I have many friends who all come from many parts of my life:
childhood friends, school friends, friends whose
friendship I hadn’t earned in high school but whom I learned to cherish in
recent years, friends from my first college and my “sisters,” friends from my
second college, friends from my life after college, friends from my “mommy”
life, friends from my after-first-marriage life, friends through diabetes, friends
who come from Todd, friends I’ve made since I’ve remarried, restaurant friends,
and friends who are family (hopefully I haven’t left anyone out).
I cherish the many friendships I have found and kept. What
is wonderful about all of my friends is the diversity I have among them… white,
black, biracial, gay, lesbian, Asian, Indian, interracial couples,
unconventional relationships, liberals, conservatives, Catholics, Christians,
Jews, psychics, big families, small families, obnoxious loudmouths, quiet
lurkers ….. these I cherish because through our differences we learn so much
from each other. I value all of your opinions, and … being the Gemini I am… I
see two sides to every coin (usually more – which sounds a bit mentally
unstable, but you get the point).
I accept that we all have our own views of the world, our
own views of what’s right – and what’s wrong. I accept that our opinions may
differ. I see your public statements that affirm where you stand on moral and
political issues. I accept them. I may not agree with them, but I accept that
those are your opinions and you are entitled to them.
I have always believed
that I was entitled to my own – and that I could voice them as I chose to and
you, my friends, would either accept them or you wouldn’t. Some of you have
challenged me. And that’s okay too. I’ve posted things and then saw that
“so-and-so” commented and I thought, oh
God, here we go. But I know it’s a fair exchange of conversation, and in
the end we’ll still be friends. Because our differing opinions may divide us,
but they will not conquer.
One of my very best friends, whom I would walk across fire
for – she’s on the opposite end of the political fence… and guess what? She’s
still one of my most cherished friends. Another friend has been married for nearly
20 years to a man who belongs to the <<gasp>> other party. My in-laws didn’t vote for my candidate last
time. So WHAT?
I have seen posts that offend me. I have seen posts I don’t
agree with. But – I have never once called anyone out on them. (There's this new thing - it's called scrolling.) I never once
considered “unfriending” anyone – based on a post or the simple fact that I
disagreed with a position. I never invited people to unfriend me if they had a
different opinion. That’s kinda harsh, in my humble opinion.
This is what makes friendships RICH. And GREAT. How boring our lives would be if we were all
the same. Something along the way made us friends. And something as stupid as
an opinion, even – and I’m going out on a fragile limb here – something as
silly as politics – shouldn’t change our friendship. The banter that arises
from it – the lessons – are supposed
to teach us tolerance and understanding and with an open mind we might just see
things differently than we expected. This is what I teach my children. Tolerance.
I don’t expect us all to agree. I don’t want us all to
agree. But – for the love of shit – can’t we all just agree to disagree?
Without insulting one another?
I’m really disappointed today. I was in a position of being
attacked and morally dissected by a complete stranger a few months ago, and it
put me in a guarded place. I have had friend requests from people I didn’t know
and had to really think about before allowing into even my online life. I spent part of a morning deleting new friends in the
diabetes community in a move of self-preservation. Over the past week, I’ve had
a series of bad news. I thought about logging out of Facebook, to avoid any
more blows, because emotionally I’m spent. But – like an addict - I can’t turn
it off. But it is getting ever so easy to consider, given the present
temperature of politics.
Dear friends, I am friends with you because of who you are –
not because of who you vote for. I don’t care if you vote for Donald, or Ted,
Hillary, or Bernie, or fucking Mickey Mouse. And guess what? Before I start
singing happy campfire songs – I don’t care if you voted for Obama or not – it
doesn’t matter if I did or not – I
still think it’s pretty shitty to call our sitting president an asshole. And even shittier to call a friend as much for making a casual
statement you disagree with. It makes me question how much you value me.
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