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Tears At Midnight – Featured Blog

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Today’s posts from our featured Port Elizabeth Blogger:

Tears At Midnight by Keep Passing the Open Windows:

12459569_10156465655035094_1840938045_nIt’s only the 2nd but it’s become quite clear that some of the folks in my life are already having a hard time of 2016 and it’s got my head buzzing a little. There seems to be an embarrassed sort of fear that a less-than-positive start to the year might mean a less-than-positive year. It’s kind of a cool idea because that means that a positive attitude in turn would equal a positive year. And that sounds great, doesn’t it?

You see, I really like New Year’s. I like it in the same way that I really like Mondays. And the first of the month. And if the first of the month is a Monday? Oh the joy! Perhaps that in itself gives away parts of my own psychoses. But there’s something about new beginnings that thrills me just a little. Perhaps it is because I am ok at beginnings, it is the middles and the endings that I don’t fare so well with.

At the end of 2008 going into 2009 I was at the most broken point that I have possibly ever been in my life. Looking back I almost judge myself for it. Oh there are worse things than all that I berate myself. What a sniffly weakling you were. That’s a little mean of me I suppose, especially when you consider the patience that I feel towards anyone in a similar position. We were in Cintsa, just outside of East London (the East London in South Africa, not the east part of London in the UK) and we were staying with friends at their holiday house. Noah was only 6 months old and I was a newly single mom. It had already been a month since the ex had walked out but I was still at a point where I kept bursting into tears for seemingly no reason at intervals that were too close together.

It seemed impossible to look at 2009 with any sort of magical hope, that magical hope that I have always associated with New Year’s Eve. The worst part was that the New Year’s Eve the year before had kind of been a heartbreak as well, one that had returned to me the taste of schoolday bullies and wretched social anxieties that I thought no longer had a hold on me. And of course it was one that came with a big you’re not allowed to talk about that label on the side. Awesome. But at least that NYE had included drugs and sex and the consolation that, while my past had no room for me, my present was quite a fan. To start two consecutive New Year’s badly just seemed a bit mean, and impossibly unfair thank you very much. New Year’s is, after all, the only celebration that I have ever comfortably bought into. Christmas? Yuck! Valentine’s day? Double yuck! Easter? A holiday in which the chocolate is more expensive in money but less in calories? Uh…no. But New Year’s? I love New Year’s. Even if it comes without partiess and ribbons. However it is celebrated it always comes with a sigh of relief…

My sigh of relief evaded me in 2009.

But you know what? It should obviously go without saying, but a bad start to the year is not even the slightest indicator of how that year will turn out. 2009, for me, was probably one of the most liberating years of my life. Without the loud clang of a bad relationship shackling me to itself, I got to learn a lot about myself, I made some great friends, and eventually met the man that I ended up marrying.

As much as I love New Year (and I know that it is far “cooler” to view January the 1st with weary disdain and snark about how it’s just another day) I do know that it matters very little in the grand scheme of life. Life that isn’t really measured by months or years or Mondays. If I have to sum up 2015, as if “years” count more than “lives”, it was simply the year that I did not move to Thailand as planned, but I got a lot of cats instead. Anyone wanna psychoanalyse that one?

So to my loved ones who feel like the year ahead is daunting: anything can happen. Maybe you’ll get a cat and fall in love. Maybe you’ll stumble into a new passion. Maybe you’ll find art. Maybe your path will change completely.

Today counts little towards that though. So if you’re feeling a little sad, or unsure. That’s ok. Lots of wine and ice cream is ok. Lots of sleep and isolation is ok. Today doesn’t set you up for the year. You may have your best or your worst or your most mediocre year ahead of you. It’s probably going to happen how it happens anyway, regardless of how you feel today. There’s no point in beating yourself up for a lack of enthusiasm that will most likely only last a short while anyway.

And if all else fails: I have cats and am always happy to share a glass of wine with you if you need a pick-me-up. Please call first though, just in case I’m not wearing pants.

Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows

Musings on the Media by Keep Passing the Open Windows:

Photo on 2015-11-17 at 5.22 PMSo I wrote a blog post on Sunday morning that did a little better than my blog posts usually do. That’s not saying particularly much because, well,  better than usual doesn’t mean better than much. I’m just another girl with too much on her mind. Add to my muddled mind a broken filter which allows me to try and articulate what goes on in my head and that’s pretty much the only recipe you need to be just another blogger. But as far as blog posts go, my post on care shaming did relatively well (again…for me) so I sort of feel like I need to do a bit of a follow up. I am honestly struggling to find the right words. I worry greatly that this post will come off as a little bit finger pointy and I hope that it doesn’t. It could very easily be interpreted as being in complete contradiction to my previous post. I hope I articulate myself better than that, but we all know how easy it is to express ourselves badly. Just know that if I sound shouty in your head, that I am not trying to be shouty. I’m trying to be observant specifically without being shouty. I hope I don’t fail…

I have to admit that having a post do a little better than usual is a little scary. I keep expecting someone to be too mean for me to handle. I’ll even deserve it. Though it wasn’t my intention, I can see how someone might interpret that post as a little bit white girl making excuses. I am most certainly not an authority on anything that I spoke of and I am well aware of that. My only qualification (what else can I call it?) in speaking when it comes to social consciousness stems from my own desire to become more socially conscious and to do better when it comes to things like race and sexism and sexuality and confronting my own privilege. It does open me up to criticism though, and I am learning to deal with the scariness of criticism and even be open to it. I think. Although this post might in itself be evidence to the contrary…

I was accused of glossing over the part the media plays in selectively sensationalising some stories over others. I did do that. My intention wasn’t to downplay the media so much as it was to discourage shaming people for not being as socially conscious as we might like them to be.  When 911 happened it opened up a certain consciousness for me. I was 19 at the time and I was living in New Jersey. I suddenly woke up to the fact that the world around me existed in this very raw way that I had possibly not considered before. For some reason, the towers went down and it was like a filter lifted from me. I hadn’t been paying much attention before that. Of course I was 19 and a little naive and exceptionally self conscious and I was maybe not ready to fully process that kind of thing, but already I was able to see that being rude to the muslim taxi driver because the towers went down was the height of messed up.

Slowly – and I mean very slowly – I have become better at conscientiousness over the years. At least I hope I have. I hope that I am more observant. More awake. I like to think that I have even become more able to understand the merits of opposing views. The intention of my last post was to simply recognise that being made to feel shameful in the early stages of awakening conscientiousness might not be a solution in the global quest for heightened social awareness. When I thought about it I tried to think of it from the perspective of a fledgling social justice warrior. We need more of those. So I’d like to not accidentally cut them off at the knees before they’ve been given the chance to grow. I do, however, apologise profusely if I in any way came off as thinking that anyone is more or less important than anyone else.

So back to the role of the media. I agree  of course that the media plays a big role in what we do and do not know about the happenings of the world. I do. I was in no way trying to say that it doesn’t. There is a bias that does happen and I have bemoaned this fact myself. I do still believe that the bias is less than what it is made to be. I guess I just want to be the person who doesn’t yell at her friends for being ignorant (I am sure I have done this in the past – you could probably find evidence of my hypocrisy all over this blog) but instead tries to inspire the eradication of ignorance by not being guilty – or at least being less guilty –  of the same things that I might feel like accusing my friends of.

I have seen a lot of folks posting grossly inaccurate information on social media over the last couple of days. I have seen people lambasting the media for being too selective and giving an air of those-lives-matter-more-than-these-lives-do. I have seen people sharing all sorts of things in the spirit of “this is just as important as France is”. All of it understandable. And it mostly comes from the right place, albeit a frustrated and sometimes aggressive place.

But then yesterday there was a massive flood in India. It killed over 50 people and they’re expecting the flooding to get worse. I didn’t get that information from the friends who were yelling about how farm murders are important too. I didn’t get it from the friends who were screaming “what about Beirut”.  Or from those who were asking why no one cared about the dead bodies in Kenya.

I got that story from the media.

And here’s the truth that I cannot escape: The story of India was nestled between a whole bunch of different stories about France. As of last night, it hadn’t been mentioned again (I have to admit I have not checked today).

So it is true. The media is selective.

But so are we. Even when we are pointing fingers at the media and each other, so are we.

We. I. Me.

I can’t help but logically know that if the India floods post had been clicked on and followed and shared a million times over, it would have gotten a follow up. Or two or three.

I didn’t share that article yesterday.

I should have.

Tomorrow I will do better.

 

Read more here: Keep Passing the Open Windows

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Port Elizabethan

This author is a 'catch-all' for occasional articles and letters written to MyPE. The Author of each article can be found in the signature at the bottom of each individual article.