Secret Subject Swap: June Edition

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week, 15 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

My subject is You've been accused of a crime, but you are innocent. All the evidence points to you. What crime are you accused of and how do you prove you are innocent?

It was submitted by: http://dinoheromommy.com/

Hope you enjoy my interpretation of this prompt. It's not going to be as light-hearted as many people would take it given the same prompt but it is something that is very close to heart... After my post, I hope you'll check the links for the rest of the bloggers who participated and find the prompt I submitted myself!

Perhaps one of the most disturbing facts about the American justice system is that you can, despite all the measures that are supposed to prevent it, be convicted of a crime you did not commit by a jury of your peers. We have this idea that the justice system here is exactly what it claims to be—a fair, balanced, unbiased, and methodical examination of the facts and only the facts—but it is far from any of that. What we have is a system that has been shown to act with extreme bias towards the poor and minorities, that rarely applies laws and rules consistently, and is more concerned with profits. Prison is a very profitable industry.

Even more disturbing is that once that happens, and it does happen, it becomes nearly impossible to prove you are innocent because a jury of your peers—people that often cannot even quote you their own rights, the laws of the land, or any information about the government beyond a 3rd grade education—has already found you to be guilty and higher courts no longer care to entertain the idea that this highly fallible method of judgment could have been wrong.

If I committed a crime, especially in the state of Texas, and all the evidence pointed to me, quite frankly, I’d be fucked. There would be a very slim chance that someone somewhere might finally listen to my pleas for help such as the Innocence Project who aids in my friend Robert’s case (read about our friendship here and here). But, even then…even when an attorney gives a damn and tries hard to fight for his or her client, the court can refuse to discuss true innocence claims. Take the case of one Robert Will from Texas. Rob is convicted of shooting a police officer. No one saw him commit this crime. He has never confessed to this crime and has always maintained his innocence. The person that Rob has always said committed this crime has since confessed himself. Multiple times. But, the court says that doesn’t matter… A judge specifically told Rob that he had strong doubts about Rob’s guilt, but that the court doesn’t care about innocence once a person has been found guilty by a jury of their peers. What kind of justice is this? And Rob’s not the only one. Not the first. Not the last. He may be executed for a crime he likely did not commit and he won’t be the first or the last innocent man to die in this system either.

Since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated in this country, 1379 people have been executed and 144 (as of March 2014) have been exonerated. That’s almost 11%. That’s right….almost 11% of the number of people who have been executed were wrongly convicted. But, here’s the thing…that’s only the people who were able to get a decent attorney and a good following, a good support system, or an Innocence Project group to help on their case. Many more have been executed despite strong doubts about their guilt because there was no one to help them. Even more have been executed and later evidence showed they were innocent. I like to use the case of Cameron Todd Willingham in Texas to illustrate my point here because it’s just so damn tragic. Willingham was convicted of setting fire to his home and letting his children burn to death inside. The prosecution said he was angry at the children’s mother and set the fire that killed his own flesh and blood in order to get her back. Before his execution, renowned forensic experts investigated the evidence in the case and said definitively that there was no way the fire could have been arson. The burn patterns the fire marshal at the time stated were caused by an accelerate were nothing of the sort. All the evidence in the crime actually suggests it was an electrical fire and not deliberately set. Rick Perry, the governor now and at that time was presented with this evidence and is on record as saying he didn’t want a guy like that living in Texas anyway and would not stay the execution or take any measures that would have saved Willingham’s life. Not only did this man lose his own children in a tragic accident, he was convicted of their deaths, murdered by the state of Texas, and died knowing that almost everyone in the world who knew him also thought he was guilty of something so vile and heinous (watch his documentary here. It's not long, but it's very informational and important to this topic. vital, even). So, even though some people are exonerated after spending years on death row...others are executed for something they did not do while the real killer remains free to kill again (or in the case of Willingham, under tragically flawed investigations)

To put this in terms that more people can identify with, would you trust a hospital to deliver your baby if it had an 11% minimum rate of swapping babies at birth? If there were an 11% chance minimum that you would walk out of the hospital with the wrong child, would you still use it? Would you still have faith in it?

