Why Tea Ticks all the Boxes

I have gone through a lot of big life changes lately: I had a baby, quit my job, and am now a stay-at-home mom for as long as I want to be (maybe forever!). I'm super lucky. I love being at home with my baby. Yes, it can be boring at times; but being there for my daughter in such a present way, maintaining the home, cooking, and experiencing the everyday tranquility of facilitating a good life for me and my family brings me great joy.

However, I know that personal pursuits are also really important to me. I would love to build something of my own and maybe make money doing it. Right now I have the luxury of time to figure out what that is - which turns out to be difficult for me, since I have a million ideas but haven't been able to settle on anything. In thinking through everything, I have been able to discover that the things that bring me the greatest fulfillment include beauty, creativity, physical acts of service, and meaningful connections.

I've noticed how happy my husband is in his new security job. Of course it helps that he has an amazing boss, but the immediacy of his work is what I've really taken notice of. Let me explain: most of the jobs I've worked over the years have been in an office, with a computer and a phone. It's a lot of emails, spreadsheets, paper in files and out of files, files on shelves and in boxes, etc. The problem is, you start to feel like you're not actually doing anything. It's just a lot of shuffling of information back and forth. I know that's not accurate, but that's how it seems to me. I've felt massively bored and trapped at basically every job I've ever worked. I don't mind hard work at all, but I really, really need to be doing work that's real. I did work one job out of the many that I thoroughly enjoyed, and that was waitressing. No joke. I loved interacting with folks, making sure I got their orders right, keeping them happy, and hopefully getting a good tip at the end of it all. I also loved the camaraderie I had with my fellow servers and the cooks in the back. It was all such simple work, it all revolved around the very real task of serving people their food, and when I left at the end of the day there was no stress over how much work was building up while I was gone - there would be new people and new experiences for the next day. If you told me tomorrow that I had to start making money immediately, I would get a waitressing job and be happy with that. 

Anyhow, taking all of this information, I realized that tea is the one thing that ticks every single one of my boxes. This is why:

BEAUTY - Every layer is beautiful, from the tea leaves themselves, to the preparation process, to the supplies used, to the final presentation, to how it is set up in your space. 

CREATIVITY - Every step requires creativity, from finding the perfect blends, to procuring or designing the tea cups and teapots (and place settings and floral arrangements, etc.), to selecting and preparing the foods served with the tea, to facilitating the perfect tea-drinking experience; not to mention the creative process that goes into setting up your tea things in your space in a way that creates the proper flow during preparation.

PHYSICAL ACTS OF SERVICE - Just pouring someone a nice cuppa is an act of service which can be done literally anywhere. Whether it's a friend in your home, or a group of seniors at a retirement facility, you can show genuine care for your fellow humans through the physical act of preparing and serving them tea. 

MEANINGFUL CONNECTIONS - When I was growing up, my best friends lived far away, and we would travel annually to each others' homes. During my visits to their house, they would brew delicious pots of tea. Every time I have a cup of tea now, I still feel the same connection with my friends that I experienced during those visits. Tea is calming, it is grounding, and it brings humans closer together. 

So for me, tea is the whole package. Somehow I will find a way to use it to build something, to sink my teeth into, to be passionate about. There are so many ways to go about this, and I am excited to discover what my first step in this journey will be. 

Letter to My Former Employer

Dear Former Boss,

There were so many positives working for your company: I excelled in my roles; I loved my teammates; I had some incredible managers; compensation was decent, primarily because I was able to combine my salary with my husband's in order to make ends meet; and benefits and time off were sufficient, and sadly much better than a lot of other organizations I worked for. 

When COVID hit, you made sure we were all able to transition to remote work. My team excelled, and my department turned a profit in spite of the economy. I had always wondered how I would like working from home, and I found that I absolutely loved it. And from everything I could tell, whether it was the incredible feedback and reviews our team received from management or the bonuses we all were given after a year of remote work, that we would be able to continue this way indefinitely. 

Then a few things happened: I found out I was pregnant; and soon after that, my husband and I were given notice at our rental. In order to be able to afford our growing family, we decided the smartest plan was to move farther out to a more middle-class-friendly area. See, part of the challenge with your company is that all of your offices are located in the most expensive regions around DC. And your salaries do not match the cost of living in those areas. But since I had every reason to assume I would be able to continue to work remotely, my husband and I felt we had made the wisest choice. 

