Mom to the Screaming Masses

Troublemaker

She looked me right in the eyes, leaned forward and said to me, "You are a troublemaker." 

Then she leaned back and waited for me to respond. She didn't say anything else, just waited. That's what she does, she just waits. She's really stinkin' good at the waiting part. She can outwait me all day. 

I kind of squirmed and looked around, picked at the pillow I was holding, wrinkled my nose and said, "No, I'm not. I'm a nice person!" 

She smiled and said, "You can be a nice person and be a troublemaker, and you are a troublemaker. There's nothing wrong with being a troublemaker, but troublemakers make people uncomfortable, and that's what you run into, most often, and that's what is happening to you in this situation. You've made someone uncomfortable, because you were truthful. You've made them face an unpleasant fact, you've raised a valid point, you've stood up for someone who needed help, and it made someone else look bad. So rather than face the reality that you may have been right about this particular issue, you were branded the one with the problem. Which may or may not have been true."

Man. Even though I pay her, I love my therapist. She has a super clear way of getting right to the meat of every single issue I bring to her, every time. 

She's right, though. I am a trouble maker, but she (and I) didn't mean it in the traditional sense. More along the lines of Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Now, phew, there is one troublemaking woman. Or Rosa Parks. Or Susan B. Anthony, or Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, or the unnamed women who fight every day for the rights of all. 

I have always had a big mouth. Always. I have always been a person to speak up when I see things that aren't right, and I have spent much of my life trying to squelch this, to be quiet, to fit in and not rock the boat. To close my mouth when people hurt my feelings, to tamp down when I'm unhappy, to turn away and let things roll off and just- ignore.

But being a troublemaker isn't a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, to stand up and speak up. Without the troublemakers of the world, there would be no reform. There would be no checks and balances. There would be no one to keep people accountable. The world would run amuck. 

So, I think I will no longer let things slide - I'm going to be the best version of me that I can be, and if that means being a troublemaker when I see people behaving poorly, guess what? I'm calling them out. 

 

Dance, Past and Present

I know that I have mentioned a time or twenty seven that I took dance classes back in the day. 

Oh, haiiiii. I'm back. I am trying to only write when I have something to say, and because I have a lot of stuff to think about but not a lot to share, I've been radio silent lately. 

So, dance classes. 

I only took ballet class. Ballet, and when I was old enough, pointe class, and partnering. 

I really wanted to take jazz class, but the teacher of the class would not let me. She said that I wasn't good enough to join the class. And I was insecure enough and self conscious enough, and she was a big enough bully  - that I believed her. So for many, many years, I believed that I could not dance in any way other than classically. I didn't think I had any rhythm, and didn't think I was any good at any type of popular dance at all. I never danced in public at all. Not at weddings, not at parties, not in public at all. 

It wasn't until about ten years ago that I overcame my uncomfortable feelings and my fear of making a fool of myself and decided that I would just - throw caution to the wind and actually, you know, dance, in public, along to current music, in a group setting, and not worry about making a fool of myself. I think it was probably at a BlogHer conference and I remember dancing with a group of my friends and feeling so incredibly free and alive - and I loved that feeling and wanted to have it again and again. 

Now I dance all the time, no matter when and where I am. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I even danced in the woods while I was on hike. (There was no one around, holla, which is good, because I probably looked like a crazy pants pyscho, but whatever. Life is short and I have have had a crazy rough time of it for a very long time now and I felt like dancing and I had some really good music on - Summer Rain, by Belinda Carlisle - and it was just, you know, what felt good.)

Lately, I've been taking Zumba and MixxedFitt - a cross between HipHop and Zumba, and at first I was super uncomfortable and thought I must look very awkward and stupid, but the more I do it, the more comfortable I feel, and this past Friday, I had my best class ever. I felt completely at home and after the class, the teacher complimented me on my dance skills. That was the best part of my entire day. I can't explain it - after years of thinking I couldn't do any type of popular dance, I was at home and thoroughly enjoying myself. 

