Speaking Out

One of the best pieces of speaking up I have ever read was recently on the blog Nerdy Apple Bottom, which you can find linked to on this post. The blogger ends her post with the following:

And again I say to you that bullying is not okay, even if you wrap it in a bow and call it ‘spiritual care.’

I'd like to add one thing: bullying is especially not okay if you wrap it in a bow and call it spiritual care.

Blizzard

Now perhaps my friends will understand that blizzards are dangerous. Cars and possibly still some people are stranded on Lake Shore Dr. But I look at the white out windy conditions and I want to run outside with my love and make snow forts and snow angels. Of course, that too would be dangerous, but it's also impossible.

The Type

I found myself on Friday night frustrated with a young friend of mine for having views of the future. I think I was just bitter that I can no longer be that type of person.

Men's Group

So this week I went to a men's group for the first time in my life. Growing up, I was always skeptical of any gender-specific spaces, and in many ways, still am. The discussion facilitator for this group, which focuses on what it means to be a young religious man, or something like that, is a woman, so I feel less awkward about the group being somehow "men's only space". However, I think the opportunity to discuss men's issues is not taken enough, either in public or private spaces, so I was curious. I found that the discussion we had was meaningful, and it was not the sort of discussion I have in other contexts. Admittedly, my experience of masculinity and manhood is quite different from that of the cisgendered men in the group, their experiences are actually quite different from each others, as well. The group gives us a place to talk about men's issues, and I think that it could be done with more people who are not men there as well, but the conversation would be very different. There is a certain comfort and ease in sitting with a group of men that enables us to say things that in other contexts, or even in that context, may be inappropriate, but give each other leeway to speak our minds, a leeway which is often not granted in other contexts.

On new family

I went to Grand Cayman last week for my brother's wedding. His wife's family is great, and to be honest, in many ways I get along better with her than with him. It was wonderful to get a week of shorts weather in January, and to see some family that I hadn't seen in ages. I also got to meet my two youngest cousins. I am starting to get over my nervousness around babies - I much prefer people who can talk.

I had the awkwardness of coming out to my uncle before signing the ketuba as my sister-in-law's witness.