Hello from the Other Side

Do ya’ll remember blogs? When everyone had one and we shared them on social media rather than social media being “micro blogging”? I never thought that I would crave a good ol fashion blog war, but I found myself craving just that. Social media is LOUD. There are so many opinions and moral proclamations. You have to think fast and react even faster or you are on the wrong side of history and honestly? That is way too much stress for a space that is a tiny square and lives in my phone. I love Instagram. I love following people like Olivia who runs a ranch in central Texas with her husband and their two kids. Wild Herd Cattle and Kitchen is the kind of content that I live for. Talking about animals and food, our health and how the overall good of humankind can be linked to food and our right to grow and raise it. But then someone comes along in my DMs to tell me how disappointed they are that I am raising my own animals to for meat OR a jackwagon comments how my super coddled farm raised turkey must have costed a million bucks so LUCKY ME and my entire week is trashed. I do not live for that.

In 2020, I found myself in the middle of the biggest confrontation of racism in my lifetime. George Floyd was murdered by a police officer who had every expectation that even though he was filmed killing Mr. Floyd, he would get away with it because he wore a badge. That belief was not an ignorant one, it was one rooted in the understanding of what policing is all about and who exactly is to be policed. If anything Mr. Floyd’s murderer was an honest police officer. He did not act as if killing a Black man in front of a crowd was way outside of the job description.

I had the reaction that almost everyone I know had. Not shock, not surprise but dreadfilled grief. The kind that goes generations deep. And so I used my platform to speak on what I knew. I gained followers and praise. I connected with women who I learned from and respected. I also got caught up. I lost track of my core value system, which is that every human person is made in the Image of God, even white women. Even murdering police officers.

This has happened to me a million times. I get caught up in Us vs Them high conflict and find myself deep on one side, either the Us side or the Them side and I fight to the death. I ignore my family, my responsibilities, the care for my own soul and it is such a convenient way to ignore the deep moral failures of my life by being on the “right side” of history.

I have been on the fighting side of the abortion debate that says there is no reason for a woman to abort a child. I have also been on the side that understands that poverty will make choices for you that you never wanted to make in the first place, especially for women of Color. I have fought against gay marriage and also for it. I have fought so hard that I lost one of my children and countless friends. I am tired of fighting.

I no longer want to add to the noise of it all. I want to write. I write about my thoughts, failings in life as a person, mother and wife. Writing is how I process things. It always has been but what writing is not for me is it is not a way for me to convince anyone of anything. I do not want to be a spokesperson for Catholics or mothers who lose kids to suicide. I do not want to give parenting advice because the truth is that the longer I am a mother, the more I know that I really fucked up.

I do believe in the power of story and that is what I want to do. Tell my story as freely and honestly as I can.

Life is way more complicated than social media allows for. I do not know the circumstances of every other person in the world and the choices they make. I barely know the circumstances of my own life and why I make the choices that I make. Currently I am having a very hard time going to Mass. Not because I doubt for a second that the Catholic Church is the Church Jesus left us, but because I do not see one single leader of this Church who seems to believe that because if they did, they would move heaven and earth to make reparations for the harm this Church brought to this land through Spanish Missions. That is way to complicated to put in a instagram post. It for sure will not win me any points with anyone but that really is the heart of it, it is not about winning points. Or getting speaking gigs. It is just my life. I am just a woman figuring my shit out. Trying to find happiness and safety praying that one day I can make things right with my kids.

Being applauded by the “right” camp isn’t going to give me any of that. So here I am. Blogging like it is 2008 because this is my own corner of the internet where I can be free.