I dance all the time. In the car, in the house, in the shower, in the store, at work, in public, pretty much wherever I am. I have no shame anymore. Life is too short. 

I recently read an article that said that dancing can reverse the signs of aging in the brain. Hopefully my brain will stay young with all of the dancing I've been doing, but if not, it's nice to feel good about myself after so many years of thinking I sucked at something that I love to do. 

Tying Random Streams of Consciousness Together

In no particular order, and then I'll try to connect them - maybe. 

• When I was younger, I took ballet. A LOT of ballet. Like, by the time I was 12, I was in class 4 nights a week for a couple of hours a night, and on the weekends I had rehearsal. It only got more intense as I got older, but I didn't take any other type of dance except for ballet. I really wanted to take jazz, but the jazz teacher didn't think that I was good and she made it really clear that I wasn't welcome in the class. 
• This colored the way that I felt about my dancing for a long, long time. Like, for most of my life. I have had self esteem issues for years and years, and any time that I tried to dance in public, I was super self conscious about my dance capability - I mean, after all, if I wasn't good enough to take jazz class, why did I think that I was good enough to dance in public? I was for certain sure that people were staring at me and laughing. So, for a long time, I just didn't. 
• Over the last several months, I've realized that the more often I exercise, the better I feel. If I make a solid effort to exercise at least 4 days a week, my mood stabilizes and stays elevated. 
• I have discovered that I love Zumba, MixxedFitt (which is a dance combo of Hip-Hop and Zumba), and, oddly enough - hiking. 

I can't adequately explain how much of a difference exercise makes to me, and how foreign this concept is to me. 

Several years ago, had you told me that I would be actively seeking out exercise, I would have laughed in your face - probably while eating a cupcake. I really did not enjoy exercise. Then I discovered boxing. I really loved boxing, and I still do. 

But then I became massively depressed, and exercise dropped off the radar again, and it because ridiculously difficult to even entertain the idea of putting on a pair of sneakers to get moving, never mind trying to participate in some kind of coordinated group activity. Once I started working with a very good therapist and doctor and (finally) followed many of the things I was supposed to do, and began to see some positive results, I decided that I would try to add the exercise component that both of them kept suggesting. I din't think it would make a difference, but I agreed to give it a try for at least a couple of months. What did I have to lose, was my thought process. 

I am not too proud to say that they were right and I was wrong. Exercise has made a significant difference in my mental outlook, the way I feel physically, my emotional tolerance and my, well, everything. I have tried to explain this to people, but I don't think that many really understand. 

So, I try to take Zumba or MixxedFitt at least three days a week at the Rec Center. In the beginning, I was really, really self conscious about it - I had the voice of that jazz teacher in my head telling me that I was no good, I shouldn't try, no one would want to see me. At first, I even apologized to one of the teachers, saying that I knew I wasn't any good, but I would work hard. (She gave me a funny look but was super kind about it.)

As I've felt better over the past several months, and worked with my therapist, my self-esteem has improved, and with it, my feelings in the dance classes. I thoroughly enjoy myself in them, and even though I know I'm not the best, I know I'm not the worst, and more importantly - it absolutely doesn't matter - and I'm enjoying myself immensely. (And? I'm actually better than I thought, now that I've lost weight, feel better about myself and I'm not so self conscious.)

I've also added in hiking at a state park. It's a heavily wooded area, which also includes a beach, and a lot of the trails are hilly, which makes for a great leg workout. There are several different trails, ranging in distance from 2-5 miles, and I've been really enjoying myself walking the paths. I try to go at least twice a week. 

I went hiking today, even though it was raining. In the past, I would have used the rain as an excuse to stay home and take a nap, but I really wanted to hike, and the thought of staying home actually filled me with bitter disappointment. I layered up with a sweater and a sweatshirt and a raincoat, and I took an umbrella. Being out in the cold air and the rain was invigorating and refreshing, and I walked for 4 miles. I don't listen to music when I hike, I just try to empty my mind and just - be. It's a kind of mediation for me. 

