24
Mar
2020

On choosing not to forgive people who have died.

categories: personal; word count: 584 words

I may very well be the only person who has actually written about something like this from… this point of view in all of Google (as I actually took the time to look it up there), or one of very few bloggers or writers. But now that I go back and attempt to Google it again, I do honestly think that I am the only person writing from this vantage point — making the decision not to forgive someone for something not only while they are still alive, but after they have died (although, in my case, it would be a bit ironic if not preposterous since I do not believe in the existence of anything supernatural, so to me, there is no way to forgive someone or something that, to me… does not exist, or no longer exists). I have mentioned this in varying ways on other social networking sites that I use, as have I asked for advice about it, and not only have I been met with a generally positive response regarding my decision, but I’ve also been given a lot of great advice that I have for the most part put to good use which I hope to be able to put to good use writing blog posts about this.

The person in question is my mother, and the incidents (or… cascade of them) began six months before her death from what would be metastatic lung cancer. Some might remark that, in a peculiar way, it’s “funny” — what I am actually refusing to forgive her for is her… treatment of one of my children, starting at that six-month mark and leading (I suppose, for lack of a better way to word it) all the way up to her actual death. Of those who seem to care about whether or not I have “forgiven” her, which I have not and never intend to do, it always seems to be about them, or the people who were close to her while she was still alive. Ironically, it has never been about me, or even my child. Realizing that there was nothing “wrong with me” for making the decision not to forgive her at any point (especially since she made it abundantly clear that she was unwilling to apologize, and was unrepentant for this treatment of said child), and that I would never again actually have positive feelings for her, brought me a lot of peace because that was when I realized that I could move on from her death in that way. I did not have to expect forgiveness, or the desire to forgive, to appear, and I did not have to expect positive feelings for her to return when they were clearly not going to.

A lot of people that say that you should “forgive people for (whatever they did)” before they die, or “forgive people for (whatever they did)” after their death are saying that for themselves or the other person, not for you (or whoever the incident, or incidents, might have happened to). And maybe I might actually be the first to say that it is okay, and that it is healthy, if this does not happen. You do not “have something wrong with you” if you can not, or do not, forgive this person, even if you never forgive this person for the rest of your life.

For me, it is a passive thing. The incidents are just things that I can not forgive, and so obviously do not.

23
Mar
2020

Several things mentioned in one post.

categories: personal, RPGs; word count: 398 words

As of Sunday evening, we hit double digits in terms of confirmed cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) in my county, and confirmed community spread. Given the size of my county, this does not surprise me. To be completely honest, I want to see public schools shut down for the remainder of the school year in an attempt to contain this before it gets completely out of hand, but I do not have faith in this local school district, and my faith in this state wavers. But this school district is making it abundantly clear that they want to open doors back up as soon as possible, even if… like I’ve mentioned before, it is literally on the backs of the at-risk population. They are literally blocking people on social media that do not agree with them who are not willing to shower them in praise and it would be hilarious to mention if it were not depressing because of the whole “we are in the midst of a global pandemic and this district has a history of making poor decisions”.

I’ve gone to the mat over this and I will keep going to the mat over this. If anyone does not want to follow the CDC’s recommendations during a global pandemic, I will work to call them out on it… like GameStop, who had the nerve to attempt to call themselves “essential employees” and “an essential retailer” in a desperate bid to try and keep their doors open because they did not want to lose money. That went swimmingly well for them, because in at least two states they were forced to close their doors, and I anticipate it being more as time passes assuming that they do not take the hint and close their doors in the rest of them until this pandemic eases. Although I haven’t shopped in GameStop for awhile, for a number of reasons (one of which being the fact that I am actually friends with “GameStop girl”, and she is a positively wonderful human being), this absolutely takes the cake and I am going to make it a conscious point never to shop there again.

In gaming news: Bub and I have been playing the new Animal Crossing together and have gone to some friends’ islands! I am slowly but surely learning how to play this actual game for him, and it’s adorable, too!

22
Mar
2020

Look how passive-aggressive this district is…

categories: personal, RPGs; word count: 324 words

The state governor issued an executive order commanding all schools in the state to close until April 3rd, and… wait for this… you can tell that although the local school district is adhering to that and has put out notice to everyone who needs to be made aware of this, they do not like it. Imagine being so annoyed during a global pandemic that you can not keep your doors open for increased federal funding that you blatantly come off as passive-aggressive to anyone and everyone who can see through your thin veneer, because you prioritize access to that federal funding over the lives of at-risk individuals in your community for whom keeping these school doors open (even on the technicality of “we won’t count absences or pursue truancy charges”, which was your first gambit) will endanger. This is literally why so many folks have problems with this school district and why they have had problems with this school district. And yet they honestly wonder.

In the midst of a global pandemic, it would be great if the schools just closed for the entire school year…

…but whatever. I’ll continue to do the advocacy I’ve been doing, what’s been labeled “my Scottish advocacy”.

Meanwhile, I switched what was our physical pre-order of Animal Crossing over to a digital pre-order (thanks, Amazon!) and downloaded it onto the Switch the day before release so that it would be available for play on release day given the nature of the pandemic and wanting to make that game available to Bub. If I can at some point due that with our pre-order of Final Fantasy VII: the Remake (how do you write that out?), I will do so as well since we’ve had it on pre-order with Amazon for months and there is not yet an option to digitally pre-order it there and I put the money that I used to pre-order it into the gift card “stash”.

