Overwhelmed

I have sat for far too long in silence. These random thoughts drive into my mind without a warning label and are starting to drive me to the brink of insanity. Simply writing down a basic gist of what I want to get out isn’t working. In order for me to get these thoughts out of my mind, I am going to have to invite you in. It might be a bumpy ride so strap in and enjoy the ride. For those who enjoy reading the outrageous thoughts of a woman living in a county without borders containing it while guns control those who can join it, please feel free to sit and go for a ride with me on this journey into what is weird about the universe.

While I have many thoughts, many random off the wall thoughts, today I want to bring up a topic that doesn’t particularly affect my life in any way. This political topic has been driving a screw driver in the back of my mind since seeing it on the news for months on end. Although, the topic has been ongoing for several years now, the whole idea of immigration and reform, protest and a caravan making its way to this country have been on the forefront of the news lately.

Personally, I have never been affected by the “immigration problem” this country is facing. The only issue this has on my life is, my television screen. It doesn’t matter which station is on, people are for it or people are against it. My biggest issue is not with the immigration issue, but the country itself. The whole government. I’m not trying to start a revolution here for my beliefs like several thousand millennials out there. I am just trying not to explode with all these thoughts inside my mind.

I hear it, I see it, all day every day. Open up your social media accounts and there it is blasting you in the face. Issues with the government. They will either make you love or hate the government. There seems to be no in between when it comes to what it is doing. With the elections only a few weeks ago, I must say I am glad they are over, because the whole campaigning drove me insane. This is supposed to be a country. But do you know what I saw every time those commercials came on, one human putting down another human. There is absolutely no, hey this is how I am going to help you, the community, the government, or any of that. What I saw was horrible. They continued to just put each other down for the deeds they have done in the past or the position they took against one thing or another. Seriously, I don’t care how far you take a step back, but verbally attacking someone on any front is just not right.

We are humans, not everyone is going to believe the same thing you do. It is nearly a given in any situation. Someone is always thinking something different. That’s what makes art so great, because no two people can look at it the same way. They teach us differently in school though. You know when you have to read a book and then take a test on what they story was about and what it meant. I can read a book, I can write a book, but that doesn’t mean the person next to me is going to read it in the same context. What the teachers are doing is training your mind to think alike. So when you get to a point in your life, you think just like everyone else. And that is exactly why these people think it is okay to just shame people in political commercials.

I see it nowadays though, people are changing. Freedom thinkers are out there now though. The only problem with them, is they aren’t changing the world. They just complain until something is done. They don’t agree with it, so they complain. That’s it. That’s all. They will make their memes and protest, try to get you to think differently, but in the long scheme of things, it doesn’t do much. You can share a meme all you want, but it isn’t going to change the world.

Changing the world is a hard job, and if all you can do is make a meme, so be it. At least you are contributing. There are those of you like me, we sit back and watch it. We take it all in. We can see what needs to be changed, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing we can do about it. We don’t have money or power. Our voices will always be quieted and nothing will ever get done. Now, taking that into thought, who are you? Do you have the power to change the world? Do you have the money to do it? I didn’t think so. And if you do have the power or the money to change the world for a better place, I can guarantee you aren’t doing it. You are sitting there on your lump sum of money with no thoughts other than to gain more money or power. You don’t care how the world is working, because you have money and power, the world is working for you. Why would you ever change that, right?

For those of you who are like me, a single mother, coming from a single mother home, you often wonder, how did those people get so much money? It is simple, they were born with it (or maybe it is Maybelline, lol). The truth is, they say hard work will always get you were you want to go, but isn’t that simple. As a young woman looking towards the future in high school, I spent hundreds of hours pondering which college I should go to, what degree I should go for, what kind of job do I want when I graduate? All those thoughts wrapped around in my head so tight, I freaked out. I didn’t know what to do, because everyone said, you can do anything you want. In truth, everything I wanted to be, everything I wanted so badly, wasn’t “practical”. I mean, yes, I wanted to be rich and famous, who does not want to be. But what I truly wanted to do, everyone told me it wasn’t practical. I wanted to be a writer. I wrote all thought high school, but no one ever said, you can make a living writing books.