I hope I can keep up my exercise enthusiasm, because I am for certain that it's one of the things that is helping me feel so much better lately. And anything that helps me feel better? Well, I am all for that. :)

A Purposeful, Driven Life

Yes, I've taken liberties with the title of the book, but I haven't read the entirety of the book. Just bits and pieces, and although some of it stuck with me, what I want to ramble on (and on, and on and on, lol) about here really doesn't have to do with the book, per se, but just about me. 

Duh. 

For reasons, some of which are because it's good for me (mentally and physically), I have been trying to increase my exercise. Until recently, I would have said that I had a couple of preferred forms of exercise - Rowing and Zumba. Zumba probably squeaks out ahead, because I do love me some dancing, especially because Zumba is an awful lot like dirty club dancing that you can get away with in public, haha. Rowing I enjoy because I can get on the machine, put my music on and just - go. I often zone out and don't really think. Usually after I do either of these, I spend some time on the walking track in the pool and try to do fifteen or twenty laps around - it's  a resistance track and I can spend some time just meditating that way as well. 

When I was visiting my dad, we went hiking in the mountains, and I realized that I absolutely loved it. So when I got home, I found a good place to hike locally (no mountains, sadly, it's all ocean level here) and I bought myself some trail runners and I've been out a few times to walk. I don't listen to music, I try to clear my mind and just walk and not think. 

Easier said than done, especially for me, but it's led me to ponder on the concept of a purposeful, driven life. 

Which is different from a purpose driven life. 

A purpose driven life is defined by three questions:

• The Question of Existence: Why am I alive?
• The Question of Significance: Does my life matter?
• The Question of Purpose: What on earth am I here for?

I think over the past year+, i have pretty much pondered these questions to death :)

so I have moved on to the mechanics of things. 

How am I living a purposeful, driven life? And what, exactly does that mean?

I want to make the rest of my life count for something. I want to make a difference. I want to be helpful, to be a source of strength and encouragement, a place that a person can feel comfortable with. A person who will be remembered as having made a change in something (for the better, please, not for the worse.)

So I need to uncover the purpose. Yes, I have kids, and the purpose of my life has been, and will continue to be, my family - but I am not my family. My children are growing to adulthood and moving on with their lives, as they should, and I am happy for them and proud of them. My life doesn't and shouldn't end with that and the focus will shift to me in the near future. I just need to figure out where I want to move with it. 

Thunderstorms

When I was a child, my parents had this set of records, they were recordings of nature sounds. Some of them were outright weird - I mean, who wants to listen to hours of heartbeats? - and some of them I thought were stupid - in my childish mind, no one would pay to listen to the crickets and the frogs that I could hear right outside FOR FREE, the ones that kept me up at night when I WAS TRYING TO SLEEP, thank you very much. I really enjoyed the thunderstorm one, though. That one? I could groove to that one. 

Living in a metropolitan area, for me a thunderstorm is really more of an inconvenience than anything. You hear it, but you don't really see it, it's kind of off in the distance, blocked by the buildings and the cars and all of the - stuff. It means I have to grab an umbrella, my raincoat, my boots if I'm getting out of the truck repeatedly. I have had small kids for years, and so it meant dealing with the unreasonable fears that come with the combined territory of small children and big storms. Living in a neighborhood definitely has it perks - people to wave at, someone to ask if they've lost power (so you don't wonder for a hot second if you've forgotten to pay the electric - just me? Ok, forget I said that, carry on), other people around in the event of a hurricane - but those other houses and people mean that you lose a bit of privacy and space and just 

area around you and sometimes

I do miss that. 

