Sunday Reflection

As a good friend reminded me – and people on my Facebook page –

The divisiveness, the hate and the rhetoric has been there a long time.  Trump is just the catalyst that brought it into the bright light of day and made it acceptable.          (thanks ButchDK)

Last night I had to remove a nasty comment – from my own brother – on my Facebook page and block him.  While it made me both angry and sad to have to go to that extreme, I am just sick and tired of listening / reading the ignorant remarks of the minority few that still remain tolerant of hate and supportive of Trump.  And I came to the decision after some long thought, that I would not start deleting people from my life who act in this fashion.  Thus, any and all of those individuals continue to promote and invigorate this hateful rhetoric on any social media platform that I am part of and who either comment to me or directly promote this bullshit, will be deleted, erased, removed, unfriended, unfollowed and otherwise prohibited from communicating with me or across my pages.  Period.  End of Story.  I now have a ZERO tolerance policy on this issue.

Now, let’s turn our thoughts toward Spain.  The Barcelona terrorist bombing…I was very, very shaken by this bombing incident.  As many of you known I was very much involved with a young Spanish/American woman who resided in Barcelona a couple of years ago.  When I heard the breaking news of the bombing my heart jumped into my throat.  Was she okay?  Did it happen right near her, where I thought it happened?  I was very concerned and while I no longer had contact with her, I still care very deeply.  You can’t just turn off love…it doesn’t work that way.  So, I swallowed my Butch pride (and that’s a BIG fucking swallow) and emailed her at her work account, asking if she was alright.

Two days went by, no word.  I would tear up; get choked up when I thought about her.  She has this really vulnerability about her and I know that this kind of thing is very frightening to her.  I could only imagine how scared she was.  I kept trying to not think about her or the bombing…but it was all over US television and in my heart.  I understand that I chose to not be part of her life – or have her be part of mine – when things were “over” so to speak, because I just couldn’t do the “friends zone” stuff with her.  I would never have been able to move on and love another.  She had burrowed deeply into my thoughts, broken down my walls, crashed through the barriers and become someone I didn’t wish to let go of ever.  In the end I had to because moving on was what she wanted, and was doing, and I needed to do it also.  I know I’ve never talked about this, because it hurt too much until recently.  While I will always have space in my heart for her, I have moved on now.

She did answer my email.  She’s fine and yes, the bomb went off right in front of a business that she would frequent daily.  She was lucky not to have been there at that time. But she was fine even though it was very scary for her.  I thanked God, then I thanked her for responding and left it at that.  It was extremely hard for me to not want to talk to her further, to ask how she has been and how things were going in her life these days.  But I can’t know, I just can’t.  I need to focus on what I can have in this life; on those great things in store for me, and on the woman who loves me.

Terrorists are active around our world.  The past week of news stories happening around the world proves this.  Here in America we are engaged in internal strife and being divided as a people.  Abroad ISIS and the Jhadists are employing truck bombs and IED’s on civilian populations – such as in Barcelona.  It’s sad.  It’s infuriating.  It’s frustrating.  All of these things affect us all.  That is the goal of these terrorists – whether foreign or homegrown.  They want disruption, fear and chaos.  And sadly they are achieving that goal in many ways right now.  When will it stop?

I’m going to turn off the television today.  I need a day of rest from all of the news coverage coming in from around the world.  I am going to go outside, taking the dogs with me, and work in my garden.  I will paint my porches. And I will focus on what his here in front of me that is peaceful, beautiful and good in my life.  I will plant a perennial flowering plant in memory of Corey today.  And I will try to heal some of my broken parts just a tiny bit.

Peace.  ~MB