Up until about 10 or 11 years ago, I thought I was living a
pretty average, OK existence in a great country where most people got along pretty
well and were too busy worrying about getting through their own day to have the
time to critique everyone else’s lives.
And then I decided I wanted to take my then 3 year old to
Disney World. I got on the internet to
find out some information, and found a Disney message board.
I found a lot of useful information for our trip, and I
discovered a Community Board on the site that discussed various non-Disney
related topics, and read through some of it.
I found it to be an interesting way to spend my time in the evenings
after my son went to bed and my husband went to work for the evening. About a week later, there was a thread posted
with the title “What is the difference between a Catholic and a born again
Christian?”
Well, this was a topic I had some knowledge in, so I decided
to dive in and answer since no one else had.
I stated that Catholicism is a Christian denomination, while being “born
again” means that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior, thus
were “born” into a new life. Simple
enough, I thought. Boy was I wrong.
This is when I learned, based on that answer, that I hate
Catholics and think they are not going to heaven, and thought I was superior to
anyone that wasn’t Christian. I read the
comments and thought “What on God’s green earth….? People actually think like that??? Are there
that many people just looking to be find some reason to criticize you?”
Throughout the years on the internet, I can say for sure
that answer is “Yes.”
I now know I’m a horrible mother because my premature child
was unable to breast feed, that I am ignorant because I used disposable
diapers, that I think I’m superior to stay at home moms just because I’m not
one, that I make a pretty good living only because of white privilege (darn,
think of all that money I could have saved by not putting myself through
college, not to mention the time I wasted working every day since I was 15), that the good living I do make means I’m
incapable of understanding what it’s like to struggle (because I came out of
the womb making my salary…hmm, wait, maybe that is a benefit of white privilege),
that I’m a lazy selfish parent because my child takes medication, that I don’t
deserve pets because one of my cats is declawed, that I hate particular people because
of who they sleep with because Chick-Fil-A is my kids favorite place to eat and
we go there weekly….I could do this all night, but you are probably getting
bored by now.
In actuality, most of my daily energy is consumed just
dragging myself out of bed and on my morning run. Then my time is spent working full time,
driving my son to school and baseball practice and various random activities,
making dinner, feeding the ever-hungry cats, letting out the dogs, cleaning the
house, doing laundry, and drinking my well deserved glass (or two or three) of
wine at the end of the day while packing lunches and paying bills and making
sure my kid brushes his teeth before bed.
I honestly don’t have the time or energy, much less the desire to hate
anyone or feel superior to them or bow down to them because they managed to sew
a new pair of pajamas in the last hour to put on their non-medicated kid. And this week we acquired a pet turtle that I
also need to take care of, so all that time I spent reveling in my superiority
is gone now too, replaced by scooping out food that wasn’t eaten and cleaning
an aquarium and trying to sell enough on Ebay to make up for the $159 I had to
spend on turtle supplies.
Some people like to use the internet just to make people
upset about things and to divide them.
Read that stuff with a grain of salt and concentrate on what your real
world is like. It really is full of great, loving, accepting people.
That’s why they have wine.
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