Final Friday

It's Friday again, and I seem to be making a ritual out of lists on Fridays...so here is our Final Friday list for November:

(1) Family is a wonderful thing for which we should all express gratitude and thanksgiving.  And then we should go home, before that feeling of gratitude and thanksgiving passes.  Sometimes, that window can be very, very small.

(2) Hanging out downtown in the town you grew up in is an interesting experience.  My sister and I went downtown today, because all the little shops were open and doing fun activities for "Frosty Friday."  It was a little chaotic and crowded, but it's fun.  It's also crazy to walk around and see the same people I've seen since I was a kid.  I can't decide if I like this or not.  Sometimes I do: I like the familiarity and the fact that things don't change, and the fact that people know my name and my family.  Sometimes, though, I just don't like it.  I know I would never be able to be seen as my own person, and this bothers me.  Space and my own community is a very good thing.

(3) I had a long conversation today with a family member who does not know I blog about this person's perception that blogs are self-centered, and that only self-centered people have blogs.  It made me think and made me quite uncomfortable, because it's true.  It really is.  Not that only self-centered people have blogs, I don't think you can say that, but that blogging is rather self-centered.  There is no reason why people should want to read my (or others') ramblings about my/their mundane thoughts and/or existence.  And yet...here I am.  I need to think about this more.

(4) I hate that people in my life hold the idea that a woman is not truly successful until she has found a partner/married/had children.  I hate the fact that I know I will not be seen as truly successful until I have accomplished this.  I completely understand that this is a developmental milestone I am supposed to have reached by now.  I also completely understand that, sometimes, people don't know how to handle it when certain expected developmental milestones have not been reached.  And, actually, it's NOT really a developmental milestone, so I take that back.  It's a socially expected milestone.  There is a difference.  Just because I'm not married/don't have a partner/have not had children at 28 does not mean that I am developmentally behind.  It feels that way right now, I won't lie to you.  It feels like people must think there is something flat-out wrong with me.  BUT...the rational part of me knows and understands that this is merely an arbitrary social expectation based on patterns of other people in our current culture.  Regardless, it pisses me off, perhaps unnecessarily.

(5) I have a lot to say, maybe tomorrow, on food, and body shaming, and how hard it is to be body-positive and to stand up to body shaming in all of its sneaky forms.  I will have to write about that tomorrow.

(6) I have some super exciting things coming up for me the next few weeks, and I am extraordinarily excited and full of amazement and gratitude for each of them.  I will hopefully have some exciting things to write about soon.