Proper Aging

I think it’s interesting how a person changes as they grow older. I don’t just mean weathered skin, the inability to eat pizza at 2am, or the inability to even stay awake at 2am without feeling totally wrecked for the following three days. I mean our attitudes and the way we see the world around us.

A 21 year old friend of ours named Kaela was over some days ago and we talked about my gold wedding ring. I told her that when I was her age, I didn’t like gold. It seemed gaudy and ugly. Silver seemed cool and more realistic. (A little side note: our friend said that she feels that way now.) Something changed in me since then: now I see gold as bringing light and warmth. Silver is still nice, but feels colder and duller.

Dressing up in pastel finery for Easter no longer feels exciting and “extra special;” it feels silly and trite. I do still kind of enjoy it, but it will never be like when I was little.

I also don’t laugh as much as I used to. When I was a kid, an adult told me that would happen. At the time, I was horrified and resolved to not allow myself to fade into that. But now that I’m here, I’m alright with it. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy life as much (which is what I was thought based on that adult) but that I have a deeper appreciation for pain, sadness, reflection, change, artistic expression, and all the other more serious things in life. One ought to also ease up, have fun, and laugh, but life truly is serious as well. Appreciating that is part of a deeper, richer, fuller experience here.

It isn’t just that people grow and mature. It’s simpler than that. It’s that perceptions change as time goes on. Some of those changes are good, some are bad, some are neither. I think it’s all interesting.

Racism: Ponderings Of a White Stay At Home Mother

Not very long after Bruce Jenner became “Caitlyn,” I read an article about how Caitlyn Jenner actually hurts the transgendered community. This is because Caitlyn Jenner is so far removed from the real issues of the transgendered community that she has no clue what those issues even are – but gives the rest of the world the illusion that she does. She has both fame and money, neither of which most other transgendered folks have. While most transgendered folks are met with spit and nasty comments, she gets called “brave” and is given awards. She once made a comment about how mtf people must do their best to look and act the part – must try to look feminine and beautiful. That’s easy to say when she has the money for the best clothes, makeup, and even “feminizing” surgery. Most people can’t do that. And if they were a hairy, brutish man in the first place… well, let’s just say that Caitlyn Jenner doesn’t get it. This is so damaging because now the world doesn’t get it either, but THINKS that it does. It’s deluded and made the real issue invisible.

I have recently come to believe that we’ve essentially done the same thing with racism. But we’ve integrated! We are one people now! Racism is a non issue! But that isn’t even close to being true. I’ve recently had a painful and ugly realization: racism has not only continued to flourish in modern American society, but has crept in and flourished in my very own heart as well. Because of that realization, I began to do research on the matter – lots and lots of research – and continually questioned my own perspectives, reactions, and reasonings. This has begun a process of weeding out that nasty root, which brings me to my first pondering: I used to believe that the cure for racism was to stop talking about (making a big deal about) racism. I can see from my own experience that the real cure is not to ignore it – which merely masks the problem like syrup on a bad cold – but rather, the opposite; to educate, better understand, and be actively aware of it.

My second pondering is this: we whites are totally cool with people of any color – as long as they act white. I think this is one way in which we delude ourselves into thinking that we’re over racism: “I have Hispanic friends, Indian friends, and half my family is black! There’s no way you can accuse me of being racist!” But they’re all respecting YOUR culture instead of the other way around; you just don’t realize it or think about it like that. (Blacks do; they realize it. Otherwise, the term “house nigger” wouldn’t be a modern thing.) I’ll do my best to illustrate what I mean: Michael has been working for Social Security for some time now, so he’s been well exposed to a variety of cultures. He told me of a particular eastern culture that turns away from you to show they are being submissive and giving you authority. “Still,” he says, “it can be hard not to feel disrespected.” In a case like that, it’s pretty easy to recognize that this is a foreign person with a foreign custom and they are NOT  being disrespectful – even if you have to actively remind yourself of that. But we know it and we extend grace to that person because we know they’re from another culture. But do we even consider that same kind of difference and grace when dealing with another domestic culture? Urban black culture, for example? What really got me thinking about all of these things was Michael saying that he’s becoming accustomed to domestic cultures. “For example, I no longer get upset when a black woman starts talking loudly at me on the phone.” So many things that we scoff at or feel disrespected by may not be disrespect at all on their part, but simply part of their culture. I think we so often expect everyone else to act like us and we’re really disrespecting them by doing so.