What we have right now is a very expensive and very error-prone system in which our tax dollars are supporting the murder of innocent people by the hands of a very inept government. In one of the latest Pew Research polls on public trust of the government, only 19% say they trust the government to do what is right all or most of the time. 19 fucking %. Yet, 56% of people trust government agencies to get the right person when it comes to the death penalty. 56% of us are fine with capital punishment doled out by the governmental agencies when only 19% of people trust the government—the same Congressional leaders who are in charge of state laws.

What would I do to prove I am innocent? I’d do the same thing that the innocent men sitting on death row right now are doing. I would write and reach out to people hoping someone somewhere would believe in me and give me help. I would do everything I could not to lose hope, but as every year passed and edged me closer to death, as every appeal ruled against me, that hope would diminish. That’s where so many are in the process right now…losing ground and losing hope. More will be unjustly executed. Even if you believe and support the fundamental basis of capital punishment, surely you cannot support the murder of innocent men and women and that, unfortunately, is something we have done and continue to do. On the behalf of those innocent men and women who have already died, on the behalf of those still fighting, and given the fact that it could be anyone in their shoes—you, me, or any of our loved ones—I beseech you to give it more thought, do the research, and became an active supporter of capital punishment reforms. If I were innocent yet convicted, I would need you. Each one of you. And so do the men and women on death row now.


*If any of you might wonder how you can help real people with real stories, I'll be happy to give you some direction in comments or emails. There are also plenty of websites to check especially those I linked to in the content of the blog, and I would be happy to provide more direct links to those as well if anyone wants them. If nothing else, even a $10 donation to your state's Innocence Project could help save someone's life. Those projects work on donations and grants and are non-profit agencies. Donations to Anti-Death Penalty groups in your state or national groups could also help fight the death penalty overall. Thank you for your time today, and if any of this makes you want to have a stronger dialogue about the subject I am always available to discuss it (passionately but without judgement...I've been on the opposite end of the belief spectrum myself which I discuss in a blog I linked to above).

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts. Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com Baking In A Tornado

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/ Spatulas on Parade

http://stacysewsandschools.blogspot.com/ Stacy Sews and Schools

http://dinoheromommy.com/ Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.juiceboxconfession.com Juicebox Confession

http://morethancheeseandbeer.blogspot.com More Than Cheese and Beer

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/ Confessions of a part-time working mom

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com Someone Else’s Genius

http://sparklyjenn.blogspot.com/ Sparkly Poetic Weirdo

http://www.crumpetsandbollocks.com Crumpets and Bullocks

http://fbxadventures.blogspot.com FBX Adventures (In Parenting)

http://elleroywashere.com elleroy was here

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com Climaxed

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com The Bergham’s Life Chronicles

http://www.eviljoyspeaks.wordpress.com Evil Joy Speaks

Cultural Misogyny

Rejection has been a theme over the past week for good reason. Elliot Rodgers felt the need to gun down 6

people before turning the gun on himself because he was so often rejected by the opposite sex that he found it to be unfair and needed to punish those he thought were responsible for his unhappiness. He was rejected so often he became miserable, full of hate, and violent and decided the only way to right these wrongs was to take lives—to make people pay.

That’s tragic. It truly is. But, when it all comes down to it, rejection is not the real reason Rodgers committed the atrocious acts he did.

We’ve all been rejected at one time or another and many of us handle it well or somewhat well. But to dismiss this case as one where a mentally ill man couldn’t handle rejection completely ignores the underlying cultural issues at work that have been creating an antagonistic environment for women throughout history that continues, obviously, to plague us today. So, at face value, it may seem like this is a story about a lone mad man who couldn’t stand rejection and ultimately and tragically reacted with violence, but once you take a closer look at things, you being to see the sense of entitlement at work—an attitude that women can tell you is all too common in so many men with whom we have contact.

