Author: jennthompson

writing. for sure. no questions asked. from like two years old until forever, i am sure.

it’s weird. i can’t draw to save my life. i can never seem to get on the paper what i want to be there. but with words … words are easy. words come naturally. even if i have to make them up to make them perfectly fit.

i prefer to write by hand than type, but it seems like typing is the way of the world these days. long gone are hand written letters, journals full of tear stained pages, written and rewritten paragraphs on lined pages … now … the clickclickclick of fingers moving swiftly across the keyboard. not having to use much pressure even, unlike the typewriters that i learned on … and mistakes, well, they can just be backspaced into non-existence.

and i love writing. a lot. i wish i had more time to do it these days. maybe some day i will have time again. who knows. it might just be another one of those things that gets set aside until we are so old and we look back on our lives wondering why we ever stopped doing things we loved. i try to keep active at least with things like this prompt project, to make sure that i am spending a bit of dedicated time every day on something just for my self. my soul. my spark.

i definitely prefer to write.

i am not sure … what even is a challenge ?!

people’s perceptions of me.

overcoming people’s perceptions of me is the hardest challenge i have overcome, and continue to battle on a regular basis.

the molds they want me to fit in based on certain things … i can’t manage them. not even a little bit.

i have never been cute or quiet, i have no interest in makeup or fashion, i prefer whiskey to wine … so i don’t really make a good “girl.” i spit, i swear, i smoke (weed) … these things do not make a lady. and … i have always been told what i should do, as a female. how i should be. what i should wear and do with my hair.

i was born with a brain, and … i use it to learn about what interests me, not what i am told matters. and this, apparently, is a problem for people around me. i shouldn’t care so much about politics. if i applied myself i could use my intelligence to make a lot of money, they say, be a powerful and prominent public figure … but i don’t want to. i want to use my brain to teach my children. i want to use it to connect with my community. i hate money. i hate the pursuit and need of money. i give it away every chance i get, because of the example set for me as a child and how toxic the love of fancy things really is.

i am an advocate … for impoverished peoples, disenfranchised peoples, diversely abled peoples, vulnerable peoples … and people have certain ideas and ideals about what i should advocate for and how i should do it. i am unforgiving and brutal in my pursuit of equality and justice. i am a no holds barred type. with standards for integrity, accountability, and personal responsibility. and i am relentless. none of these things are “proper” or “befitting” and often times my abrasive nature can be offputting … not nearly as offputting as i personally find the atrocities allowed to continue for remaining polite. i am a bulldozer. and i am unapologetic. for a thin girl in glasses, this doesn’t match the perception people first have, and can be overly shocking because of that.

i am faithful. and spiritual. i LOVE god. i believe in jesus. i follow the direction of the lord as much as i possibly can. i also believe in ALL the gods. and science! all at the same time! i believe that the pursuit of science is actually the finite mind of mankind trying to understand the infinite concepts of god. all of the gods tell us all the same things … love is light and we are here to shine. i am most familiar with christianity because it is what i have studied the most and practiced the longest. but it is the baha’i faith that calls most to me. we are all one. what heals me, helps you! this doesn’t fit the placement the world has for me. because i have a brain. so how can i also hold faith in my heart. people, and their perceptions.

i am pro-life. i believe in the divinity of all people. all the times. i weep for the babies killed for their first trimester screening. and the other tens of millions of souls lost every single year. but i am an independent woman who don’t need no man. how can that be. how can i believe in equality and freedom and also be against what i am told is the cornerstone of women’s rights. but my heart lies with the women that are being formed in utero. the vulnerable … the most vulnerable there are. and it is a divine and unique life. it is not your body, making it your choice. from the moment that sperm and egg meet, there is unique genetic presence. it is a separate entity, inside. and i believe those vulnerable, tiny creatures need protection. that doesn’t fit the idea of a strong and progressive woman … i have been, in fact, told i am unwelcome at women’s events because of my pro-life stance.

i am super freaking autistic, and that brings it’s own challenges when it comes to how people perceive me and how they think i should be when i am just trying to honour my self and enjoy my soul’s human experience on this planet, this go round.