I am realizing, as my children get older, that I miss who I am. Their tethers to me are growing longer, but every so often they snap back  with a resounding WHACK and they fly back to me in a tangle of too long arms and legs and hormones and unresolved issues and I can barely figure myself out most days and then by the time I make heads or tails of what the trouble is, 

it's over. 

I've become immune to the thrill of a good storm. 

I am spending a couple of days with my dad and my step mom, both of whom are very, very good people, and they live in the middle of the United States. They live surrounded by nothing, on their own land. 

I am visiting alone. For five days. 

I have had insomnia for a long time, and so my sleep pattern is whack. Generally speaking, I get a good solid four hours, and then BAM.  I'm wide awake. Typically I get up, do some laundry, maybe some dishes, and then I meditate for a bit and go back to sleep for a couple of hours (broken up) and that's how it goes. It's not stellar, but I've adapted and it's how I do. 

First night at my dad's I followed my typical pattern, but I awoke to an extremely bright light shining in my face, and I wondered for a hot second if my dad was waking me to go hunting by shining a flashlight. 

Nope. Just some incredible lightning. I got up and stood by the window for a minute, watching the storm, and then made an executive decision. (It still kills me that I can do these things, that someone considers me the adult, haha.)

I put on my coat and shoes and went outside. It was 2:04 a.m. and I stood on the porch and watched a massively intense thunderstorm. It was refreshing, just to watch this brilliantly lit storm through sky high trees, without a house to block the view or an office building to get in the way. I don't think I've ever seen lightning so bright. 

It wasn't until it had begun to fade that I thought about recording a bit of it, just to share. 

Standing outside, even under the overhang of the porch, was electric. Strangely, it was also amazingly peaceful and very relaxing. I haven't intentionally stood outside in a storm in a long time and I miss that. I used to do it quite a bit, mostly when I was a teen. This was a powerful one. You wouldn't get the full drama of this one unless, maybe, you used headphones and had your volume cranked and the video full screen. It is indeed completely dark here at night, and the intensity of the storm lit up the sky - what I captured was the tail end. If I had brought my hair stuff, I would have gone out and walked in the rain, but I didn't, and so I didn't, because I know that over the next couple of days I'll be the subject of some pictures and I'm just vain enough to want to look decent. :)

It wasn't until the storm passed that I came back inside. I grabbed an iced coffee that my step mom was thoughtful enough to provide and came back to my room, where I uploaded the above, and ended my writing block at 3:32 a.m. 

Man, was that an invigorating thirty minutes. 

More Than Six Months Ago

It's a really interesting thing, and it's changed my life in a very fascinating and unexpected way.

I take a couple of different medications, and all three of them have a strong "do not drink" warning on them. 

Me being me, and thinking I know better than anyone else (haha, story of my entire freaking life), I proceeded to, for the first six months of taking said medications, ignore those warnings. I mean, I did the prudent thing and talked with the dr and the pharmacist and both told me that an occasional drink would not be a bad thing, and so I thought

what could it hurt. 

And then my husband and I went on a trip, and I drank on the trip, not heavily, and I proceeded to have my first (and I sincerely hope, very very last) trigeminal migraine. It was a migraine that lasted for more than 30 hours, and was characterized by a stabbing pain that pulsed every couple of minutes in the upper right quarter of my head along the trigeminal nerve, just exactly as if I was being zapped by an electrical charge. It caused my eye to twitch and water and it was easily the most excruciating pain I have ever felt in my entire life, and I have had migraines since I was a teen, and I've had six babies, five of them unmedicated. 

I took my migraine medication and went to bed, and when I woke up, it was still there. I took it again, and twelve hours later, I told my husband that if the pain didn't start to dissipate, I'd have him take me to the Jamaican Emergency and cost be damned. Thankfully, it started to fade, although it didn't go away fully until the third day of our trip. 

I hadn't had much to drink, just two drinks, but when I returned to the States, and visited my dr, (who helped me figure out that it was a trigeminal migraine) I decided that, for a couple of reasons, one of which being that some types of medications work better when you don't drink (because alcohol is a depressant) 

I would stop drinking alcohol. Which wasn't as tough as I thought it would be, but was super weird to me this holiday season. 

