Disposal of Knowledge

There is literally a dumpster full of books sitting outside of the library of SVSU. I pointed it out to my mom as we drove into the Science East parking lot on Wednesday morning. We watched as the pages flapped in the wind, soon to be destroyed with the oncoming snowstorm expected over the next 24 hours.

My heart sinks every time I pass by this dumpster knowing that these books can never be replaced. I don’t care what books they are, how many copies we may have, or if there is an online format available- the books in that dumpster will be destroyed forever, and there is nothing more disheartening to me than knowing that an institution of higher education willingly threw out not only tangible knowledge, but a part of their history. Those books tell a story that can never be rewritten. They tell people that SVSU is a school that cares about education. They tell people that SVSU has a past, a past on those shelves that were once lined with books. They tell people that books are exciting; books are something that cannot be taken away from us. But that dumpster sitting outside of the library completely rewrites that story into something else.

Throwing away books is throwing away our tuition dollars. Those books belong to us, the students, just as much as they belong to the University. We, the students, paid to line those bookshelves over the course of the past 53 years. But we, the students, were never asked what should be done with those books. We were never asked if we wanted them. Our opinions and our interests were never taken into account before the decision to throw those books into a dumpster was made. This, to me, does not say that SVSU cares about their students, or the education of those students. How can anyone think it’s acceptable to just toss out pure knowledge and history like it means absolutely nothing?

 As a student at SVSU, I’m offended by this. I’m offended that they think so little of their student body to find it acceptable to throw out records of knowledge like that. What does it say about how the executives look at students that they would just so willingly throw out valuable tools of research? How are we ever meant to thrive in the world of academia if academia is tossed haphazardly in a dumpster, blatantly displayed out in the open for everyone to see?

This is a travesty. It’s a travesty to think of an institution that prides itself on success, but yet sits back and allows the destruction of knowledge like it means nothing to them. Any institution of higher education that willing throws out books to make way for student lounges without considering alternatives, or even just asking the professors and students what an alternative can be, is not an institution that cares much about the education these students are receiving.

Don’t get me wrong, I love SVSU. It’s a great university. The professors truly care about their students, the faculty members are terrific, and the students know how to come together and support each other whenever necessary. But for a school who charges students at every step of the way, you’d think they would find selling these books would be a much more appropriate thing to do than throwing them away.

           For instance, the library charges 50 cents per day per book in overdue fees. If these books are important enough to SVSU to charge so much when they aren’t returned on time, shouldn’t they be worth more than being thrown in a dumpster? As a student who is currently suffering from paying back overdue book fines for a research paper, who tried to renew these books when I realized they were overdue by one day, but was not allowed to, I take heavy offence to having to pay such a ridiculous amount of fines when the same institution is so willingly tossing the books out like literal garbage. Are students who owe these fines supposed to just sit back and accept their responsibility when the same institution is so carelessly ridding themselves of theirs?

Demon #1

I've felt pain quite like this before. And that's not to say that I haven't gone through a break up. Or that I haven't had some sort of heartbreak. But to know that it was caused by your own demons and a coping mechanism gone wrong...That's what sucks. To know you unintentionally caused the person you care about the most so much pain that they don't want to be with you anymore. And then wanting to fix it. The lack of control someone has in a breakup- that's what sucks the most. Knowing that you would do anything to restore to factory settings, but there's another person involved, and nothing is ever that easy. 

I didn't realize how bad it had gotten this time. How far down the hole I had slipped. I thought I was handling it. And, for the most part, I was. But then I started to fight with him. And suddenly, the person who had managed to talk me off the ledge was the ledge. And eventually, I jumped. And I broke him. 

I broke him in the worst way possible. I broke him to the point that I couldn't heal him. And I want to. I want to be the one to fix him so much. But I can't. And I'm terrified that it'll be some other girl, at some other time who gets that privilege. And I don't want that. Because when we were good, we were great. We fit together so naturally. Things made sense, talking was easy, our relationship was the most simple thing in my life. I felt home with him. And then I set the house on fire and cried about the mess I made. 

I guess I'm more like my past than I'd like to admit. I tried to manipulate what cannot be manipulated. And that's not who I want to be. The battle between who I want to be and the demon of my biological makeup is the worst one I've ever faced. And I let my guard down long enough for the demon to break free and destroy who I wanted to be. It's an ugly thing when your demons win. It's even uglier when you know they're there, and you give into their vices long enough to lose the battle to them. 

And I'm sorry. 

I cannot say enough how sorry I am. But I will fight to find myself and who I want to be again. I just hope that one day, you'll still want her. 