And thus continued my long and fruitful journey with your company, right? Nope.

See, what we hadn't counted on was the fact that you had no intention of allowing us to work remotely once the worst of the virus had passed. Soon after we moved, you informed our team that we would be required to work in-office two days a week. Apparently the two days was a compromise - and likely to increase in future (and it has - at this point it is up to three days a week). When we asked you why you were requiring us to come back in, your reasons did not actually apply to our roles, though you insisted that they did. You also allowed several other members of our team to relocate hours away, insisting on a distinction between their and our roles that was patently false. It was discouraging to realize that either you didn't actually understand what we did on a daily basis, or you didn't care. It was frustrating to realize that you were willing to exhibit favoritism, and were willing to make up lies to justify that favoritism. 

Thankfully, I was able to secure a note from my doctor that restricted me from commuting once I'd hit my third trimester of pregnancy. This really saved me. My physical state would have significantly deteriorated if I had been forced to make that commute. Sure, I could have saved some time (usually) by taking the EZ-Pass, but the cost was astronomical and we simply couldn't afford it. Oh, and let's not even talk about the completely impossible expense of child care that would soon become a necessity. Anyhow, I continued to do my job from home with full efficacy, as I had been doing for the past year. And then once my maternity leave was finished, I gave you my notice and have not returned. 

Ultimately I don't understand why you chose to make things so difficult for not only me and your other excellent, hard-working employees, but for you as well. You see, your choices affect your employees physically, emotionally, mentally, and financially. AND your choices cost you and your company in all those ways as well - as your employees either continue working with diminished efficacy due to being saddled with the above-mentioned burdens, or leave the company to find a better situation. 

The thing is, you thought you were justified in asking me to choose between my family and my job. You thought I would want to make the same sacrifices you made to achieve what you've achieved. But you mis-read me, because the truth is I strive for balance and for good physical and mental health. And my family comes first EVERY TIME. No exceptions.

Sincerely,

Your Former Employee

The Day We Met

Your due date was 11/19. But on 11/8 we realized my body wasn't doing terribly well with the pregnancy anymore and that you'd need to come sooner. So you were born on 11/10 instead. You had been happily sitting in breech position for weeks, so we scheduled a version to start. We were able to schedule it with my favorite doctor at the practice. She was gentle, kind, and incredibly strong. 

I thought I'd be nervous the night before, but I wasn't. I was able to get some sleep, I think more than your dad did. We headed off to the hospital Wednesday morning, aware of how soon our lives would be changed forever - and so excited about that. Your dad and I are a team, and were able to keep each other calm. We can make each other laugh about pretty stupid things, so we kept ourselves in good spirits with our jokes. My nurse was a delight, although she did blow several of my veins while attempting to insert the IV and had to call in a NICU nurse to do it instead. The anesthesiologist had a beautiful German accent and administered the epidural like a pro. 

The version was insane. It's a procedure where the doctor attempts to shift your position in the womb from outside my stomach. Anyhow, it felt like she was pushing an entire truck down on my diaphragm and it was overwhelming and made me cry. But your dad held my hand the whole time and told me I could tap out whenever I needed to. After four attempts you still refused to move and the doctor said we would have to move straight into a c-section. It would have been incredible to go through a non-surgical delivery with you, I'm sure; but honestly I didn't care how you were born as long as you were safe. 

Your dad changed into some scrubs and then was deposited in a waiting room while they wheeled me off to the O.R. He says he was so nervous while he waited for them to finish prepping me, and listened to the song "Don't Worry, Be Happy" on repeat to keep himself calm. 

I got pretty nervous by this point, too. I had always been afraid that somehow they wouldn't administer enough of the epidural and that I'd feel pain. So I told the anesthesiologist about it and he assured me that they always do a quick test before starting to ensure that doesn't happen. After a few minutes they brought your dad back in. The anesthesiologist then let me know they were doing the test, and when I told him I couldn't feel anything he said, "Well good! Because they actually already started the surgery a minute ago." I was very relieved, I can tell you!

