I know this girl.
She is a writer of comic books.
She grew up in a very conservative household.
She is an avid feminist.
She has GORGEOUS tattoos of strong women.
We often happen into each other at the local watering hole and have the most intriguing, intellectual conversations that always leave me thinking for days.
She is strong.
She is brilliant.
She is everything I wish I was.
Isn't that weird? You meet a woman who you completely look up to and you are insanely jealous.
She posts poignant political things on Facebook.
I am equally as intelligent as she is. I just don't really take the time to do the research to have the knowledge that she does. And that makes me mad at myself for being so lazy. I used to follow politics. And to know a significant amount of information about local and national candidates. I used to care. I still do on a very, very basic level. I always vote. But I never know shit about who I am voting for. I typically just vote a straight democrat ticket. And that is SHAMEFUL.
It makes me mad that she has time to always know what is going on in our city. To know who the local candidates are and why you should vote for them/ not vote for them. It makes me mad that she puts me to shame when it comes to knowledge I once craved.
She often lectures me on things I say. Calling people pussies or vaginas. Saying I am bad at being a girl. And she is right. I often say things that are a detriment to my fellow woman. Because I am just around guys all the time that say shit like this. And because I never correct them or ask them to stop speaking this way. Because, I don't know.,.is women's rights really being set back by calling someone who whines and cries because they burn themselves a vagina? I think maybe there are bigger issues to fight for. Maybe I am just so politically incorrect I don't even see these things anymore.
My city voted for a new mayor on Tuesday. Our previous mayor has been in office since 1999. He is an amazing mayor and has done so much to build up downtown and to make our city great. When I moved here (in that exact same year) downtown was a ghost town. No restaurant was open except for lunch. The surrounding neighborhoods were crap. And now it is a place people want to live. I know him personally and often wave to him as he rides his bike by me as I am walking the dog. I was heart broken when I learned he was not running for another term.
His right hand man ran for mayor in the preliminaries and the above mentioned woman slammed him for promoting corruption in local schools. She promoted some guy who had zero experience and who I just couldn't bring myself to vote for. So, I didn't. And he lost. TERRIBLY.
This is a pattern of mine. When I took my last job, it was primarily because I believed the woman who owned the company was a great role model. I looked up to her and admired her as a woman and as a CEO of a very profitable restaurant group. I was wrong.
The latter is a much more serious case of me being wrong than my first example, but still. I am learning a lesson I never thought I would learn at 33. Sometimes the people that I look up to aren't always right. And they are human. And I can still look up to someone and disagree with them. I can also find out that someone I thought was a local hero was also a piece of shit. I always trust my instincts and I always will. I refuse to be someone who believes that everyone is bad or that everyone has an agenda, etc.
But one lesson I have known for a long time is to form my own opinions. I can admire someone and disagree with their opinion. I can genuinely like someone and not agree with them.
Everyone at my new job is super right wing conservative and they like to talk politics. I keep to myself and don't agree or disagree with them, but listen to their opinions. Sometimes I can see their side, sometimes I think they are being extremely reactionary (mostly to things they read on Facebook) and want to slap them in the face.
Agree to disagree. It's my new life mantra.
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