#29-30 + 1: Family, Friends & Feminism
I’ve spent a month blogging about all the things I am grateful for, and as cliche as it sounds, it’s been pretty darn uplifting. Among other things, it’s made me appreciate that annoying-but-true, classic Buhddist belief that those things which confound us are the purest of blessings. To wit:
Family and friends are pretty much why any of us gets up in the morning. Oh, you can say “I get up because I have a mortgage to pay” or “I get up because I have six cats sleeping on me and I can’t stand it any more” or “I get up because the kids will eat chocolate cake for breakfast if I don’t.” But really, all that is just a cover for the smarmy truth:
We live for those we love.
Everything else - the house, the car, the job, the clothes, the graduation, the promotion, the vacation, the Nintendo Wii - all that crap is just details. Deep in our curmudgeonly hearts, we know that even if we got all the goodies we ever wanted, it wouldn’t mean a rats ass if we didn’t have the people we love.
I started to write out a list of all the people to whom I am grateful and why, but I realized it was long and boring to anyone but me. And what I wanted to say, anyway, was really just this: Thank your lucky stars for the loved ones in your life. Don’t take them for granted because that’s the only real sin in this world.
So today is December 1st, and Thanksgiving Month is officially over… but I find I simply hafta give one more thank:
If you are a woman and you…
- vote
- have a college education
- wear pants
- play sports
- work in politics or medicine (or at all, for that matter)
- choose not to have children
- own property
- or have chosen to do your own thing in any way, shape, or form…
There was a time not so very long ago that none of the above were possible for you in the good old US of A (and still isn’t in many countries).
If you are a man and the women in your life love themselves and love you better for it, if your brilliant daughter or niece makes you proud, if your heart is free… thank a feminist.
If you want women to earn more than the current 70% of every man’s dollar, want to keep the right to choose legal, want to eliminate the pink collar ghettos, want “God” to be genderless, want little girls to grow up knowing their worth is in who they are, not who they belong to…
Thank a feminist. She is making this future possible.
Photo: Water crystal formed by the words “love and gratitude”
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Filed under Gratitude |5 Responses to “#29-30 + 1: Family, Friends & Feminism”
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“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears,
the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair.
The beauty of a woman must be seen in her eyes, because
that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole,
but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul.” - Audrey Hepburn
You, Rachel, are a truly beautiful woman!!!
What lovely words-and how true!! x
You are truly a poet and a great writer, Rachel. And it’s so true, the people we love are the most important thing in the world.
I’m thankful every day for my feminist, even if I don’t always tell her. She’s the strongest person I know. Thanks for posting this. It’s reminded me to tell her what she means to me.
Kaydee, thank you for that lovely poem…and Kaydee, Toni and Darlene, thanks so much for the kind words; seriously, I’m all feklempt!
You are the soul of beauty that Audrey wrote of.
James, you are welcome and give your fabulous feminist a hug for me because I am thankful to know her.