21
Mar
2020

Never mind, everyone! I have been proven wrong.

categories: personal; word count: 346 words

When this school district got enough pressure put on it by people who kept pointing out that they were flying in the face of CDC recommendations, they made the “difficult decision” to close schools for another week. Yeah, I know. It must have been incredibly difficult to turn away all of the federal funding that you would have gotten from opening schools back up even though it would have come at the cost, and on the backs of, those who are at increased risk from the potential community spread of COVID-19 (you know, coronavirus), those that this could very easily incapacitate if not outright kill. Spare me your melodrama and how this was allegedly actually a “difficult decision” for you. This just lines your pockets a little bit less. You don’t have to deal with the harsh realities that come with the actual panic (not the “alleged panic”) of possibly catching this, getting hospitalized with this, winding up on a ventilator, possibly dying and leaving loved ones behind because someone’s pocket book was more important than keeping fragile members of the community safe. Spare me your manufactured melodrama about how this was actually a “difficult decision” for you. Shut up.

Our county is now at age three on the “action plan”. This means…

· stay home if you are sick
· avoid contact with individuals who are sick
· avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unclean hands
· cover your cough or sneeze with a tissue, then throw the tissue away
· clean and disinfect frequently touched objects and surfaces with a disinfectant
· don’t travel to areas with active community spread
· wash your hands with soap and water regularly
· use hand sanitizers with at least 60% of alcohol content when soap and water are not available

· Actively practice “social distancing”
· whenever possible maintain 6 feet distance from other persons
· avoid physical contact with other persons in social and workplace settings
· postpone or cancel all gatherings of 50 or more people if possible

But most recently…

· the county may issue orders prohibiting and/or restricting mass gatherings and/or movement of people

20
Mar
2020

Don’t imagine it, because it actually happened.

categories: personal; word count: 397 words

But imagine advocating so hard for the local school district to commit to an extended closure of schools, which other school districts in the area have done, that their response to you doing so over the course of several comments left on their social networking pages is to actually block you because they are that desperate to open doors and resume school for access to those federal dollars that they are willing to risk the health and lives of the at-risk students and members of their community as a direct result of this… and that they don’t even care, because the superintendent himself is literally willing to chalk it up as “panic” because he is literally all about that money. But as I’ve mentioned in here, I’ve attended this school district myself. I have absolutely nothing nice to say about this school district at all, and I mean every single word of this sentence. This school district has not improved at all, and their response to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic absolutely shows that in their recent actions. They are willing to endanger their at-risk students, the at-risk parents of those students who may be in attendance, other household members or people that they routinely come in contact with, and other members of the community by being in such a rush to open the doors to these schools back up (so much for “social distancing”, eh?) that they make it blatantly obvious that they continue to be all about that federal funding that it absolutely sickens me. This district is just trash.

At this point, I think that this district will always be trash and that it will never, ever redeem itself. Ever.

If anything changes between now and the time that school doors are supposed to re-open, of course I will make another post in here reflecting that, but this school district has always put money above the health and lives of the populace at large because… let’s face it, when has it not? “Panic” takes on a whole new meaning when you yourself are a member of that at-risk population. When this is something that could incapacitate or kill you, it’s not something that you’re “panicking” over, it’s a real-life scenario that you have to try to avoid. Anyone who claims it’s “panic” who is not in the at-risk group is trying to flex on privilege.

19
Mar
2020

What the Catholic church really needs to knock off.

categories: personal; word count: 417 words

Complaints of mine that I’ve managed to come up with during Quarantine and Chill:
· actually “deciding” which religion’s baptisms are valid and which are not
(they seem to have this peculiar thing against Mormon baptisms… like, who died and made you arbiter?)
· deciding whose marriages are “valid”, “that you can only have one”, and their stupid annulments
(how about you stay out of the marriages, or private lives, of people who are not Catholics, for one thing?)
· expecting that non-Catholics, especially non-Christians, adhere to these “marriage rules” to make it valid
(for instance, not going into a marriage “completely open to life” or placing limits… makes it invalid)
· making you go through nearly an entire school year’s worth of preparation if you “really want to get baptized” or come into the church as an adult (or anyone older than the age of… like, seven), which I’ve read the curriculum of and… the personal accounts of from a lot of people who have personally gone through this to completion, found that a lot of the actual classes are superfluous at best and that there could really be improvement for a lot of this, and that there is almost no flexibility in any of it adjusting for life circumstances
· that individuals with Celiac disease or liver problems get the short end of the stick
(the cracker has to have wheat, and the “blood of Christ” has to have alcohol in it, folks, or it’s “not valid”)
· that even in a mixed marriage, the kids have to be baptized Catholic, because Catholicism “has to win out”
(hey, remember how well that went in 2010 when Bub was never baptized Catholic? try that shit again, y’all)

This is just my short list of things that really bother me about the Catholic church, going along with the major problems that I have with it that make me all the more glad that I chose to… out myself in the manner that I did, resulting in me being dropped from the RCIA class roster at the end of the very first class that I took, the first, the last, and the only one. To this day, I still have absolutely no regrets about any of that, and to this day, I still do not want to convert to Catholicism, nor do I want either one of my children to have anything to do with the church such that I will not consent for them to have any involvement with it where it is needed.

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