What people totally get wrong about you when you’re a private person
I envy anyone who is able to open up to acquaintances and sometimes even strangers about their personal lives. When shit goes down in their lives, you’ll hear about it, and there seems to be something really freeing about that. I wouldn’t know as I’m one of those super private people who needs a subpoena to get anything out of me.
The problem is, if you don’t talk about your life, people will assume some pretty off-base things about you. Here’s what I’ve found that people will totally get wrong about you when you’re a private person…
My short skirt is NOT an invitation to be sexually harassed
Apparently one out of three Australian women are afraid to walk down the street alone, especially after dark. We don’t live in a country where intimidation, degradation, or violence against women is acceptable — so what the hell is going on?
It’s time to educate both men and women about this issue. It’s time to stop bullying each other into acting or wearing what most think of as “socially acceptable.” Here are a few points that you could consider to empower yourself, or share with others that this issue affects…
Hey “bad moms,” let’s give ourselves permission to feel competent
Since the birth of my daughter, I’ve found myself using the phrase “I’m a bad mom” a lot. It horrifies my husband, who associates bad moms with criminals, not ordinary women with ordinary flaws.
Think about your best girlfriend who is also a mom. Now imagine someone called her a bad parent. How would you feel?
Somebody said it to my face once. He didn’t really know me, had never met my daughter, he was just a drunken dick in the bar where I work, but he said it, he looked me in the eye and said: “You’re a bad mother.” Let me tell you, it’s one hell of a fucking insult, and we should never, never, say it to ourselves.
How to find yourself when you’re focused on raising someone else?
Younger mamas, I want you to know that us older mamas are just as befuddled at times as you are. I was in my mid-30s when I had my first child, and I don’t feel as if you ever finish the finding-yourself journey — nor would I want to. It’s part of the joy of being alive.
That said, here’s what’s helped for me to reconnect in areas of my life that need it…
Am I a “lazy femme” or not?: The elusive definition of femme
Did I understand what femme meant? By buying a “Lazy Femme” shirt, was I claiming something that wasn’t mine after all?
With so many different, wide, and varying definitions of femme, this is what settled into the nest of my heart…
I feel out place in modern society: Coping strategies for living in Muggleworld
You wouldn’t know from looking at me across the street, but I feel ill at ease in the world I inhabit.
I do my utmost to escape to other worlds, where no one has EVER ever ever heard of networking, diets, and smartphones… I lose myself to the straightforward and magical life of books, art, and food.
My problem is this: as I grow older, it is quite often not enough. I simply feel outpaced by modern society as a whole. How do you find inner peace in large quantities when muggle life keeps knocking on your front door, and moving to the wilderness is just not a option?
My gender identity is confused and I’m okay with it
I should probably start by identifying my gender, but that is… complicated. I am a female, physically. What I identify as is where it gets blurry.
As a teenager, in the early nineties, I had no internet to help me figure it out. And, as a broke young adult in the new millenia, I still didn’t have the amazing resources and web connection of, “Hey, my specific gender identity has a name and I’m not alone!”
Tarot, crystals, and empowerment: Confessions of a secular witch
Witchcraft has something that’s been a huge part of my life for years. But there’s so much stigma surrounding what it means to be a witch that I just didn’t feel comfortable opening myself up to speculations and ridicule.
I’ve realized that the best way to clear up misconceptions is to talk freely about them. With that in mind, here I am, declaring myself publicly to be a practitioner of secular witchcraft…