Always Remember the Divine

This afternoon, I broke into tears about this struggle. I have a lot on my plate now, but this is what made me cry. First, read this article (it's a good one): Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Mysogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds Please bear with me on this topic. I presume by now that you know I'm a feminist. If you click away from this after reading that, you must also know that it is your attitude  that made me cry, not the murders themselves. The thing that makes me cry about this, and this article specifically is not just that this is horifically sad, true and relatable to me. But let's cover that base first, since we're here. This quote, specifically, hurt me personally: "No, I'm not saying most frustrated nerdy guys are rapists or potential rapists. I'm certainly not saying they're all potential mass murderers. I'm not saying that most lonely men who put women up on pedestals will turn on them with hostility and rage once they get frus...

I think it's time to blow the top off a topic that always bewilders me.Let me address this to my male peers most specifically: There's just not a way that women are. This literally does not exist. Not one bit at all. If you've read more of this blog, you might have read  this post  that explore this topic a bit. Confession: when I cared about what I was supposed to be and supposed to do  and supposed to say  I spent time reading all those weird articles and books and things like, "Can't deny that girls do this!" and other such stuff. Now, we all have a different way of doing this. I'm introverted, so I read books. Most other girls learn their girly behavior socially, through trial and error. It's not uncommon to be in a group of women that doesn't know each other very well yet, on a girls night, and see everyone testing the boundaries of what parts of each other the others will accept -  they're asking themselves: what does this group of wo...

Tonight was a really hard night. In addition to the fact that the fentanyl and hydromorphone combined did nothing to stave off the most physically painful day yet, I couldn't seem to feel close to anyone or get the social help I needed today. I may have mentioned before that I often feel as though my social life is like living inside a cylinder of thick glass - I push my hand against the surface and watch the world go around by me, my peers having normal problems and living normal lives while I sit, shell-shocked inside my glass. I'm beginning to realize that my glass is really rarely placed there by me. I felt desperately alone today and I was feeling targeted for people's assumptions of poor intentions on my part, as if me being myself and fighting for my life is unacceptable in is unusual-ness. I was inconsolable for a good portion of the afternoon and evening, and conceded that I needed to add more pain medication, even though there's no logical explanation as t...

I had the specific privilege of seeing a close family friend in the grocery store today, and it made my day to stop to talk to him and catch up on how he and his family are doing. He's always had a very special role in my life - sometimes as a father figure (more often than not), sometimes a kindred spirit, sometimes as a role model in working bravely through the stumbling blocks of life, and mostly just an example of seeking happiness and peace unapologetically.   Now this very dear family friend said something (initially apologetically, not knowing how I would take it) that I know is the case but very few people just say. A lot of people allude to this fact but this person is perhaps the only person to say it without long discussions and coaxing as to why my existence is frequently as source of interpersonal controversy: He said that everyone is terrified of me.  Now, prior to the moment in conversation where I thanked him for saying so and showed my appreciation and eng...

EDIT 4/22/17: LORDT, isn't it a good thing we learn? This is some reductive bull$%^& and I'm editing to add that this is NOT at all an issue of oppression or at all comparative to fat shaming and fatphobia at all Hey! Hey... hey, do any of these images look familiar? Okay, and don't you feel so good, allowing women to be a bigger size than that standard? Oh my gosh, you're so generous. How nice of you to let women have a wide range of choice of what they can do with their bodies. Speaking of, let's talk about how we just gush over this girl and how we're just so good at moving forward in popular culture about body image: Right? Well first of all, let's remember she also complained about making out with Christian Bale as "'fatman' not batman." ( http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/jennifer-lawrence-on-making-out-with-christian-bale-hes-fatman-not-batman-9056551.html ) And then the part where she sp...