Rodgers said he wanted to kill women for never finding him attractive enough to fuck him and for ruining his

time at college. He wanted them to sleep with him but the fact that these women slept with other people made them sluts. It’s the double-edged sword issue that women have been facing for ages. If we’re sexually active, we’re sluts, but if we won’t sleep with someone, we’re prudes. It’s this cultural idea that we’re not in full ownership of our own bodies. Being in control of ourselves, doing what we want with who we want is such a foreign fucking concept that instead of being “allowed” to do what we want without commentary and with the same respect given to men in the same situations, we have people constantly policing our bodies and telling us what we should be doing with them.

To add to that, we’re expected to dole out sex to men who want to sex us without giving any thought to whether or not we’re attracted to the men in question.

No seriously. Think about it. Think about every fucking time you’ve heard the “friendzone” or heard a guy complaining that “nice” guys finish last…

In every single instance, if you really think about it, you have a man complaining that a female friend of his whom he attempted to hook up with through falsified niceties and friendship strategies had no interest in fucking or dating him. In essence, he cannot handle the fact that this person only thought of him as a friend (oh the fucking horror of actually being a friend to a woman) and was not sexually attracted to him. It is not a simple case of lack of attraction, it is now the fault of all women everywhere because we only want to fuck assholes who act like jerks and lie to us to try to get in our panties because we’re bitches.

But, wait…if this guy was putting on a bullshit act to be our friend just to try to get in our panties isn’t he the

asshole who lied to us? And we didn’t sleep with *him* so.... Kinda blows that theory right out of the water. It’s not seen that way though. All across media platforms the guy gets the girl. The hero gets his babe. The hook up always happens. In books. In television. In movies. Women are objects to be pursued not persons to be respected and certainly not people with whom to be platonic friends. Ultimately, we will come around, right, guys? We’ll jump on that dick before the end of the movie if you just push and push and push until we see the error of our ways. No means negotiate. “Let’s be friends” is a death sentence, and when it happens, it’s a reason to be angered and prove your manhood through namecalling and threats or through actual violence.

Or if you’re like my stalker, just keep on texting and tracking a girl down for going on 12 years even though she consistently ignores you. She’s bound to come around at some point.

Rejection sucks. It never feels great. There’s always a sting to it. But, the difference in feeling rejected and what Elliot Rodgers’ and many, many other men feel and believe is the idea that they’re somehow owed a woman’s affections--that the world owes it to them to bestow upon them the woman they want no matter how that particular woman feels about them. Rejection then turns into injustice and that attitude becomes wholly dangerous as we saw this past week and have seen numerous times before unfortunately.

The strong urge I have to add a not all men disclaimer in this piece to avoid the same bullshit I’ve experienced while talking about this on Facebook just goes to show how bad it’s gotten, too. We’re living in this world where women are consistently objectified and seen as conquests, where men feel justified in lashing out when a woman is not interested in being their plaything, and where seemingly decent guys feel the need to put their defenses up and scream and shout “not me” every time a woman attempts to share her experiences.

It has to stop. Women need to be heard so we can finally start addressing the misogynistic culture that

shapes people like Elliot Rodgers into murderers. We shouldn’t have to sleep with a man out of fear of being slaughtered or raped for saying no. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to go on a date or be approached by a man in a fucking parking lot. We shouldn’t have men trying to shut us up when we want to share what we’ve gone through and what other women go through. I was told before I wrote this that men don’t have it easy and that blaming certain actions on culture doesn’t address that. But, no one has an easy life. If you’re doing it right, it’s going to be a series of challenges and obstacles that help you grow. The problem right now is that we live in a culture where on top of the experiences we all have in life that challenge us to be stronger, women of all races and ages and sexual orientations face these unique-to-us situations that make life harder and scarier than it has to be and, at every turn, bringing about awareness on this issue gets shut down.

And that’s fine. I’ll just get louder.

