My head is swirling with all the stuff all over the news and otherwise. And what better place to air that swirling than right here with my readers. Don’t worry, next week we will be able to get started on the grand reveal of the house. I’m really just waiting for my resident photographer to not be working crazy overtime to get nice shots for you guys. Until then, you’re stuck with my rant of randomness for the day.

1) Can women have it all?: This has been a debate that has been going on for a while in the news. I ignored it at first as a ridiculous ploy to rile up the masses of my fellow gender. Can women have it all? Absolutely not, at some point something has to give. Even now as I’m currently trying to write this, following my dreams of writing, I am half watching my son to make sure that he is safe but half uninvolved because I can only multitask so much. The question isn’t whether women can have it all; the real question is “can anyone have it all?”. Which again I answer with: “absolutely not”. We can have pieces of it all, but you can’t fully be invested in everything. Does that make you a terrible person? No, it makes you just like the rest of us humans that are struggling to juggle family, home, and career aspirations. That does not mean you should have to choose between any of the above, it just means that you’re splitting yourself into pieces and not having it fully all to yourself. That is why I stand by my “no one can have it all: no man, woman, or child” stance.

2) It’s all in God’s plan: (I will probably let a few obscenities slip through with the next 2 rants. It’s passion, not anger. Okay, maybe a little anger.) Whenever there’s a tragedy, people always say “don’t worry, it’s God’s plan”. I’m sorry, but if it’s God’s plan to take an innocent life away, than I want nothing to do with that God. This is why I send my child to CCD without actually attending church myself. I understand that some people take it as comforting, but do not try this line on me because it will likely anger me into a rant of how “religion only exists for the people who need something to cling onto and I’m not someone who needs lies to cling to” which will just make me into an even more unlikable human being. The real truth is something bad shit happens to good people. I’ve dealt with my fair share of bad shit, and you know what? There are 2 types of people in the world: the type that uses tragedy as a teachable lesson to help them grow into strong people or the ones who dwell on it and try to make sense of the nonsensical. There is no answers to tragedies. We don’t know why that kid decided to shoot down that school. We don’t know why our kid got cancer and the neighbor next door that’s a terrible person lives to be 110. Unfortunately when it’s your time, it’s your time. Like they say: “a person walks out of the hospital being cured of cancer and gets hit by a car and dies.” Bad things are inevitable. That just means you need to cherish all the good things in your life even more, because gratitude for all the good will make up for the bad.

3) Need versus Choice: I keep struggling with my ideals on what “need” is, in terms of people who need assistance and help. Not just from the financial aspect of the government, but also in general. People might disagree and I know I have stated this before but I really need to reiterate this point. A person in need is deserves all the help they can get. A person in need is someone who just has the world crapping on them no matter what. They spend all day looking for a job to no avail. They sweep backrooms of bakeries under the table for a few dollars to get something in. They are trying all the career training and temp searches they possibly can to get something, anything to provide for their family and themselves and have no luck in life. That is a person in need. A person who just doesn’t feel like doing anything and wants to sit back and let the government pay them is not someone in need. That is someone who chooses a lifestyle of poverty. A person in need deserves my sympathy and empathy. A person in choice neither deserves nor will get any pity at all because while I believe some people just have shit luck (I am one of those people), you can try your hardest to fight against that luck. And sometimes you do get lucky. Even if you’re flipping burgers at Burger King to provide insurance and income into your family, there’s no shame in doing whatever it takes to provide for your family.

4) Our America: I have always love the “Our America with Lisa Ling” series on OWN. The episode on foster kids that I finally watched last night tugged at me like nothing else has in a while. You should find it On Demand or whatever and watch it. It immediately made me want to hug all those other kids, which is amazing since I’m not really a “kid person” let alone a “people person”. (Yes, I’m aware I have 2 children, but it’s much different when they’re your own.) Though true to myself, it made me want to hit the abusive stepfather that let the stepchildren see has he abused their mother repeatedly. The poignant line of the night came from the mother, who had lost her kids because the stepfather basically kidnapped one of the kids and she pulled a gun out on him trying to protect herself and her family: “I learned from those classes that even though he only abused me, he was putting another kind of abuse on my kids by making them watch. They learn from that. I learned to be careful who I associate with when my kids see me. Because they learn from that.”

1050 words later, and I have completed my rants. Thank you for reading and feel free to share your thoughts.