s drum?  In the not too distant past, Californians sent a very clear message with the passing of Proposition 8.  It seemed to say that gay people are different and sent a clear refusal to treat them just the same as everyone else.  By banning their rights to marry, it would seem that a majority have confirmed that their love is at the very least inappropriate. 

Is it any wonder that when a mother recently learned the news that her daughter had a girlfriend, she was overwrought by tears and despair?  We are programmed to think that something is wrong with people when love takes them outside of the societal norm. We become anxious and afraid wondering “who else knows this dirty little secret”.  We beseech our loved ones to keep it to themselves and tell no one.  We stick our head in the sand and pretend that nothing has changed, never realizing that by doing so we have turned out backs on the one we love.   

Why is it that we cry out “not my daughter/son?”  What is it that we truly fear and will we ever get to a time in life when people can just be who they are and love who they love?  Will we ever allow people to love who they love and be afforded the opportunities to celebrate that love in the same ways that heterosexual couples do? 

I did not do much shopping on Black Friday.  I went in search of a laptop, saw the lines at Best Buy were just to long and instead decided to buy a radio for my car.  I have been without the radio for almost three years now.  It was stolen from my car and at the time I decided it was a luxury I could do without. 

While that was the only item I bought on black Friday, I saw throngs of people out shopping away the hours.  Maybe many of them were doing the same thing I was doing .  . .  . picking up a minor item that I had been denying myself for quite some time.  Maybe many of them were out shopping like there was no tomorrow. . . . buying eveything in sight with a for sale sign on it.  I’m not sure which most were doing, but as I watched it all I wondered if I were missing something.  Is the economy not as bad as the media has led me to believe?  Are other consumers much better economists in that they ascribe to the philosophy that the average consumer will be the catalyst needed for jump-starting the economy?

I just don’t know what the answer is to my questions.  I feel compelled to hold my dollars closely. . . .but if we keep tanking in terms of our economy, the money held so closely won’t be worth the paper its printed on.

So again I ask, am I missing something?  Numbers have never been my big thing.  What can I do to process all of this financial data that is filtering into my eardrums and trying to take purchase in my consciousness?