It's not the same

I can't do it.  At least not for now.  I keep seeing people poring over my words, trying to find something to use against me and it makes my blood run cold.

It is the greatest violation I have ever come up against, I think.  I don't think that anyone who is not a writer could ever quite grasp what it feels like to have your words taken out of context, twisted and strung out and used as a weapon against you.  It is very painful.  Probably even more painful than reading something about yourself that is hurtful.

What is most interesting to me is that "normally" this would be something that I would rail against -- oh, the injustice!  But I don't feel that way at all, because the threat is a machine that I have fought my entire life and gotten absolutely nowhere.  The threat is a world that is cloaked in words like "harassment," and "protection," and "perceived harassment," and I am just so glad that I didn't grow up in such a world.  I am glad that I stood out on the playground and when a boy hurled an insult at me, I turned around and hurled one right back.  I didn't even know words like harassment, perceived harassment or that I could get that kid in really big trouble if I wanted to.

Because who cared.  Who the hell cared?  But these lessons will take them far, because these kids can take these explanations of harassment, blech blah spit choke, and take that right into their grown up world, and when a co-worker says they look nice that day, they can sue them!  

Whatever.

I remember once when a woman at work said that so-and-so was harassing her.  I told her he did that to everybody, tell him to stop.  But I don't have to tell him to stop, she said, I can sue him!  Or, I pointed out, you could tell him to stop, like the rest of us did, and he will.   And if he doesn't, smack him!  Oh.  Wait.  You can get sued for that.

I hate such a world, I really do.  I want no part of it.

The other thing I hate is when people say that life isn't fair.

Hey, life is what we make it.  It really only matters to you whether or not it is fair.

Do I think it is "fair" that I have a son that challenges me from time to time?

I think it just is.  That is how people grow -- they challenge and push and hey, I went to school and hated every single minute of it and the only bummer to me is that I didn't figure out a better solution for my children!

Hee hee, guess I couldn't go silently into the night.  Well, we'll see.  Because the whole damn point of this blog from the get-go was for just this very reason, to just start typing and see where it takes me.

This has happened to other bloggers -- their blogs are compromised (which means whatever the blog owner wants it to mean!) and they don't know what to do.  I guess you have to decide what matters most to you.

I remember a long time ago the newspaper I worked for was being sued because one of the writer's "slandered" another writer of the largest daily newspaper in the state, or maybe not, I'll be vague, and my job was to go to the library and look through every article this person had written (editorials) and highlight slanderous and libelous words that he had used towards others.  I pored through microfiche after microfiche, the man was prolific in his abuse towards others, and we had plenty of material -- which I guess makes you feel all powerful, I was certainly pleased to have discovered such a wealth of evidence.

But did it matter?  Of course not.  No one wins in a lawsuit (except of course the lawyers, who are clearly smarter than the rest of the general populace because people keep paying them to make their lives miserable!)

I have a long history of being who I am.

I probably shouldn't change that now.

We'll see.