I haven't had a drink since May. My daughter made me a drink for Mother's Day and I had a couple of sips, but other than that, nada. No bourbon, no mixed drinks, no martinis. No frozen sangria over the summer! It's WEIRD. I miss it, in that I miss the camaraderie and the friendship I would have when I go out with people. I miss the looseness and the relaxation that I would feel, and I miss the flavor of it, and I miss the fun of it - when my husband and I go out, it's still difficult to see the mixed drink menu and not want to pick a drink out. I miss the feeling of peace that would come after my evening was finished and I could curl up with a bourbon and a good book, or enjoying a well made martini with dinner. I miss creating new drinks and the fun of drinking with friends. 

Somehow, sparkling water - even the Spindrift for which I have developed an affinity - just doesn't have the same appeal. 

But. 

My medications work better. I feel better. 

It is strange to go to parties and be the one not drinking. It's weird to see everyone else through sober lenses, and watch people slide into their drunk selves, and wonder what I was like, not that long ago. I did not have a drinking problem, but I wonder if I could have developed one, further on in my life. I wonder if this was a blessing in disguise. 

Life is so freakin' weird, isn't it?

The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same, Or The More They Change

Confusing. 

I feel like every Christmas season, I say the same thing. How is it possible that Christmas is just six days away? Where did the time go? In a mere three days, my youngest child will turn fifteen. I know I say this every year, but wasn't she just a baby? How is she a high school freshman?

How am I wrapping Christmas presents again? What happened to this entire year?

Well, I know that a lot of stuff happened to me. I know I experienced an entire life worth of living this past year, much of it I have no desire to repeat, but I did in fact learn a lot from it. Just wish I could have learned it a tiny bit less painfully, but at least it was just painful for me and not for those around me. Pain for myself I can deal with. 

Growth is pain, at least that's what I've heard. So, I think I should just consider 2018 a growth year. :)

There are some pretty steep changes in store for my family in the next several months, and I'm not at liberty to share them, as of yet. But if you know those dumb scale things, the ones that measure your stress levels, and they say, "If you experience XX, then your stress is such, and if you experience XY, your stress is such" - well, ours is somewhere on the mid of that scale and going to be climbing. 

So I am just going to strap on my seatbelt and hope that the airbag doesn't deploy in my face. 

Speaking of nothing in particular, I read an article that I thought was pretty interesting. Titled, Can Baking Reduce Stress and Anxiety?  

Go read it, it's pretty good. One of the lines in it struck me especially - "Baking is cheap, it’s easy, and it’s visceral" - Man, truer words were never spoken. I love to bake, love to cook, love to be in the kitchen, rattling around. Someone once tried to insult me by saying, "Oh, you're just a home cook."

Yeah, I'm just a home cook. But I'm a pretty good home cook, and all of the people who eat in my home and from my home? They are pretty damned happy. Furthermore, baking and cooking for those people helps to make me pretty damned happy - so I think it's a win-win situation. If I like you, I'll cook for you. If I give you food, you can bet I'm a fan of yours. :)

This week I made ten food baskets for friends - they contained sugar cookie snowflakes, tomato jam, homemade kahlua, peppermint marshmallows, dark chocolate cocoa mix, gingerbread men, sugar and spiced nuts, chex mix, salted caramel and Irish Whiskey truffles, and Stollen. I be tired, y'all, but I love my friends. 

Cooking and baking, for me, is a way to feel better about myself. It's a way to reduce my stress, get into a better headspace, spread some love, let others know I care about them, and feel like I am making a difference to someone. 

It's even better if the recipient enjoys what I give them. 

Brokenness

I love to read, I will read most anything. I've never made a secret of it. I'd rather read than watch tv, and can often be found with my face buried in a book. Want to gift me and make me happy? Take me to a bookstore. Want to make me delirious? Take me to The Strand in New York City. It's seriously one of my most happy places ever.