Who’s with me?

This has been part of Sunday Confessions with More Than Cheese and Beer. The prompt was rejection. Check out hers and the rest of the contributors' posts! It's always fun to see how each person takes and interprets their posts. 

The Confines of Small Town Life

Being in a town of 297 people in the middle of the deep, rural South means the Internet is often a lifeline.

I live in the Bible Belt. The style is modern Redneck chique. If I don’t want a camo dress featuring the RealTree logo or some kind of Jesus reference, I have to shop online (or travel).

If I want to find a specialty food item or vitamin, I go to the Internet.

Bras? Internet.

Music? Oh yeah definitely Internet. There will be no Jason Aldean in this motherfucking house, no songs about sexy tractors or honky tonk badonka donks, no whiny tunes about dogs or songs referencing baby’s blue jeans. No.

Movies? Internet. I think online sources are pretty much a staple for everyone when it comes to movies.

Current events? Let’s just say I’m not going to depend on the local news outlets for anything major. I mean, it’s news here if a squirrel makes a nest in someone’s attic. So, I go to the Internet for that as well.

I also research for information, arrange travel, keep track of the weather, and pay bills online. Almost everything I do even down to the recipes for the cleaners I make is connected to the Internet in some form or fashion.

It is the ability to socialize and maintain friendships that has become the most important aspect of all my time online, though, even as much as I use it for daily tasks. So many people get on their soapboxes about how much time we spend online or on our phones and like to complain that people never really get out into the world and spend time with one another, and, in a way, I get that. But, when you live in a place like I do, it’s pretty fucking hard to get out in the world and meet people you connect with that you can stand to be around for more than 10 minutes. I don’t have a salt life or a river life sticker on the back of a too-big truck I drive to make up for my small personality. I don’t believe in Jesus. I don’t watch football (or any other sport). I don’t hunt, and I don’t worship America. I don’t go mudbogging (euphemistically or realistically), and I don’t listen to country music. In fact, if anything, I’m the opposite of all the things that seem to be essential to fitting into this local Southern culture.

If it weren’t for the Internet I think I would go insane from isolation especially since social media has even become essential to meeting like-minded others in the area for me to hang out with when I can stand being outside of my own house (ha).

Coming from someone who is part of the partnership of masterminds behind a site like DoucheArt, it may be hard to believe, but quite honestly I have met some of my closest friends online…some of the most caring, good-hearted people I know are those I connected with on the Internet. There are some people I have been in contact with for years that I know solely on an online basis and despite the distance between us physically, I consider them no less friends than those people I can actually get a hug from on a bad day.

Friendship can come in many forms and while I do have friends I can actually hang out with in person without traveling hundreds or thousands of miles (or across an ocean), the Internet has afforded me an opportunity to connect with so many more people on just a deep a level as those I can see on a regular basis, and I’m quite thankful for that. In my hardest times, it is often someone I’ve met online that I feel most comfortable actually turning to when I need to vent, and I try my best to be there for them that way too. It’s been people I’ve met online who’ve reached out the last year when I’ve been out of work to help me financially and to try to help me build my confidence in myself back up after so many turned-down applications. We joke and share experiences and ask about one another’s days. I get concerned about their family problems or sick relatives. There’s a true connection there in spite of the miles between us and the “sterile” way of communicating with typed words in black and white.

People tend to get amazed by the fact that I live in such a small town and ask me how I can stand it, and the answer is simple, the boundaries of the town do not limit my ability to interact with people from all over, of all cultures, with any myriad of beliefs. My ability to connect to others is only as limited as I make it and thankfully by being open to meeting people and befriending people online, those limits are small.

Even at my poorest, I am rich. Even when things were going to shit all around me here, I have still been lucky.

High-fucking-five, Internet. High-fucking-five.

This post, as every Sunday, is part of Sunday Confessions with someone I am very thankful to call a friend--Hot Ash over at More than Cheese and Beer. Stop over and read her confession as well as all the other bloggers who linked up. 