Your dad asked if we could listen to some music, and he picked "Put On Your Sunday Clothes" from Hello, Dolly! We had just watched that a few days prior, and it was the perfect song. I started crying again and didn't stop for a while - the emotions were just so strong, but they were all amazing emotions, too. 

And can you believe it? Before the song was even finished, they were pulling you out! Your dad got to see it, too, and he says it was amazing. He says they pulled you out bottom-first, then your legs popped out, and then the rest of your little body. I feel like I remember hearing you cry immediately, but I honestly can't say for sure. You were born at 11:51am.

Then they lifted you up above the curtain. You were wrapped around the doctor's arm with your eyes tightly shut. You were beautiful. I had never felt such pure joy, and I will never forget that feeling.

They took you and your dad over to the corner and got you cleaned up and bundled. You weighed 7lbs, 15 ounces and measured 20.5 inches long. Then your dad brought you back over to me. They were still stitching me up, so I couldn't hold you. But he put your face next to mine, and I got to give you a kiss. You had the sweetest warm cheeks (you still do) and you were so calm. We just stayed like that for a bit, you and I, our faces touching. It was magic. 

Then they wheeled us out, and a few minutes later I was able to hold you in my arms for the first time. And life has never been the same. Not for me, not for your dad. You see, your dad and I love each other with every bone in our bodies, and that love grows stronger every day. But our love for you is a million times stronger than that. That's how much we love you. It's crazy.

You

So you’re trying to love yourself, right? You’re trying to accept what your body looks like and find it beautiful, right?

And most of the time you don’t get anywhere near that, do you?

Sometimes I really like my body. Sometimes I really don’t. I’ve never, ever felt like the magazines say I should: perfectly happy and comfortable in my own skin. I still haven’t fully accepted myself.

But you know what? That’s ok. I need to focus on balance, not on perfection. And this means I’ll still struggle and fail. But maybe I can find a way to struggle less and fail even less than that.

Maybe I can start to notice my body as one connected entity, instead of broken up parts that I judge individually. I can look at my stomach that’s sometimes flat and sometimes round, and see how it flows down into my legs – strong legs that flow into my feet, which keep me from falling down (most of the time, anyways).

There’s a whole body here, for Christ’s sake! A connected, living, breathing thing. It keeps me alive. It protects me. It makes sure I get what I need.

Maybe sometimes I need to exercise more. Maybe I’ve reached an imbalance and my body feels it.

Or maybe sometimes I need to eat more. Maybe I’ve reached an imbalance and my body feels it.

Perfection will not happen. Give that part up.

But what can happen is balance. Acceptance on most days. Peace more often than not.

Maybe you wake up on one day, and your skin isn’t doing what you want it to. Or your extra curves, which you were particularly accepting of yesterday, feel really unpleasant today. Or you can’t find it within yourself to love your bony frame.

But instead of being stuck there, focus on one thing that makes you happy when you wear it. Your earrings, your t-shirt with your favorite quote, you bathrobe that feels so soft on your skin. Then look into your eyes, where YOU are. Thank your imperfect body for being there for you (even when it can’t be there 100%, which happens sometimes for healthy people, and a lot of times for sick people).

And go out and experience life with your messy yet amazing body.

Go out feeling slightly dissatisfied, and do your thing anyways. Sing your songs, see the world, drink your tea; hell, photograph that imperfect body and then see what is beautiful – because I promise you there’s beauty there in the imperfection.

Take it a day at a time.

Culture can be stupid sometimes. It can make you believe fairy tales, and then those fairy tales become your biggest nightmare. So just tell the world to shut up more often. When it tells you something about how your body should look (and believe me, it’ll try), just turn away from it and face a new direction.

You may have to do this a lot, but that’s ok. Gnats are persistent but it doesn’t mean we should stop and pay attention to them.

Think through what your body has done for you, and what it will do for you till the very end.

And here’s something to remember: it’s YOU. There’s YOU in the midst of all of it.

YOU.

Shit Storm

When I was little, I had many friends who were boys. Then when I hit puberty, my insecurity (combined with the insecurity of most of the boys in my social group) made it very difficult to interact with the opposite sex. I don't remember a time when I knew of a boy who "liked" me after about the age of eight.

