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All entries by this author

To: the hearing impaired me. Love: the deaf me.

Personal

Originally published at Strange Musings of a Distracted Spunk.

While
browsing around the internet, I found an article I wrote when I was
nine. Fourteen years ago. I remember sitting in a hotel room with my
dad in upstate New York, on our last family vacation before my parents
divorced, patiently editing and revising and writing. Apparently, even
when I couldn’t write well, I still strove to write. Shows how much of
this is innate.
As
I read through, I laughed at my younger self. Things that didn’t seem
important to me then are now - isn’t that true of everyone? It just
goes to show how much we can change. Then I thought, what would I say?
Because the nine year old me has yet to see so much. In a post McGee wrote about time traveling, she asked what we would say to our past selves. I wrote, …honestly?
There’s nothing I can think of that I would tell myself. Though I
wouldn’t mind hearing from myself in five years and knowing where I am
then. I never really thought much about the future - just knew it was
out there. And someday it will be here.

I was such a pragmatic kid. *shakes head*
Looking
back, however, while I can’t go back in time, it’s like a little piece
of time caught up with me. So. From the twenty three year old me to the
nine year old me. A little slice of the future. Welcome, darling. It’s
been an interesting ride, and I gather it’s only going to continue
being bumpy.
Hi!
My name is DS. I am nine years old. I am hearing impaired. I wear
hearing aids. My little sister is also hearing impaired. That is what
this story is about.

Sweetheart.
This is not a story. A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or
some variation thereof. What you wrote? Is purely an article. I gather
for our age, we were rather intelligent. Not that that’s remotely a
surprise, given how intelligent and witty and charming we remain to
this moment, but it may take you a few years and MANY creative writing
classes to really understand what comprises a story.

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This is what beautiful looks like.

Personal
Originally published at oh my seven.

I’ve
been thinking a lot about this subject lately… so many women have
issues with their bodies, myself included. And you girls all know all
the usual suspects… billboards, magazines, movies, television, romance
novels (would you really want a heaving bosom anyway? I don’t get
that.) and the like. I love this Dove commercial
that’s been floating around on YouTube, because it displays an
important truth: Advertisements lie to women. They say that you have to
be This Thin and have beautiful flowing hair and sultry, smoky eyes and
full, pouty lips and be a 32D… but most people don’t look like that!
It’s telling that models even have to be Photoshopped, because they’re
not good enough! Girls, why are we buying this lie? It sucks.

I read in a book recently that you can’t give what you don’t have.
We’re taught that loving ourselves is just vanity and pride, but can
you really love other people if you don’t know how to love yourself?
Even the Bible says, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Leviticus 19:18)
So if that’s the case, obviously we are to love ourselves. Otherwise
we’ll go around saying, “You’re fat, and you’re ugly, and whoa! Look at
that bird’s nest of hair. Looks like you could use a shower. You’re a
lazy bum, and you’ll never amount to anything. You can never do
anything right… you always just screw everything up.”

I want to kick that habit, so that someday when I have children,
they won’t grow up thinking poisonous thoughts about themselves that
will only cause them hurt and not growth.

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The pros and cons of being human

Personal
Originally published at Flutter - Dark and Divine

We are all set upon this earth with our own set challenges. Some of
us have it more difficult than others, some are blessed, some are
damned. Some are equal tinctures of both.

Some persevere and blossom, others flicker and fade. To which end,
is not predetermined, rather guided by the decisions we make. Every one
thing effects every one other. From the minute to the grand, our daily
pro and con list steers us in one direction or another. As fragrant
petals in a windstorm, yet guided by a hand of our making.

Our experiences are not always ours to control, but how we react to
them is. I have been mired in a sickly sweet cloud of terror for the
better part of 15 years. Until recently, there was a sense of continual
fleeing. A sense of having to watch over my shoulder, as I ran forward.
Fear, panic, fear, panic.

The truth? Until recently I thought it was all my fault.

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‘Til Death Do I Part

Personal_channel_button Originally published at Mommy Pie.

I own three bridesmaid dresses. I’ve been to countless wedding
ceremonies. I’ve happily purchased hundreds of dollars worth of gifts
for my friends’ celebratory passages into traditional family life.

Most of those unions have lasted. Some have not.

With my 40th coming up in just a few weeks, I’ve been thinking a lot
about about time, and fate, and the very different, and sometimes
unexpected, paths our lives all take.

However I got here, this is my life. I embrace it wholeheartedly.
And I wonder, where’s the ceremony for singles who have found in
themselves the one they’ve been looking for all along? What about the
ones who, for better or worse, never do marry another?

(editor’s note: absolutely hilarious photos after the jump, so seriously do continue reading)

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