 

I Want to LOL Your Face, Assholes

There's a fine line between an annoyance--a pet peeve--and something that pisses you off. At least that's the way it is for me. If we were talking about the latter I could climb on my pile of soapboxes and go on all day long about ignorance, sexism, institutional racism, classism, our system (capitalistic oligarchy that it is), biased judicial system, ignorance (doubly so, eh?), and more. By the time I was done, in all honestly, your ears might be bleeding or at least you'd walk away dizzy with facts, ideas, thoughts...or you may be in a full rage from the cognitive dissonance your're railing against.

Either way, being passionate about issues to the point that lack of understanding of those issues can drive you to anger is not exactly the same as a pet peeve.

There are plenty of things I could discuss in terms of pet peeves as well--using text speak in regular every day conversations, not knowing the difference between your and you're (not making a typo...really not knowing the fucking difference), calling me pet names especially from someone I don't know well (hun makes me want to vomit)...

But, perhaps the top of the list is the gross overuse of LOL.

Text conversation:

Me: My roommate accidentally killed our cat today moving the couch. 

"Friend": Really? lol how did that happen?

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE LAUGHING OUT LOUD AT MY DEAD CAT?

Seriously? You don't know what to say so you automatically go to "lol?" My cat died and all you got is fucking "lol." Well, that's the end of that friendship.

Dating site message: 

Id luv 2 entertain u all nite long, baby lol

So, do you really want to entertain me or is this a joke? What are we laughing about here besides the fact that you actually just sent me that message? On top of that...this is like so many pet peeves in one. Do you want to make my fucking brain implode?

Facebook Chat: 

Friend: hey, hru 2day? lol

Me: I'm fine. How are you?

Friend: good. wyd? lol

Me: *ignore*

Are you really laughing every time you send a message? Are you high? Is there some joke implied that I'm not getting here? Do you know what English is? Do you even have a fully formed brain?

I just really don't understand the appeal of the whole lol thing to begin with especially in conjunction with anything and everything. I swear to fictional baby jesus that if I told someone I had brain cancer I would get "that sucks lol" as a response. It's like automatic for some people now matter what the topic and it really just makes my skin crawl.

 If you are not really laughing out loud, don't use it or I will LOL your face, and I can promise you it won't end well.


This has been part of Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer. The prompt, of course, was pet peeves. Check our her page for the rest of the bloggers who linked up today!

All the Memories

It's time for Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer! Today, in honor of Mother's Day, the prompt is Motherhood.

Motherhood embodies so many things including the aggravation I feel as I sit here listening to my 8 year old talking out loud to himself nonstop about whatever game he is playing.

He honestly does not even know he’s doing it. That’s the fucker of it. When I ask him if he absolutely HAS to give color commentary for every move he makes on the game he looks at me as if I’ve finally lost my mind and need a trip to the mental hospital. He also says, “I wasn’t” despite having been recorded doing this on numerous occasions. Sigh.

We’re like the odd couple, he and I. I’m extremely introverted and I tend to enjoy a clean working space, organization, and attention to the details. He, on the other hand, is a wild, chaotic tornado of talking destruction. In my living room right now, he has shoes, a drink from hours earlier, a bottle of rug cleaner out that he used to clean up a spill on the floor, headphones, drawings on notebook paper, and his WiiU remote where he is watching TV from his room in the living room where I am trying to write. We get a long about as well as the odd couple some days when I want his things out of the living room and a few minutes of peace while we hang out, but it all works out. I love him, the Oscar to my Felix. (Though, I’d like to point out that I’m not quite as anal retentive as Felix though perhaps my need to defend myself says otherwise. ha).