In memoriam: Jeremy Osmond-Bailey.

Jeremy, you seemed so happy this year. You felt better than you had felt in a long time, and you said that. You had so much life left to live, and you were living it. You had so many people helping you- whether you knew it or not. They were there for you, they wanted you to succeed. You may have made some mistakes, but who hasn't? Life isn't about being perfect, it's about making mistakes and learning from them to make yourself better for the next time around. I know you thought that you would just be forgotten, unimportant, and that life would go on as if nothing had happened. But you were wrong. Life may go on, but it's different now. There's a piece of the puzzle missing now. You will not be forgotten. Who could possibly think to forget you? You impacted more people in more ways than you think. Even those who barely knew you feel it. And none of us will have the answers as to why. What changed so quickly to make you decide to take your own life? That question will haunt too many of us. 

People say there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. If this is the case, I felt them all at once this morning. In rapid succession the stages of grief hit my like a tidal wave. My ears didn't want to believe what they were being told- this couldn't have happened, it just didn't make sense, he was happier. And then, just as quickly as I denied the truth, I was angry. So angry. I wanted to scream about how selfish he was for doing it. That he was an idiot, how could he leave all of his friends and family behind like that? Then, I immediately thought that if I just fell back asleep, I'd wake up and it wouldn't have happened. Everything would be back to how it should be- he'd still be here. But that wasn't going to happen. And that hit me harder than the news itself did. It was real. It actually happened, and that couldn't be changed. It happened and that was that.

But none of that makes accepting such a sudden death any easier. None of that makes suicide make sense. None of us will understand why it happened. None of us will ever be able to make sense of it. He didn't want to talk to us anymore. He was gone before his life was even over, the decision already made. Nothing any of us said would have made any difference, and we can't blame ourselves for that.

It's never a joyous occasion to lose someone. Especially someone who suffered so much in silence that they felt taking their own life was the only way out. But we have to find a way to build off of this. Let this draw us closer, and not take for granted the relationship we had with him, and the ones we have with others. To keep living, to honor him by fighting the good fight, that's the best way to remember him.

Michigan- Mississippi of the Midwest?

This week has been on hit after another for progressives in Michigan. Forward movement has, for the time being, been brought to a grinding as Tea Party Republicans were elected to the legislature across the state, the 6th Circuit Court decided against forward movement, and Republicans gained control of the US Senate. All hope seems to be anchored, all belief in the equalization amongst Americans taken away. But, we should not give up. Giving up allows those who are working against us to push forward their agendas without opposition. If those who were elected to represent us don't know what we, the people, want, then things will truly never change. We cannot consider this week to be a complete loss. We need to think of what it means for the future. We cannot flee the state. We have to stand and fight for what we believe in. If we don't, who will?

Let's discuss what this week, in it's entirety, does/could mean:

1. We have another election in two years. And not just any election, a presidential election. With a Republican-controlled Senate, the 2016 election will be the Democrat's year. Both chambers of the United States Congress are filled with right-wing agendas. The House will probably never be regained by the Democrat's due to gerrymandered district lines. But the Senate is supposed to be the body more representative of the average American, and Tea Party Republicans are as far from average as we can get. With a strong presidential candidate (can anyone say, "President Clinton," without smiling?), we can sweep the Senate back into our court.
2. The Supremely Notorious RBG. How can the Supreme Court get any better than our feisty little liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg? I mean, yeah, the court is split 5-4 in favor of conservatism, but they already struck down parts of DOMA in United States v. Windsor. They've literally stated they wouldn't hear appeals states with cases in lower courts where the marriage bans were struck down. The 6th Circuit's decision, while not the outcome most would have hoped for, was made for exactly the following reasons:

• They waited to give a decision until after the election. And this is where a lot of speculation comes into play. If they had made a decision prior to the election to strike down the ban, our AG Schuette would have had no other move to make, the momentum from the win could have possibly been enough to swing the election in favor of Totten and Schauer- possibly even swinging some state House elections in our favor as well. If they had decided to uphold the ban, the same thing would have happened, but for the opposite reason- anger. Anger is a huge motivator in voting. This could have changed elections across all four states in the 6th District. We could have had a completely different outcome if the decision had been made a few days earlier. Waiting until after, until they knew who would be holding what office, they knew which decision would ultimately make the most impact down the road. Had Totten won the election, he would have removed the appeal as soon as he assumed office, thereby making the entire thing a complete waste of time. Schuette and the other Republicans winning left them with two options: 1. Uphold the ban, and have the Plaintiffs appeal to the Supreme Court, where the appeals by the states would be overturned. 2. Strike down the ban, and have the result of absolutely nothing further. By upholding the ban, they have ultimately signed the fate of the entire nation.
• The Supreme Court has virtually no choice but to hear the case once appealed. The fact of the matter is, the Supreme Court has said that since there are no conflicting lower court decisions, they will stand by the decisions made by the lower courts on striking down the bans. Now they have conflicting opinions from lower courts on the matter. This is one of the many functions the Supreme Court serves- to make the final decision and tell us which court is right. Based on other court decisions the Supreme Court has made in recent history, the majority of us can speculate with great certainty what the final decision of this case will be. And maybe, just maybe, it will wake up Americans long enough to help the Democrats in 2016 across the board. 