After I graduated from high school, I and a bunch of my church friends went on a week-long senior trip. One of the boys I'd had a crush on was part of the group. Two days into the trip, I suddenly found that I couldn't eat. I was anxious, and it all revolved around this one boy. I was madly in love with him, and yet being around him made me sick.

This happened again when I was acting in a show. In this case I wasn't actually falling for the actor I played opposite, nor was the relationship in the show a romantic one, but something about the intimacy of the emotions and having to share that with a man was extremely difficult for me. On rehearsal days, I found it nearly impossible to eat. The actor was one of the nicest people I met, and yet I could barely be near him.

After that point, although I had friends who were guys, and although my social set increased as I became more involved in community theatre, I never expressed interest in a guy - and none did in me. Finally, after about the age of 25, I started getting asked out. I think I'd had enough time interacting with a more varied group of friends and my confidence had increased. However, going on dates became the new biggest challenge for me.

Several times I agreed and then backed out. Oftentimes I would flirt and seem interested, and then back way the fuck up when it looked like the feelings were reciprocated. There was always a feeling that I was about to make a huge mistake, or that the guy in question was about to make himself vulnerable in a way that didn't sit right with me.

I finally managed to go out with the same guy for two dates. But even though he was really sweet, being around him made me terrified. I was brave enough to call him and tell him "it's not you, it's me" (I was being honest here, and didn't realize this was an excuse a lot of people made when they weren't interested).

THEN...there was an actor in a show I was directing. He was older, but a big thing that attracted me to him was how much everyone else wanted him (and yet he was interested in me! Suck it, bitches!). Finally one night after rehearsal he kissed me. I'd never been kissed. I was excited, but I knew in the back of mind that things were gonna really spiral downward. And boy they did.

That night I was able to fall asleep. But after a few hours, I woke with a start. My heart was racing, and I was dry-heaving. Waves of nausea would pass through my body, and I could feel every moment of the wave from the beginning to when they passed through my fingertips (I felt the nausea even in my fingertips, I kid you not). In the middle of the night, I had no choice but to go outside and walk through the neighborhood, taking deep breaths and gagging. The next day I could barely take little sips of water, and I knew something was terribly wrong with me.

After a week, I went to a doctor. He asked me many questions, many that had to do with my family and my parents. He suggested I attend a support group called "Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Parents (ACA)", as he felt there was a link between my anxiety and my family's history of abuse and alcoholism (none overtly with my parents, but they'd both experienced it in their own families). He also prescribed not one, but THREE different medications: one for panic attacks, one for insomnia, and one for anxiety. I definitely needed all of them.

Once I got that settled, I was able to have a conversation with the guy who kissed me. We managed to start going out, though it was a difficult process. On our first date, I had to set up several safeguards to ensure I wouldn't back out, and to ensure we didn't do anything that might cause a panic attack: I gave him my phone number, but he was only allowed to call me if he got lost (all of our communication so far was via facebook messenger) - oh, and he picked me up so that I couldn't just decide not to go there. Our date consisted of literally just walking outside. No eating, no drinks. And mind you, this was in December, so it was pretty cold. I survived the first date, although he was stupid and tried to kiss me again (he had his own issues, which I'll cover in a sec).

My anxiety continued for several months. It got easier, but didn't resolve entirely. I lost 15 pounds, which is a lot for someone of my size. Honestly, there were a lot of good battles I fought and won, but it was horrible, too.

So I dated this guy for two years. Soon after we started dating, I found out that he struggled with sexual addiction. Our relationship was tumultuous and extremely painful. There were a lot of breaks (initiated by him) and several times during those breaks where he met with and/or slept with other women. He was broken, hopeless, and sad, and he used that. I forgave him more times than I could count, and always thought that I was the one person who was gonna be there for him when no one else had been. I was terribly unhappy, but I didn't even realize it. I went to a support group during this time for partners of sex addicts - I was focused on his recovery, and didn't realize I was the one who needed a recovery of my own. Finally I was able to break it off with him. It was a messy break-up, but it was an empowering experience for me. I realized then that no matter what my feelings, I could do what I had to do. That was huge for me.

The next year I made a lot of relationship choices, some of which I'm not proud of, but they are part of the journey. I tried casual sex, and it caused the same horrible anxiety I'd experienced before. I was still on some meds, and I definitely still needed them.