I think the best thing about being a mother may be the memories, though. There are the loving ones like that moment when he was just a month or so old when we were laying in bed together early in the morning and he smiled for the first time at the sound of my voice. The first kisses, the first hugs, the first “wub you” are all wonderful things to recall. There are the proud ones—the first time he scooted across the floor, the first word followed by many other words to the point that his pediatrician was shocked into silence at his 6 month checkup (and he hasn’t shut up since), his first steps, the first time he read to me, and the many times he has been awarded for grades at school. The even prouder moments from his seemingly total immersion into geek culture have been quite fun. I watched his jaw drop in shock when the words “Luke, I am your father” floated across the air to his tiny ear drums for the first time and my heart swelled.

No, seriously. We don’t fuck around with this sort of thing.

And there are funny ones too like the time the boy revenge-peed in the cat’s bowl. There’s the time he told me at 3 not to antagonize him about learning his ABCs. And there’s the time upon waking up in the morning and being sick, he assured me that he would, in fact, be fine to go to daycare as he had only had one too many Yoo-hoos the night before…

For the rest of my life, the phrase “I’m alright, I’m alright…I just had one too many Yoo-hoos last night” will be forever in my brain.

That’s why the memories are so good and such an awesome part of being a Mom. The memories you share with your child and of your child are not like any of the others even concerning a partner. You may lovingly recall the moment your significant other spoke the words “I love you” but it pales in comparison to the moment your child first did so. There’s really nothing like the feelings that swell to the surface when you think back over the years or months with your wee one and a kaleidoscope of moments flutter and washs over you leaving you in awe of the life you brought into the world and horror at how fast the time has gone already. No other memories can really do that to you—fill you with love, pride, laughs, frustration, and woe (albeit a sort of good woe) all at once.

But, that’s motherhood. And despite never wanting another one for as long as I live (hahaha) I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

(Seriously, if I ever tell you I’m pregnant and happy about it, please know that aliens have taken over my body, and I give you permission to do whatever needs to be done to take them down.)

I Don't Give a Damn 'Bout My Reputation (Sort of)

I have cultivated an online and sometimes real life persona that is perceived to be something a bit different from who I really am. This has become somewhat painfully obvious.

Online, people have a tendency to see me as a feminist robot with a multitude of passions who is not afraid to express an opinion (often backed by research and facts) and duke it out with anyone who doesn’t agree with that opinion. Assertive. Blunt. Somewhat Caustic. Determined. We could go down the alphabet pointing out adjectives that people have labeled me with and as well as some not-so-nice nouns like bitch and cunt and [gasp] feminazi. Here at home…well…emotionless has been used more than once along with those not so nice nouns.

Part of this is my own fault. I have problems letting my vulnerabilities show even with people I see in my everyday life. I hold my cards close and have trouble even giving a peek at what I may have in my hand. I’ve always been that way. I’m introverted. There’s no shame in that. But, it means the way I socialize can be fairly limited. I don’t hang out with “the girls” and go have fruity drinks with lots of laughs.

People see that and tend to judge. Why doesn’t she have friends? Maybe it’s because she’s such a bitch… And in that way, it’s out of my control and out of my hands because there are clues to the real me that can be seen if a person really pays attention instead of getting angry because I didn’t agree with whatever issue they decided to argue with me on… I mean, if you attempt fate by taking the bull by the horns, you really can’t get too pissed off when you get gored. But, people do, man…they really do. Most of the time when you come into a conversation prepared to “teach me a lesson” you’re the one who’s going to get schooled. (see, that’s why people think I’m a bitch right there…sigh). When you look at the big picture, though, I’m not exactly the cold-hearted, uncaring monster that people have made me out to be.

I care about big issues, and yes, I am passionate about those issues, but part of that comes from having a big heart. I could never write prisoners the way I do and not have one. It takes a committed, caring, empathetic person to be able to do what I do.

I have 17 animals I live with. Almost all of those are rescues. I felt the need to give these animals homes, and if I had the room, I would have more.

I cry when I read books especially when characters die. It’s often the same with movies especially older Disney cartoons. Fuck, I can’t even watch the Fox and the Hound without turning into a big pile of tears and snot.