 3. What about those Tea-publicans? Well, I'm glad you asked. Yeah, we have to put up with them  for a few years. But they're so partisaned and so insane that those who voted for them will end up seeing the error of their ways and vote. Them. Out. The general public wants leaders who reflect the majority of citizens. The Tea Party does not. Unfortunately, they're really great and instilling fear in the hearts of the masses and tend to have a large amount of energy and money. Hopefully this is a wake up call to the Democrats to pull their shit together and find better candidates.

In closing, don't lose hope. Keep on believing and keep on doing what is right, even if people don't notice. In the end, the right way will be victorious. 

Lucky

I've been told that my nephew is lucky to have me. And maybe, yeah, that's true, but I don't believe that he's the lucky one out of our pairing. I am. When he was born, I didn't think that I would end up helping to raise him. I figured I would get my shot at being the "cool aunt", and that would be that. I didn't know how much I would end up looking at him as my own, as a product of my own creation. I didn't expect that I would be so in tune to him that I would hate every moment I had to spend away from him; I never even considered that he would help me when it came to dating or staying motivated. That little boy has become my rock.

When Trenton was born, I was becoming more and more content with being settled with what I had. I worked full-time, I had a good man, things weren't complicated. But simple has never been my life. Settled wasn't who I was. I broke up with my boyfriend, and went a little crazy. I went off the deep end for a short period of time, but then Trenton started living with us.

I started having to stay up after working third shift to take care of him until my mom got home. I had to be a part-time mom with no real warning. At first, I resented it. I worked all night, I wanted to sleep. And he wasn't a very happy baby. It wasn't easy, but I did it. I did it because I had to do it, he needed me. I had a responsibility to help my family in any way possible, and a few hours of lost sleep wasn't the worst thing to have happen.

I should have known that he had taken my heart captive from the first moment I saw him, but I was so busy being focused on my self that I didn't recognize the signs. I didn't know the impact that he would have on my life, what he would teach me, what I would find within myself through him...I wouldn't trade the past 27 months for anything. I've grown to hate having to miss bedtime. I love being the one to get him out of bed in the morning, no matter how tired I am when I do it.

He has taught me a countless amount of things, this list just barely scratches the surface:

• Patience. I wasn't a patient person before. I'd lose my temper easily, I never wanted to wait, I didn't understand tempertantrums... having Trenton around allowed me to really get a grip on my impulsiveness. He taught me to think things through before reacting, to breathe before I snapped. He taught me that waiting is sometimes the best thing in the world, especially if you're waiting with the right people.
• Trust. Kids are so trusting of those who are around them every day. They never have to question the security of their home life. He taught me to trust in the people who chose to be around me, he taught me to trust myself again.
• Playing alone. I have no complaints about how well Trenton plays by himself. He doesn't need someone to entertain him- he knows how to make the cars move and the pieces fit together...he knows how to shoot a basketball and swing a golf club... he doesn't need someone there to talk to him or keep him from getting bored. And for a long time, I thought I needed that. That constantly having someone around made the days go by faster, or that I'd go to sleep happy at night after spending the day being entertained by someone else. I know now that I don't need that. I don't need someone else to take my hand and show me how it's done. I don't need someone else to explore with me. I can do it by myself, and still feel accomplished afterward. And, sometimes, the days are better spent alone.
• Don't take anything for granted. Trenton sees everything, he takes it all in, and never overlooks the smallest details. It's all important to him, and while that may be slightly unrealistic to attempt to take in every small detail, it's important to remember that sometimes, it's the small things that matter the most. He understands that, and because of him, I am really learning to count my small blessings, because you never know when they'll be taken from you.
• Love. Trenton taught me to love again, and to let love in. Most importantly, he taught me to love unconditionally and with everything I have. Through him, I learned it's better to hurt from a broken heart, than to hurt from never allowing someone in.
• Never sell yourself short. This isn't something that he taught me, but something that I came to learn through becoming a mother to him. I learned my self-worth, I learned to put myself first when it counts, I learned that sometimes not getting what you want, will give you exactly what you need. Before Trenton, I pretty much dated whoever. There was no rhyme or reason to it, and, yeah, even after he was born, I still did that. But as time went on, I realized that I was worth more than a guy, and I definitely was worth more than just any guy who gave me attention. He taught me that relationships take work, that I have to believe in the other person as well as myself for anything to happen more than just an infatuation. Slowly, I also began to think of guys that would be good, not just for me, but for him. After all, he came first for me, I'd never give him up for anything.

