“It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.”.: October 2013

"You've changed."

I am part of a generation that had been constantly immersed in Social Media for the majority of the latter half of my life. I got a Xanga when I was 12, a Myspace shortly after, and a Facebook when I was 14. When I see something I agree with, think is cute, hilarious, undyingly romantic, or something that pulls on the heartstrings and accurately portrays how I am feeling, I push the like button. The little innocuous thumbs up in the bottom left hand corner of the a post in your Facebook Newsfeed.

Around the time that I left for college, Facebook started showing more and more of what people were 'liking' on their newsfeeds. My opinion has always been that if I am ashamed of something that I am doing or something that I believe to the point where I feel I need to hide it from my friends and family, then it's not something I should be doing. So I didn't stop liking thing that I stood for, because I'm not nor have I ever been ashamed to stand up for equal rights and protections for any disadvantaged population of people.

When I was in elementary school, my family used to joke about having accidentally raised a bleeding heart liberal. Slowly and surely they came to realize that it was far more truthful of a statement than it was a joking one. My immediate family embraced me and loved me for standing up for what I believe in and working so passionately towards human rights and equality. The rest of my family has casually looked the other way and tried their hardest not to bring it up at family functions.

Last night, a member of my extended family took offense as something I shared in a satirical mindset, and posted very derogatory status about how I was a 'complete idiot' and how I didn't have 'simple common sense' for someone who was 'SUPPOSED to be smart.' They asserted that I apparently learned at alma mater that no one ever needed to go to church, when the reality is that my disenchantment and skepticism with organized Christianity started when I was 14 and leading worship at their own local church because of some very specific happenings. They wanted me to know that they were incredibly disappointed in me and the person that I have become, because I've Changed.

Many of the arguments above I won't even touch. If everyone in my family wants to believe that all state schools are satanic liberal institutions that are intentionally drawing youth away from the church, that's their choice. If they want to believe I'm an idiot who lacks simple common sense, that's also their choice. If they want to call me a sheep and say that I am mindlessly following the masses without any opinion or cognition of my own, that is also their choice. But one thing that I can not allow them to say is that any of my beliefs are 'new' or that I have 'changed."

Ask me about the first time that I was ever expressed my displeasure at members of my family using racial slurs.

I was in elementary school. Members of my family used racial slurs for hispanic people and blacks and said that they, "didn't mean it in a bad way, they just grew up with that language." I cried wouldn't talk to them until they promised not to say them anymore.

Ask me about the first time I wrote a paper for school that made my mom and dad shake their heads and say 'Good Lord, we gave birth to an activist."

3rd Grade. We were learning how to write persuasive papers. Other people wrote papers on why we should have soda in the lunch room, or why we should get rid of Mondays... I wrote about "The Inhumane Captivation of Animals at the Dallas Zoo."

Ask me about the next time that happened....

A few months later they expanded the highway on the edge of town and I just about went into hysterics over the loss of wildlife habitats.

Ask me about the first time someone in my family told me that I couldn't have a crush on someone of a different ethnicity, because, "no self respecting white man would ever let his daughter date a n****r."

I was in elementary school, and she spent the whole rest of the ride to school telling me that I was "young and stupid and didn't know what I was talking about" because I wouldn't agree with her.

Ask me about the first time I went off on someone for generalizing the hispanic man riding his bike to work as a "G**D**n illegal alien..."

I was in elementary school, and I told the person that they knew nothing about him, asked them if they knew what assuming does, and then gave them the silent treatment for the next week on our rides to school.

Ask me about the first time I stood up for my LGBT friends.

It was the beginning of my sixth grade year and one of my close friends had just come out to me. I told my parents that I thought that gay people should be allowed to love who they wanted because God didn't make mistakes so he must have wanted them that way.

Ask me about the first time I told my mom I didn't want to go to church.

7th grade. My father was in prison for drinking and driving and the members of the church didn't know how to act around us, so they repeatedly treated my mom and my family like the red headed step child because of the perceived stigma of him being gone. I told her that I wouldn't go to church with a bunch of hypocrites.