I have used money I really couldn’t afford to spend to donate to a worthy cause for a child or an animal because GODDAMN IT WHEN YOU POST THOSE STORIES AND PHOTOS…ALL THE FEELS, MAN. ALL THE FEELS….yeah.

When I do have extra money, I tend to surprise my friends with gifts or I like to anyway. I know money doesn’t buy friendship, but I love saying “hey, while I was out, I thought about you…”

When I worked in a pharmacy, I would actually go home and research conditions and medications and insurances and discount programs for various customers and call them from my own phone on my own dime and on my own time just to give them extra help when they needed it… It wasn’t for me, for my job, or because my boss asked me to. I did it because I cared about their well-being and wanted to help in any way possible.

I’m not trying to brag about who I am, but sometimes my cultivated reputation seems to get in the way of people really getting to know me for who I am. People seem to develop these ideas about a me that I often don’t recognize because I know examples like those I mentioned to be the truth, and I want people to see THAT version of me just as much as the one that will cut them to down in a debate. That’s the me that I know and the me I’m proud of—the balance between the badass and the softie. At times, it hurts to realize that someone I have thought was pretty cool really sees only the more obvious parts of my personality never bothering to notice what’s underneath all that.



At the end of the day, though, it’s not my fucking problem if people miss what’s easy to find with a little effort, so all I can do is continue to be me and not worry about my bad reputation. It does have its benefits…it certainly lets me know who’s worthy of my time.

This has been, as always, a part of Sunday Confessions with More than Cheese and Beer. The prompt was "cultivate." Check out hers and the other link ups from other bloggers today! 

Just a Note (like old times)

I originally wrote this letter to Mat, my friend who was murdered, several years ago, but given that yesterday marked the 12th year since his death, I thought I would revamp it a bit and post it here.



Mat,

I miss you.

I think I gave up on simply "getting over" that fact a long time ago. Time is said to heal our wounds, and in many ways, I suppose that is true even it if is a bit of a cliche. It has been 12 years since your death, and things are, admittedly, much easier to deal with than they used to be, but I'm far from over it.  12 years later, and you're on my mind here and there for a myriad of reasons. This time of year it is especially so...birthdays, holidays, and even random moments in my day, you're there. Any mention of soccer, you. I can't hear a RHCP song (especially Under the Bridge) without you popping into my head or P.O.T.U.S.A., for that matter (millions of peaches, peaches for me. millions of peaches, peaches for free...you never gave me back that CD, fucker). Forget wrestling--can't watch it anymore because most of the time I did that with you (but, admittedly, I also grew out of that one). I can't hear a joke about phone boning without flashing a knowing grin and traveling back in time to late nights filled with desire and your voice. 

For this reason or that, you show up even now, 12 years after your death. I guess what I mean to say is that I carry you in my heart. Always have. And, thinking of everything that I've experienced in these 12 years...everything that has changed about the person I was versus the person I am always makes me a little melancholy knowing I will never know what kind of man you would be today.

I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to walk into a bar and buy a drink--legally. I'm sorry you never had the chance to grow out of things, to know the joy that comes from having a child (even an unexpected one) and hearing your little ones' first 'wuv you' directed your way or to burst with pride at their accomplishments as they grow older, to feel the awesome reward of getting your degree after busting your ass for it....there's so many things you still had left to do. I hate so much that your mom lost her husband and her child so unexpectedly just a few years apart, and I wish like hell you could have been the cool uncle to your nephews. You would have been, I'm sure. I wish life hadn't been ripped away from you so young, that you didn't have to die alone in that apartment, and I still hold out hope that you weren't aware of what was happening to you. If you had to go, let it have been as peaceful as possible.

I also, like anybody does in these instances, regret the many things I never said, realizing now, much too late, how fleeting life can be...

12 years later and there are times your memory still makes me smirk, often devilishly. There are times I miss you to the point of tears, and sometimes in the quiet of the night you appear in dreams so vivid I swear I could reach out and touch your face...

I love you.

always have

j