Then I met another guy. He was much younger, and seemed charming and adventurous. And BOY, was he toxic as ever. He tore me down every chance he could get. One good thing he did was encourage me to get off of my meds. And normally I'd say that this is a TERRIBLE idea, but actually in my case I was ready for it. I was still dealing with anxiety, but I had tools to help me that didn't involve medicating. Our relationship lasted less than a year. Near the end, I was fantasizing about cutting myself. It's the first time in my life I understood what "hurting the outside to release the pain inside" actually meant. Thankfully I made a better decision and broke up with him. He'd mentioned that I needed to "get my shit together", and he was exactly right. So I did by breaking up with him, and FINALLY started attending ACA.

For me, ACA was the key (it won't be for everybody, but it definitely was for me). It's a twelve-step program, and the biggest thing I've learned from it is that I have no control over others, only myself. I also learned about shame, and about my very low sense of self-worth, and about how I let others treat me, and how I learned those things from my parents growing up.

The one thing I've never been able to figure out is if I experienced trauma (specifically sexual trauma) when I was a child. Because honestly, that would explain the anxiety and the panic attacks. I was literally responding to a guys' interest the way an abused animal would respond to human contact. Everything in my body was telling me to run, all of the red flags were waving. But not always for the right reasons, ya know? (Although my exes weren't safe people, my first one even being predatory, and I think a small part of me realized that.) My body was physically rejecting any feelings I was having. The gagging, the dry-heaving, was literally my body trying to expel those feelings from within. It was terrifying.

I don't think this story has a moral. I can't give you the "five steps to recovery". All I can say is, my story can't be unusual. I think there are a lot of people out there who can identify with my experience. There are a lot of people who come from parents who have their own set of issues (in fact, I'd be hard-pressed to find someone with perfect parents). But what I can tell you is, there's always options. There's always people, and support groups, and another step forward out of whatever prison you're in.

After about six months working recovery in ACA, I met a guy. I'd been paying attention to how people I met made me feel: did they make me feel like I had to "perform" (and I'm very skilled at being whatever people need me to be in order to be accepted)? Were they insecure in a way that required me to BE for them what they couldn't be for themselves?

Anyhow, this guy didn't make me feel like I had to be anything other than me. He was ok with him, so he was ok with me. I liked him immediately. But the program I was working encouraged us to avoid romantic relationships for at least a year to really get some good recovery under our belts first. SO I did something un-characteristic, and didn't rush into a relationship with him, but waited. For the first time in my life, I felt certain that if a relationship with this guy was meant to be, then it would happen when the time was right.

And guess what? It did. I saw him again almost a year after I'd begun recovery. And then I asked him out. And the rest is history. Because we dated for over a year (with no ups and downs, no hot then cold, no abuse - just consistent love and care), and then we got a place together, and then we got engaged, and now we're married and have two kittens. Nothing is ever perfect, and I've had my share of anxiety and irrational thoughts. But I have tools to use, and I know where these thoughts are coming from. I haven't had to get back on meds, and I've experienced very little anxiety that led to loss of appetite or panic attacks.

I have no guarantee that I'll never struggle with it again. And I still think there's more to my past that I have yet to discover, which is why I'm trying to get back in to see a therapist. But I think I can say with confidence that, even though life is a bit of a shit storm, you're not constantly at its mercy. You can have more power, more recovery, and more hope than you think right now.

Pendulum

I want to talk about the "horseshoe effect". This is something I've touched on before, but I feel like it warrants an entire post. In brief, the "horseshoe effect" is when an individual swings from one extreme ideology to an opposite but equally extreme one. And this my experience with it:

My parents grew up in fairly typical homes, i.e., homes with a decent amount of dysfunction. Their families had a history of alcoholism and abuse (or at least on my mom's side; I'm not sure about my dad's, although he definitely had a father with anger issues). My mom found religion (Christianity) and then made my dad accept the faith before she would agree to marry him (he grew up a mild Catholic, which has its differences from Protestantism). It's funny, because I actually feel like my dad's faith is more genuine - I may not believe what he believes anymore, but I really respect him for his faith. Anyhow, my parents briefly considered becoming missionaries, but settled for having a lot of kids instead. And then they decided to home school all of us as well. Basically they went pretty extreme as far as current social norms appear. 

