Go ahead … Unfriend me now, save the rush at the apocalypse.



Every now and Zen, I go through my Facebook friend list and prune the dead branches. You know, game friends from games that I no longer play, people who’ve asked me for money, dead relatives, or pets of gaming friends who’ve asked me for money postmortem. Truth is I rarely delete people. I’ve always felt it takes a village and sometimes a yovillage to play the game of life. In my practice of loving compassion it wouldn’t serve me to surround myself with only my sangha of like minded new age zealots. Life quickly becomes 50 shades of gray, (prior to 2010) when we can only embrace those we share beliefs, opinions or values. And I’ve always been an off beat rainbow kind of chicklet.

Diversity isn’t a new concept for me, my mother, who was a rastafarian while I was growing up was “married” to a jew, a jamaican as well as a WASP. And while she may have been the far-out left wing of the family, my Dad has always been a conservative red state redneck, even when his white collar career had him living in blue states.  And I never had a problem with loving them both unconditionally.

When I had my first baby back in the late 80’s, I met a group of young women at a mommy-n-me exercise class. Each of us had just had our first child and we were all noobs in the newborn world. We learned about teething, tantrums and toilet training but perhaps the most important was tolerance. While we had so much in common with our kindle of cherubs we also each came from very different backgrounds. Perhaps it was the death of not one but two of the young husbands in those few formidable years of bonding that made us each come to appreciate the value of life at an earlier age than we may have in an otherwise sheltered parenthood. But somehow, we each learned to respect the other moms as bright and caring individuals. Even if we punched different chads in the voter booth.

So whereas it may surprise some people that my boyfriend is a meat eating redneck who’s life up until this point in time may have been as different to mine as Lucas Oil and Balsamic Vinegar. For us it was never about our differences, it was always and only about that which we shared in common … Love.

There was a time, especially during my professional career that I shied away from discussing politics, religion or the fact that I breast fed my children until they self-weened as toddlers! But as my chronic illness has steered my life into the abyss of free-loading, government handout medicare recipients and I’ll never again be part of the “working” class … or perhaps its that I’ll be 50 before the year’s end and my perimenapausal mind simply doesn’t give a shit. Whatever the reason, I’m more inclined to be clear about who I am, where I’ve been and in the moment what I am thinking … so here’s a heads up for anyone who thinks any of these things matter ….
My boyfriend’s list would look a bit different of course. But for us it isn’t about looking into a mirror and seeing our self reflected back. It is only and always seeing only Love. Which is more than enough for us and everyone we hold as friend.

Leave a Reply