And like every single one of them is in that obnoxious frat-boy college boyfriend stage every girl had to date to get the  learning experience  that it's important to get beyond. "We're just not working out... No, I'm sorry. I just can't see him tomorrow, I'm going another direction," is a conversation I had this morning with a rheumatologist's receptionist. See, this analogy is holding. I didn't even talk to him about it. Needless to say, we just really didn't connect. He didn't really get what I needed out of the relationship. No hard feelings, or mostly no hard feelings (I mean, I figure I can have some hard feelings... unlike actual dating, I'm paying him to give me what I need out of the relationship). Thank goodness my general practitioner is ladydoc. You can always fall back on your girlfriends, right? (Er, not really in the history of my life, but that's a story for another post!)

That's right, you read that right. I've never been so bold as to say it out loud before (well, not to anyone else), but I do. I hate my body. This is that body, as of today. Here are some images of that body, hated to different degrees in my past: So you're looking at me, you're looking at these pictures and you probably can't figure it out. If you're like the vast majority of the female population I've met, you're probably thinking I have no right to hate my body because I'd kill for a body like that.  That's nothing new to me. I know better than to express myself on this issue, especially around other women. They tell me I'm not allowed. Literally. To my face. It's actually quite amazing, that anyone would deny me the right to feel what I feel. For the record, save the album of self-shots I keep on my laptop (It's sort of a photo-essay of me and my body  that I don't show to anyone because it...

Egad. Hydromorphone isn't working anymore. I'm sitting here, amidst my most hellish physical hell week, and hydromorphone isn't working. Something is really wrong with this picture. Like, I probably need to do something about this because the typing I'm doing right now is really physically painful and my right hand specifically feels this leaden stiffness that makes it really hard to have the flexibility to spell right (I spelled 'speel' first - the irony is rich). The pain is best described as hemiplegic/dysphagic migraine aura symptoms... or if you don't have google, it feels a lot like I ran a marathon yesterday and lifted and perhaps my shoulders dislocated multiple times... and also like my limbs are mesh tubes that are filling up with wet cement. I feel... heavy and hurty. If you're a fairly reasonable person, you might be scratching your head right now and asking me what I'm doing writing a blog post when this is happening. And you would...

1. Going to the ER and having occasion to write this letter:  I was seen in the emergency department tonight for a myriad of complaints that have been progressively compounding over a matter of years. I believe my intelligence and impact were grossly underestimated in this visit, and I am writing to express my disgust at the personal incompetence and complete lack of compassion that I was the direct recipient of tonight. I have never had such a degrading experience as a patient, and I will not accept it as due course.   As a matter of background, I will mention that I am chronic pain patient who is under the management of a skilled general practitioner. My issues are beginning to manifest as auto-immune, after almost a decade of testing and waiting. I came to [Hospital name witheld] in lieu of a competitor at the request of a close friend who also has the particular misfortune of chronic illness. She expressed concern about the symptoms I was having, and confirmed my feel...

There's something very harrowing about growing into womanhood. I think that something could be best defined by this word: Objectification. "Why, Shareeta," you might say, "I'm so terribly sorry that you had to be objectified by those other people. " Here's the dirty secret: it's by everyone. Yes, even you there. Something happens when you become a young woman. When your body and your mind and your hormones move about you in whirl of almost woman.  A gripping fear comes over everyone in your world. They want you to cover up. They want you to be modest.  They won't hug you or touch you or hold you like they did. And then it continues into adulthood. No one should touch you  like that - no, you must find a man. And then touch will be romantic. So somewhere in between being   a girl and being a woman you learn that the reason that people touch you is just... sexual. And that's different than it was before. And upsetting.  If you're de...

#butfirstletmetakeaselfie My hair is taking over my face. I've alluded to my frustration with labels before, and this post will explain (in theory and personal experience) why that is. Every so often I ditch my current blog and start blogging from a different perspective. So why would I do that? It's kind of odd, to be honest. The truth is that I find that I've pigeon-holed myself when I blog from only one perspective.  There's a reason this blog is called Always Remember the Divine.  That's the perspective that encompasses all the perspectives I write from. It's a reference to the voice of Mother Meera. Mother Meera is thought to be an avatar of Shakti, or a physical manifestation of our Heavenly Mother housed in a very special human spirit. In India and all over the world, she's called to Darshan by religious people of all denominations (for an explanation of Darshan:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar%C5%9Bana ). She reminds us to Always...