While my religious up-bringing could have been really traumatic (not necessarily because of the religion itself, but because of what people way too often use it for), it wasn't actually too bad for me. I was very serious about my faith throughout my childhood and even into young adulthood. However, through a series of circumstances that warrant an entirely separate post, I eventually moved away from Protestantism (dabbling briefly in Catholicism), then from organized religion, and then from faith itself (I just no longer believed it all to be true). 

Around this time I also ended a pretty serious relationship with an addict (again, another post warranted for this story). I had some friends (one I'd met through church many years prior, the other was her girlfriend) who really became a strong source of encouragement and support after my break-up. I started renting a room from them, and a pretty close bond formed. I had so much fun with them - we discussed ideas and laughed a LOT. There was so much that was good about it, including the fact that they got me thinking about ideas I'd held for a long time and started challenging that thinking. I needed that, and it broke me out of some unhealthy thought patterns. 

About a year in, I'd definitely hit my strongest feminist phase. I was trying to make sense of the ideological rules I'd been fed as a child, and the very negative things I'd experienced with my now ex-boyfriend. There was a lot of truth to what we discussed, and some very positive growth occurred. However, instead of understanding my experiences as they pertained to me, I was learning how to attach broad rules to a larger social picture - which can be a very slippery slope. My social media posts became more and more polarized, focusing on how the church IS bad, how men ARE dangerous; as opposed to how the church CAN be bad and men CAN be dangerous. It might seem like a tiny distinction, but I find it to be an important one. 

Thankfully, I somehow managed to find a better balance to my thinking. Through discussions with other people, and through observing my roommates and where their thinking was leading them, I realized that I was swinging far. And I discovered that my pendulum swing was bringing me away from the religious ideology I'd grown up in, to a totally opposite set of views - but with an equally militant set of rules and ideology attached to it. 

Let me see if I can describe it to you: a big thing that started my journey away from Christianity was the issue of homosexuality. I was raised to believe it is a sin. But as I grew older, that made less and less sense to me, and eventually I realized that it was just not something I felt was wrong. Anyhow, my roommates were in a homosexual relationship, and they definitely believed it was something that should be accepted. And while I absolutely agree with them, they always took it a step further, attaching big rules to society and making sweeping judgments about the people who maybe didn't agree with them 100%. 

I started to notice this swing, and I started to work to balance out my thinking. I realized that life is not so black and white, and that ideas can always grow and change. I understood more clearly how every idea and situation is very nuanced, and that trying to attach a rule only creates inflexibility of thinking and shuts people out. 

Unfortunately, my roommates shut people out. They were fighting for acceptance, but there were so many people they thought they couldn't accept. Eventually, for a variety of reasons, it became pretty difficult for me to live with them. I tried to talk to them about some of my concerns, and I don't really know if they understood. They were really focused on how the world needed to be fixed, and not enough on how they needed to be taking care of themselves. There were serious issues with their relationship, and none of their rules applied to them or helped them out in the slightest. I moved out, hoping that would allow us to retain the friendship, but things didn't seem to improve. Eventually I had to talk to my friend some more about it. I felt bad, but I never felt like I could really be myself around her and I knew I owed it to her to be honest with her about it. Naturally (because no one wants to be on the receiving end of this type of conversation) she didn't take it well and our relationship literally dissolved overnight. 

It still makes me sad. Really, really sad. I recently tried to reach back out and connect, but they are in the same place as they were before. I miss them, but honestly, just as I can't stomach extreme ideology on one side, it's also equally intolerable on the other. Even though the rules are completely opposed, they are still rules that apply snap judgments to anyone who can't in good conscience follow them. There is no allowance for humans to be humans and to be different. And in an age that screams about tolerance and inclusion, I see a whole lot of intolerance and exclusion going on. 

Trump is About Life

Enough time has passed, and enough silence on the part of my former friend, that I've decided it's time to talk about a conversation I had a year ago. It was right after Trump became president, and tensions were understandably high.