Currently I'm deeply immersed inside a fascinating book. When I first started to read this book, I found it so interesting that I read it faster, gulping entire chapters as fast as possible so as to complete it - and a few chapters in, I made myself start over at the beginning of the book. 

I slowed way, way down, which is unusual for me. I began to reflect and digest upon what I was reading. 

The book is called Just Mercy, and it is the true story of Bryan Stevenson, who founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped deep in the criminal justice system. The story is deeply compelling and utterly fascinating. I am nearing the end of the book, and I was profoundly struck by two separate quotes. 

My years of struggling against inequality, abusive power, poverty, oppression, and injustice had finally revealed something to me about myself. Being close to suffering, death, executions, and cruel punishments didn’t just illuminate the brokenness of others; in a moment of anguish and heartbreak, it also exposed my own brokenness. You can’t effectively fight abusive power, poverty, inequality, illness, oppression, or injustice and not be broken by it. We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. - Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, Chapter Fifteen

We are all broken by something. We have all hurt someone and have been hurt. We all share the condition of brokenness even if our brokenness is not equivalent. I just retyped that part because it was so important to me. I don't work with people in prison, or people on death row. i asked, for many years, to be allowed to do prison ministry. I felt as if I had a calling for it, but the people who handle that aspect of it in my life told me over and over that I wasn't "suited", I wasn't "strong enough", and that they would not let me be a part of it. So I chose, instead, to shift my energy and my spare time to my other passion, working with the homeless. Over the past two years, it has quickly become the most important and fulfilling part of my life. I feel sustained and whole the more I do  - the harder I work, the calmer I feel internally. 

I have personal reasons for feeling so strongly pulled to the homeless community that I don't want to go in to on this blog, because they aren't essential to the core of this story. But at the center of it, my brokenness is no different than theirs. I am the same as any of them, and in fact, I could be one of them, so very easily. I never want to forget that. I hope to have compassion and grace and extend mercy, to remember that someone else's brokenness could be more externally visible, but mine is internally visible and no less potent and in need of mercy and kindness. You can only show kindness when it has been shown to you. 

There is a strength, a power even, in understanding brokenness, because embracing our brokenness creates a need and desire for mercy, and perhaps a corresponding need to show mercy. - Just Mercy, by Bryan Stevenson, Chapter Fifteen

Hello, It's Me

 

Hi there. Remember me? To be honest, I am not even sure if I remember me. Some days, I don't even know who I am anymore. It's been just about three weeks since I wrote here, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to leave this site and abandon my blog, but I just don't have time in my life to sit at the computer lately. I get up for work at 2:45, get off work at 12, do an errand or two, take a nap if I am super lucky, and then it's time to do house chores, make dinner and start the effort towards bed. If I sit down for a half a second somewhere, I doze off. It's totally ridiculous. 

And then it's the next day. And then the next, and the next. 

But, something cool did happen. 

My daughter had her white coat ceremony. 

She's in her third year of studies, and now begins her clinical rotations. 

Here she is reciting the nursing oath. 

Her first rotation is at the same hospital at which she was born.:)

I had my 49th birthday, and I survived. 

We had a small, intimate Thanksgiving, and we all enjoyed ourselves. The table looked lovely. 

It's been a couple of weeks of ups and downs, just like everyone's life. There have been a couple of what I might call Big Bads, things that have the potential to really change people's lives for the not so good - but, as my therapist tells me all the time - there's really nothing you can do about what's coming in the future, so let's not stress over it. It's enough to know that some of those things are coming, to be prepared for them, and then try, as much as I can, to let the anxiety go and just 

breathe. 

I have such a hard time just breathing. 

You all know this. 

