good intentions

I see all of these people with such convictions about social issues and injustices and sometimes I think the same way: angry at the way things are and so eager to change the world.  But then again, I get overwhelmed and then easily suppressed by my comfortable life and the fact that these issues aren’t even really affecting me, or at least not on a daily basis.  The word is a big, scary, and unfair place.  I’m not sure of my thoughts about gay marriage.  So sue me.  As a 17 year old Christian girl, always taught to love everyone, I’m not sure how I feel about allowing gays to marry, but on the other hand, how can it be denied if they are people too?

But I can tell you one thing that has recently started to bother me like no other.  I HATE HATE HATE stupid high school kids that go around saying, “Wow, I was raped by that test.” “Wow, prepare to be raped by this project.” SHUT UP.  I’ve seen the consequences of beautiful young women who have gone through rape and the emotional chaos that has ensued, the baggage that they have to drag into every relationship and that heartache that time may eventually heal.  So DON’T talk like it’s funny, like you’re really clever, because you’re not.  It’s not cute and I really just can’t stand to live in a world where rape is joked about.  I am slowly losing faith in this generation.

Maybe the reason that people are so unhappy is that they take the first good thing that comes along.  Tonight, I went through tons and tons of letters that this guy that dated my mom in college had sent her.  They all began, “My dearest love”.  They were sweet and it was obvious that he was smitten with her.  She told me that he asked her to marry her and she said no.  There was nothing wrong with him.  He was a great man: passionate, loving, Godly; he would have made a great husband and father.  But he wasn’t “IT” for her.  He wasn’t what was meant for her.  And while being with him for 3 years I’m sure made her a better person and grew her into who she is now, they just weren’t “meant to be.”  She was proposed to twice before my father came along and she denied both prior.  The thought of that terrifies me.  What if someone better doesn’t come along after you deny the hand of a great man?  But he did, and he is the best husband to my mother and father to myself and my brothers that I could ever hope for.  My last name isn’t Hicks because my mother didn’t give in to marrying a good man that wasn’t the one for her.  I hope that Dan Hicks is happy, and somehow, I know he is.  The first thing isn’t always the best thing.  Sometimes the second isn’t either.  But I think that when it comes along, when HE comes along, you’ll know.  Really and truly know.  Thanks, mom.