The Outspoken Opinion

This is a conversation that I had with someone this week.

"You have a lot of opinions on a lot of stuff"
"Yep"
"Your Twitter feed is full of things you are spouting off about.  Don't you get tired of being an angry person?   Chill out for a while"
"I'm not an angry person at all.  But if I see something shitty, I am going to say something about it.  That is just who I am"
"So you are a social justice warrior then right?"
"Well if giving a shit about important issues makes me an SJW, then yes, that is what I am".

I thought about this conversation for a while.  Am I an angry person?  I would have to say no.  I am a happy gal.  My Twitter feed has a lot of things that I have shared that I disagree with, yes, but you know what?  Twitter takes up maybe thirty minutes of my day.  The rest, for all you know, is playing with bunnies and singing "The Hills Are Alive With The Sound of Music".  

So I decided to take a look at my feed over the last week and see what "controversial" things I had shared.  In reverse order:

• 9 women's refugees in Lancashire facing closure because of budget cuts.  Shared a petition - please sign!!
• Adam Johnson appealing his verdict.  Dude, you admitted child grooming and sexual activity with a CHILD.  Shut up.
• That 8 out of 10 most abused writers on the Guardian were women.  No surprise there.
• That body shaming is not ok.  
• That Dennis Skinner called David Cameron "dodgy Dave".  LOVED this.
• Laughed at the idea that the films that MRAs cried about were some of my favourite films.  (A woman, being the lead in a film: misandry!!!) lol
• A guy on a dating website who went full throttle psycho on me within two messages of speaking.
• That 5 horses died in the Grand National meet.  Find a ray of sunshine in that.  I dare you.

• That Missouri Republicans want Planned Parenthood to provide a list of any woman who has ever had an abortion and that the woman who is refusing, is facing jail.
• That being blocked, is not the same is being censored.  Brilliant article from Clementine Ford who rightly points out her right to block a man from her own page who says "Good job you slimey fat cunt, I really do hope you are the next one raped."  Or that she deserves to be gang raped.

So there you have it.  Ten "controversial things I have tweeted about in the last seven days.  Look at them.  All of them.  Then put them together.  

So lets summarize.  Women losing a safe place to go when they have been abused.  A paedophile,  Women being abused for saying what they think.  Calling out body shamers.  Dodgy Dave (enough said).  MRAs moaning about women being a lead in a couple of films.  A misogynist guy who messaged me (and after that message, offered me money to go out with him).  Animals dying for human entertainment.  Women losing client confidentiality because the Republicans think the rights to a woman's body belongs to a man.  (A percentage) of men thinking that losing the right to threaten to rape or kill a woman online on her own page is a loss of a freedom of speech.

You know what?  Fuck that.  I am angry.  

Mind Full, or Mindful?

I wrote a blog post on Friday about the Grand National.  Nothing new about that, I write one every year.  The new thing was that I had not written prior to that for over six weeks.  I have only written nine this year.  This is not me.

I love to write.  I have fifty different opinions on various subjects every day.  I am not short of material.  When I wrote my Grand National post it felt like coming home.  Everything was the same, the planning, the writing; the ease of putting what is rolling around in my head on to the screen.

But there is a disconnect there that I cannot deny.  I think of blog posts that I want to write and they remain in my head, unwritten.  I see so many posts from the inspiring and wonderful bloggers I read and I think "This is what I think, I could have written this, why didn't you?"

In order to unpack my feelings about why I am not actively writing any more, I have to look inside.  I have had a fucking shitty last two years.  My step dad being in and out of hospital, his fall, his subsequent nine months in hospital and then a care home; his death.  The aftermath of that.  My beloved little pooch dying.  It has been utterly shit.  Coupled with the fact that I have my sneaking depression that usually likes to creep into me when I am having a good day.

I need a head clear out.

I read something the other day that struck a chord with me.  "Humans are unhappy because we spend our time and energy thinking about things that don't exist - the past and the future" - Oli Doyle.

It really made me think about how much time my head is in the past, or thinking about the future whilst the present is just passing me by.  The past does not affect this moment I am living in right now.   Each second that passes by I will never have again.  I want to make it count.

The quote I mentioned was from a book called Mindfulness for Life.  It is a six week course that gives you a challenge each day in order to make you live in the present.  Not letting the past affect you now, not worrying about the future.  Just living.

So I am going to try this out.  Will it work?  I don't know.  But I am going to document my journey here.  Living my life in the present, not in the story of me.