Right now, though, I'm wearing an oversized fuzzy sweater and slippers, my 16 year old is cooking dinner for the first time, I don't have to work tomorrow and I will get to serve Homeless Breakfast in it's place (which is my most favorite time of the week), I will see one of my most favorite people, and I will take myself to lunch after. I have a photography job in the afternoon and was hired for another next week. I am in the process of reading a fantastic book (Just Mercy) and I have a couple of plans for my future that I am trying to clarify in my head. 

Tell me what's new with you. 

Just Get Out There and Do It

One hundred years ago, life was much different for women. In essence, they belonged to their husbands or their fathers. They really didn't have rights. They couldn't make decisions. I mean, they could decide what dress they wanted to wear, and what they wanted to serve for dinner. They could decide what to clips to wear in their hair, that kind of thing. 

A husband could beat his wife with no recourse. 

Most women didn't work out of the home, because their husbands didn't allow it. If women did work out of the home, it ceased after they were married. It wasn't "proper". Women didn't travel alone. Pants weren't worn, ankles weren't shown, bathing suits covered the body. It was expected that women had long hair, kept themselves covered and quiet. 

I would have stuck out like crazy one hundred years ago. Maybe. I dunno. I might have been too afraid. 

Tomorrow is Election Day in the United States. Although it isn't the BIG election, it is a super important election - although, really, every election is an important election. 

Are you planning to vote? 

There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it. - Alice Paul 

Alice Paul was an American suffragist and one of the main leaders and strategists for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote. Arrested and imprisoned multiple times in her pursuit of the right of suffrage in both England and the United States, Alice Paul worked tirelessly, along with many other women, to change the lives of women and to make history, to allow women to rights and the privilege to enter the voting booth, to cast our ballots as we see fit. In January 1917, discouraged by President Wilson’s continued opposition to the suffrage amendment, Alice Paul posted pickets at the White House gates—the first people to ever picket the White House. They stayed on duty in the face of threats, taunts, and physical violence. Using their banners, they asked, “Mr. President How Long Must Women Wait for their Liberty?” and “Mr. President What Will you do for Woman Suffrage?” Truly, she was key to the right to women's votes. 

The 19th Amendment was ratified on August 18, 1920, and women were given the right to vote, but not full equality, and Alice Paul wasn't through yet. She and the National Women's Party went on to work even harder for equal rights for women, and it was her passion until her death in 1977.

One of my daughters is 21, and I have been impressed and delighted to see her, over the past months, as she has asked, reminded, and cajoled her friends and schoolmates, to register to vote, to remember to vote, to educate themselves to vote. She's been my fiercest, most outspoken political child, and she's badgered all of us to know our stances. It's amazing. 

I have been heartened to see the number of people talking about voting, but equally unhappy to hear discussions from those who aren't even registered to vote, who say things like, "I don't know if I'm registered to vote. It doesn't even matter, I don't really care." 

PEOPLE DIED FOR YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE. 

Women didn't get the right to vote until 1920. African American males didn't get the right to vote until 1870. Native Americans were granted the right to vote, regardless of tribal affiliation, in 1924. (If I am incorrect on these dates, please let me know - I've looked and looked and everything I've found shows them to be correct.)

This election is so important. I don't talk politics here, I just don't. It's something I don't get in to, it's a subject I keep close and closed and private - but whatever your thoughts and beliefs, get out there and vote. You owe it to yourself. If you belong to any of the groups who have not been allowed to vote in the past, you disrespect your ancestors by neglecting your voting duty. 

If you are hesitant to vote because you don't know who to vote for, it's ok! Check out ballotpedia.org. It's a great site to help you discover the ins and outs of your particular ballot, and I found to to be very useful. 

If you need a nudge to get to the polling place, plan a treat for after. Take yourself to lunch, go for a manicure, get a fancy coffee beforehand, buy a new book to read while you stand in line. Bring your headphones with some really kicking' music, because you may be there for a bit of time. 

Just go vote!

I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me, there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality. - Alice Paul