Ask me about how no matter how many youth groups/church camps I attended or how many worship services I led at however many churches, my opinion never changed because that hypocrisy was present at every single one of them as well.

And then ask me about how that never changed my unwavering faith in God, because I know that just because we as his followers are human and flawed does not mean that He is. Even so my perception of the institution of the christian church will forever be marred by these experiences.

Ask me about the time that I defended a gay couple that was on a sitcom, and asked my friends who said it was "disgusting" just what they planned to do if they were in public with their future children and saw a gay couple holding hands.

I sat alone at lunch for a week.

Ask me who I would have voted for in 2008 if I had been 18 (pre-attending the satanic liberal institution which has destroyed my mind and condemned me to hell).

Obama.

Ask me about how I "stirred up trouble" at Thanksgiving that year.

A member of my family proclaimed that Obama was a GD idiot because now he was saying that he was getting his daughters a hypoallergenic dog, and there was no damn thing....to which I replied, "Yes there is." and then sat in the living room by myself for the next 30 minutes.

Ask me about having a fight with a member of my family because I was letting my house become the 'local fa***t hangout' and how that was unacceptable.

I told this person to stop acting like a bigot and think about what they had just said out loud and how they would have felt if any of the people they were talking about had heard them, and then I said that either I was hanging out there with my friends, or somewhere else with my friends, but that they were a part of the deal. All they had to lose was me.

Ask me about what the first thing that one of my family members said to me about Sam was.

"He's a nice boy, but we don't date people like that." to which I replied, "well we do."

Ask me about how my mom had to sit down and talk with my family about how they were treating me and my fiancé because of his ethnicity.

I'll tell you how great it felt to have her defending us.

Even so, ask me the last time my family used a racial slur when Sam and I were present to hear it.

Thanksgiving, 2012.

Ask me who I voted for in this most recent election (post-having been enrolled and indoctrinated by the satanic liberal institution of my misguided youth).

Obama.

Ask me which political party I belong to.

I don't. I don't believe in the two-party system and I vote for each individual office based on a candidate by candidate basis because political party affiliation does not an upstanding citizen or fantastic leader make. If I haven't had a chance to take the time to research the candidates, I abstain from voting in that section since I cannot make an informed decision.

Ask me what a Planned Parenthood Clinic is really like.

I'll tell you about how incredibly important they are to women's health in this nation and how without them I wouldn't have been able to afford yearly well-woman exams or birth control during the time that I was uninsured in college.

Ask me what it feels like to have Medicaid when all of your friends and family members have insurance through their parents jobs and get medical treatment with the doctors you know and love....

...while you have to take entire days off of school to drive to the far side of the metroplex to the sketchy, backdoor clinics that would take your insurance and usually give you a wrong diagnosis as well. Ask me what it feels like to age out of Medicaid and the University Health Care System and to not be able to afford to go to the Dr when you're sick.

Ask me about how many times I've been accused by family members of being someone who "just likes to stir up trouble and cause drama" because I can't stand to sit quietly when someone is degrading a fellow human being.

I will proudly say Countless.

Ask me how many times I got lectured on the car ride to family holidays/functions about how I needed to just keep my mouth shut because, "You know how it'll end up."

Ask me how many family functions I spent on my phone or outside away from everyone to avoid conversations I couldn't stand to listen to, but wasn't allowed to comment on.

Ask me how amazing it felt to be fostered and mentored in a program at my university that gave me the knowledge, skills, self and cultural awareness to be able to articulate the things that have bothered me ever since I was a small child. Ask me how utterly amazing it feels to be able to better stand up for the things that I have always believed in.

I see your "You've Changed" and raise you an "I've found a voice."

And now for some Jeff Foxworthy....

If you think that it's the good Christian thing to do to go on community outreach missions that give food to the homeless or needy families in your communities.....

but you support the defunding of programs like welfare or food stamps on a national level....