Love is really heavy

Hey, it's Valentine's Day! The day that is more saccharine than Halloween with all its trick-or-treat bags.

Anyway, what better day to write a blog that I've been trying to write for months. You see, I have this thing with love. The word and what it represents hold a tremendous amount of weight for me. It kind of plays into my literal versus imaginative mind, I think.

When I was a kid, the word "love" just wasn't a thing for my family. I really don't recall "I love you"s being said. I'm not trying to call this out as a bad thing. It's simply the way it was.

When I first met the family of one of my best friends back when we were in high school, I was like, "Whoooooa" with all the hugging and kissing and "I love you"s flying about. It wasn't just her parents with the kids, it was between all the siblings, too. This blew my mind.

Shawn's family is the same way. Every phone call, even between Shawn and his brother, ends in "I love you". I'm always like, "This. Is. So. Bizarre." You may even say it is outside my comfort zone.

One of my things with love is that I don't recognize blood translating into love. I do not think that because you share some genetic code you automatically love each other. For example, I have all kinds of cousins, big Catholic families, most of whom I've only met once or twice, and some not at all. They are my first cousins, but, essentially, some may say they are acquaintances, if not strangers.

Even relatives I do know, that I'd seen quite often growing up and in my adulthood before moving out of state, are not people I would say I love to. Does this mean I do not care about them on some level? No. It's just that love is too strong, too powerful for me to say if my gut doesn't tell me to.

What becomes difficult is someone telling me they love me and my feeling a tremendous awkwardness because I cannot say it back. I'm not snubbing that person, I just can't lie about it. It is the worst position to be in. I'm really not intending to be an asshole, but I imagine it could come across that way. I feel like texting and Facebooking and whatever else-ing that use emojis help me out because, for whatever reason, I'm okay with sending a heart. That probably sounds like some odd distinction, but somehow the heart, to me, is not the same as an "I love you".

While we're at it with the hot mess that is the workings of my mind, I do not acknowledge unconditional love as a thing. Nope, I have conditions. The conditions are that you are not a horrible person. If I've loved you and you turn into an unrepentant, horrible person, I'm pretty sure you are breaking one of my rules about love and I will have no problem with putting the kibosh on the whole love thing. I have conditions. I don't care if you are family or friend.

Last year I had a fight with a person who had been close to me. This fight took place after we were already not speaking for a couple years. She made a comment that even with all of the shit of the last couple years, she loved me unconditionally. Whoa, Nelly! NOPE! I told her not to dare to say that. I told her that if she had felt that way she would have, despite how things were going, reached out knowing that in the last few years I was going through the worst times of my entire life. She told me that's not how it works. So, to me, what good is the love she claimed she still had for me? It seems she had some conditions.

So, there you have it. When I told my therapist I thought this made me a cold hearted asshole, she didn't seem to think the same way. I'm going to try to go with her on this one.

We shouldn't be the cause of someone else's #MeToo

It kind of seems like #MeToo has died down some on social media, but I'm still trying to wade through my thoughts and experiences. I feel we still need to learn more, teach more, and make changes. Black dresses, white roses, pink pussy ear hats all need to mean something.

That brings me to something I saw the other day that got me thinking. It's kind of along the lines of how I feel about presidential minor children being off limits for ridicule. A meme showed up that had Sarah Huckabee Sanders and, yes, I don't agree with her politics, but this wasn't mocking them. Have I thought her to be unattractive? Yes. Have I had the same thoughts about Kellyanne Conway? Yes. Am I proud to admit that I've made those thoughts public? No. Have I made jokes about 45's appearance? Yes....but to be honest, his orange skin and bizarre hair isn't natural, it's a choice....that's probably an excuse to justify myself.

Anyway, if the black dresses, white roses, and pink pussy ear hats are to mean anything; if they are meant to be about the empowerment of woman; if they are meant to support victims of various abuses, shouldn't we do better than memes about other women's appearances? We can support one another as women on these things, even when we differ in our politics.

I am sure I will need to check myself and I will most certainly wreck myself, but we should all try.

What's in a name?

So, Shawn and I started watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. The main character, Mrs. Maisel (obvi), is named Miriam, but goes by "Midge". This got me thinking about a neighbor when I was a kid. This old man a few doors down called me "Midge" for some reason.

I started to think about all of the nicknames I have accrued through the years. It all started with "Meg". l didn't know my actual name was "Margaret" until I started school. Of course attendance was taken and I was like, "Watchu talkin' 'bout, teacher?" Of course, it sucked because I had to learn how to write an 8 letter word instead of a 3 letter one.

So, as far as I can recall, here's the roll. This assumes the obvious names of "Bitch", "Asshole", and the like.

• Meg
• Margar
• Peggy Sue
• Megger
• Megala
• Meggles
• Midge
• Megaroni
• Meggo
• Megra
• Mag
• Moony
• Babe
• Mommy (for Jarvis)   

I think there are more, but I don't know.