But another factor in determining an education further high school was the fact that each and every one of my teachers said, “Everyone will switch their careers at least three times after graduating college.” That one really freaked me out. Basically, they just sat there and told me, I am going to have to spend more money on college than I will ever make in my entire life, to switch careers, to go back to school. Seriously? Yeah, that really helped, especially when they are sitting there telling you right to your face, you have to pick a college, you have to pick a career, but don’t forget, before you are done you are going to be just as clueless afterwards. Not only was I undecided back then, but I am also just undecided even now. (After facing a harsh lay-off, I am now offered the ability to go back to school and spend money, yah!)

Now with the thoughts of the grandeur of the wonderful freedom we have, I want you to think about the opportunities given to you. While some of you might be like me and remain undecided, the others actually went out there to pursue their future. Either way, I want you do dive back into your mind, back to that time where the whole world was your oyster free for the taking. You could do anything. Remember that time? What if you weren’t given those choices? What if you never got any opportunity like that?

The truth is, thousands of millions of people, not only in this country, but all over the world, don’t get that choice. Most of those people don’t get a choice at all. Think about those people for one moment. Location, poverty, religion, and a hundred more reasons hold these people back from the same opportunity I was given and foolishly discarded. This one simple reason these people travel, sometimes risking their lives to come to this “great” country. They believe in the opportunities this country can offer them.

These immigrants may not come here looking for those opportunities for themselves, but for their children. These people are not coming here to take “our” jobs or “our” opportunities. They are coming here looking for a brighter future than what was offered to them in the country they were born into. These people did not ask to be born where they are stuck. Honestly, I can see where they are coming from. And if you are those people, like me, without money or power in your back pocket, you can also see where they are coming from. How hard have you fought, inside this country to be more than what you were born into, just to find yourself in the same situation as your parents? Now, those immigrants this country is so against letting in to “steal” our jobs and “take” away our oppurtunities, when in fact, they are worse off than we ever were. They don’t understand, this country isn’t all that it seems. They see “how well” these people are with their riches and power, but they don’t realize, there are those of us, just as poor as them.

I do understand the concern some people have about letting immigrants into the country, because in fact, as a country, we can’t even take care of ourselves. How are we going to be able to take care of hundreds of thousands more people? We have people living on the streets with only garbage bags as clothes, where they are so worn down they are literally just skin and bones themselves. Believe me, I have seen this with my own eyes. An older lady sitting on a corner in a very well known city, with only a black trash bag for clothes with no muscle on her bones trying to count some less than five dollars worth of change. How many times have you heard about our homeless veterans? Our country isn’t so great once you pull back the covers and see below the mask of Hollywood and the power of the politicians.

Those immigrants, dying to come here to start over and give their families a great new beginning, a lot of them don’t understand, this country isn’t the greatest. They only know what they hear, what they see, and they only know what this country puts out into the world. So do I blame them for wanting to come here to be given opportunities like we sometimes foolishly toss away? No, I don’t. They are fed this line, America Land of the Free, Home of the Brave, The land of opportunity. Seriously, if you were born into a drug driven, I’m going to kill you if you don’t do what I say country, wouldn’t you be running for the border as well.

Sometimes people don’t take into account the situations these people live in before coming to this country. Some of these people face their deaths every day. You must open your eyes to the world before you start discriminating against these people. But one thing I wish this country would do, is instead of covering up the shame of itself with the lies put on the screens for millions to see, show the world what we really are.

While there are people believing the country is giving out free hand-outs to immigrants, it is, all the while there, like I said before, US citizens are dying on the street. I believe if these immigrants want to come to our country and live here, they should not only get the same benefits we have, but they to obey the laws, and do everything as we must. They should have to pay taxes, they should have to register (just like we have to with our oh so lovely social security numbers). It is simple as that, if they want to become US Citizens, treat them like they are. Why make it harder than it should be? Why should we give them free food stamps and cash assistance? Because we give it to our own citizens who refuse to work and be lazy.

We have a government who would rather pump drug addicts full of “medicine” for free rather than give an opportunity to a young boy who has only known war in his life. What is fair here? So we will lock the one up in a cage while the other one drives out of a methadone clinic to kill an entire family. Where is the fairness in this situation? I don’t understand this country and how it works.