i am a woman, who fights for men’s rights. i have a fantastic brain and yet faith in my heart. i am skinny with glasses, but ready to throw a punch, and i can take one too! i was blessed with a body that can absorb fats and sugars like nobody’s business but i prefer to wear baggy jeans, hoodies and skate shoes. the list of how i “should be” or what i “could be” put upon me by others is LONG … and having to break down the walls of their perceptions gets exhausting.

it isn’t that i have ever really cared what people think of me. but arguing that i am who and how i am, against their perceptions of the same versus the ideas they build in their heads about who/how i should/could be … it’s a battle field. regularly. it is a challenge every single day. to just … exist.

the hardest challenge i have ever overcome, and one i still fight on a regular basis, is the perceptions others have of me and their projection of how i should be.

#MorningThoughts

no where.

honestly.

i am too old and too bored of the bar scene to be a regular anywhere. i am happy to be at home.

i know everyone else in the world would love nothing more than to be a regular **anywhere** right now. but i just want to stay home.

my oven.

my life is sort of centered around it. from the time i wake up in the morning, until the end of the day, really … i am always around my oven.

Women Can’t Hear What Men Don’t Say
– Warren Farrell

well … it is #FilterFreeFriday so …

the last picture i took was the last filter free friday of this decade. by next week i will be forty years old.

i hear i am supposed to avoid this. i hear i am supposed to have some gained awareness and a change in mindset to live for my self and stop trying to please others.

i have heard these rumors from other people who have turned forty before me. and the truth is … i can’t imagine changing much. i feel like i was born as i am. and i feel like i will die this way too.

bucking the system. questioning everything. demanding progress. focused on compassion and care. crying over caterpillars that get hurt by wasps. mourning the butterfly that was never meant to be. that is me. feeling things intensely. seeing so many world views.

still, to this day, insisting that my time of worship is in the streets as i walk alone, not in a pew surrounded by likeminded people.

endlessly seeking to be even a fraction as majestic as the divinity all around me.

#MorningThoughts

Hunter S. Thompson

oh there are SO many

one that stands out above the rest that i will always remember and laugh about for my whole entire life is this time that my younger sister and i were sitting at the table eating cheerios.

i liked to layer on the sugar … like sugar then cheerios … then sugar and mroe cheerios, then sugar and cheerios and then sugar and milk. even better if there was brown sugar in the house.

i was eating my sugarmilk and cheerios. she was eating her mostly plain cheerios … and slurping. slurping them off her spoon. SO ANNOYING

i hated it. i was like please stop. she kept doing it. i asked again. she kept doing it. i was like … STOP SLURPING YOUR CHEERIOS

she said “I’m not slurping them, you want to see slurp, I’ll show you a slurp…”

and she did a big exaggerated slurp of cheerios …

AND MADE HERSELF CHOKE ON THEM

and she spit out a big mouthful all over the place.

and i thought it was the funniest thing in the entire world, then. even with milk and cheerio spit all over my face. i laughed and laughed at the instant karma of it all. i, of course, didn’t have any idea what the concept meant, but i laughed and laughed and told her it served her right ! and it did!

she should have just stopped slurping !

EXERCISE

hahahahahahahahaha

i want to like … find it not tedious to work out or whatever.

i have done a lot to help with my health over the last year. eating better, even though it meant cutting out a lot of the fatty meats i prefer; drinking water, even though it is gross and i hate it; quit smoking, even though it was something i did for almost 30 years and loved it; eating fibre for my heart; taking my inhaler all the fucking time …

i am doing SO MANY THINGS … but i also need to start being more physically active.

i kind of did the other stuff in steps while i was healing my broken heel so i plan to slowly work on that foot getting more mobility back while also … you know … trying to get in better shape or whatever. not in any way concerned with weight loss or body size … more about increasing my lung capacity and personal fitness abilities. i am already pretty strong for my size but i need to work on endurance, for sure! especially after a year of lockdowns and the last three months of a lot of sitting because of this bum foot.

so …

the good habit i want to develop is to exercise every freaking day.

#MorningThoughts

FINALLY

my word of the year is finally

finally i have successfully been pardoned.

finally i have successfully filed all of the appropriate paperwork with MEP to have some steady child support, after 7 years.

finally i have found some work/life balance as a single mom and sole caregiver for a high needs individual (and a teenage girl).

FINALLY

is my word for the year