Trenton saved me from myself, he helped me find out who I needed to be, and for that, I know I'm the lucky one here. I love him, more than anything. I couldn't love him more, even if he was my own. I fall more and more in love with him every day. Everything I do, I do with him in mind. Watching him grow and learning from him has been the best part of my life.

the whole ex-thing from my incomplete challenge

Well, this shit is about to get deep in my head really fast here. Way to go, writing challenge creator, way to go. I think there are actually 2 exes that I'd wish to say things to, I guess I'll start with the shorter first, simply because he might already know some of this. I won't name names, because that's just not kosher, but they'll both know about this post.

Okay, first off, I think you know you were a rebound. But not the normal kind. Not the rebound where I was seriously broken and just wanted to have sex (even if I was seriously broken, I didn't only want sex). You were kind of a rebellion for me, I guess. I was an adult, and I needed to break out of the feelings of safety and security I had been in for a year and a half. You were a means to an end, and deep down, I think you knew that. Which is why we can be such good friends now, because you know that we were probably the oddest pairing ever. Everything we had in common was superficial, we didn't really have that deeper connection. But it's weird, because now you actually understand how I work. You get me, and part of that is probably in part because you were a rebound. I'm sorry for that, but at the same time, I like being able to call you one of my closest friends. Without the fucked up relationship we had, that wouldn't exist.

Second, you were pretty much the best thing for me, but at the time, we just weren't right for each other. We had a disconnect, and I felt a divide coming between us, and I didn't want you to feel it, too. We were moving into two different worlds, you being able to live the college dream life, and me having to be an adult. It wasn't right to hold onto you, when you could go off and do whatever you wanted, and you needed to do that. I hope you did that. Not just for me either, but for you, because you deserve it. You earned the right to have a good time, and explore your horizons while you're off at college. I didn't break up with you because I stopped loving you, it's almost the opposite, I broke up with you because I knew that when you truly love something, you have to let it go. You needed to find yourself, separate from me and separate from your mom. I wanted you to figure out what made you, you. And you couldn't do that with me around. And I'm sorry that I never got to explain this to you, and I'm even more sorry that we aren't really friends anymore. I hope you've found yourself, and I hope you can forgive me.

all that jazz

So, if any of you out there have been following along, you've probably noticed that my 30 day writing challenge fell a little short. Well, a lot short. The first time I fell behind I thought, Well, I'll just post two in a day... and that worked, for two days. Then, I fell behind again, and thought, I'll just do 30 days non-consecutive.
Foolproof plan, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. It just meant I could put off writing for days on end and not feel bad about it. Totally punched a hole in the whole "30 day challenge".
Then I thought, well, maybe I'll just start it all over. But then I just strayed further and further away from starting over, that I realized I wasn't disciplined enough to actually write for 30 consecutive days. Hell, I couldn't even do a writing journal when I had to for class. How did I expect to be able to commit to writing every day when it was just of my own accord?
But I ran a marathon last year. I should be able to complete any commitment I make now. There should be no excuse available to man for me anymore.
Running a marathon doesn't make you invincible. It doesn't make you super human. It doesn't make you suddenly capable of accomplishing every goal you ever set out to do. Running a marathon simply teaches you that you are capable of doing great things, with a LOT of training. It isn't pretty, it isn't glorious, it won't happen on a whim (even if you're desire to run a marathon came about in a whim). There's an intense amount of concentration and desire behind running a full marathon, especially for someone who never ran one before. But you have to be able to fully commit, no half-assing anything.
And I was half-assing my challenge. I wasn't fully committed to it. I didn't concentrate fully on half of the posts I put up. And that's no way to go about a challenge that the entire world can watch you complete.

So, with that, I gracefully bow out from the challenge. And take this as a lesson, apply marathon training to ALL aspects of life, and you will succeed.