Let me give you a little background: my friend was someone I'd met through theatre. We worked on a few shows together, went swing dancing a couple times, and shared some drinks. We didn't get to see each other more often than every few months, but we messaged back and forth almost daily. Our talks ranged from discussions about acting, our dreams for the future, and politics. They were even more personal than that, as we supported each other through (and sometimes out of) toxic relationships. If she was having a difficult time with her family, for instance, I would usually be the one to discuss with her what she should do, or go out and get drinks with her after a particularly painful interaction with her parents.

Anyhow, there was one day where I messaged her about something mundane, and heard nothing back. About a week later, I followed up on it, and she gave me a cryptic, one-word answer. My sixth sense told me something wasn't right, and I pressed her for more. Here's how the conversation went down via messenger:

Me: "Everything ok?"

Her: "Ok."

Me: "We good?"

Her: "I must admit it is aggravating when good men do nothing, but you're an autonomous adult."

Me: "I'm confused...can you elucidate?"

Her: "Trump."

Me: "Is this in relation to me? I'm sorry, I'm really confused right now. Is this something we can talk on the phone about?"

Her: "There is nothing to talk about. Like I said, you are an independent adult. I just have no patience for those who sit on their hands, while a fascist sits in the Oval Office."

Me: "Ok, so you are upset with me for not doing more about Trump, right?"

Her: "'More' is a comparative adjective. I'm not going to lecture or scold. You make your own decisions. And I make mine."

Me: "I think it'd be really good for us to talk on the phone. We need to talk through things. You're my friend, and I don't want you to be upset with me. But I need to understand."

Her: "We're talking now. These days I'm spending my free time protesting."

Me: "We're talking, but I feel very much like you're upset with me. I don't understand what you're saying, and I really need to understand. Your comments are not clear enough to me, so that I'm left feeling like I've done something wrong without knowing what it is."

Her: "I am upset with any man or woman who does nothing to oppose a man like Trump."

Me: "So do you think I have done nothing to oppose Trump?"

Her: "What have you done?"

Me: "I have done what I thought was right in regards to the election and current social issues."

Her: "Which was?"

Me: "We can't have this discussion like this. Can we please talk on the phone? Too much is lost in translation."

Her: "What vote did you cast? What protest did you attend? What representative did you call? What have you DONE?"

Me: "So here's the deal: just because I haven't done things the way you think they should be done, does not give you the right to judge me. It is none of your business how I make my political/social choices. I know I pressed you for an explanation, but that was because your silence and then your cryptic answers made it very clear to me that things were not ok. I don't believe your behavior to me at the moment is in any way appropriate. I'm removing myself from this conversation, but will be open in the future to talk if you can be more straightforward and charitable."

Her: "Nothing. You did nothing. And that is all it takes for evil to prevail. Or Trump to take over the White House."

Me: "I have nothing more to say. This conversation is done. You have judged me implicitly. You have not given me the benefit of the doubt. You have made assumptions. You are not treating me as a friend should."

Her: "You never answered my question."

Me: "It's not any of your business. Especially when you assume that because it's not the way you would do it, it's nothing."

Her: "What have you DONE?"

Me: "I live my life according to my conscience. I treat people with love and care. The things I didn't do are not because I don't care, but because I personally don't believe they are the best course of action for me. I'm not judging you for what you do/don't do. Would you like an itemized list of all the things I have done since I was a child to help those who need help? To show care, give time, money, and effort? It will be a long list."

Her: "This is about Trump."

Me: "No. This is about life. Trump is about life. Each person is deciding in his or her own way what is the best course of action. It's not up to you to decide how I go about that."

Her: "Inaction isn't illegal. But I have no respect for it either. If I'm wrong--if you've done something--please correct me."

Me: "You have assumed inaction on my part. Because I didn't vote, I didn't protest. That doesn't mean that I don't care, that I'm not trying to do what I think will help."

Her: "What action have you taken?"

Me: "Stop. I'm done. Back off."

Her: "Don't start conversations and invite questions you won't finish or answer. Leave if you want."

Me: "No. You became distant and then cryptic. I asked to understand if there was something I did wrong. Once you explained where your issue with me was, I understood that it was not something that is any of your business. Especially since you have decided to judge me without the information and make assumptions. I do not tend to take political action, because I don't see it as something that works well. That does NOT meant that I don't live my life in a way that tries to alleviate human suffering. That does NOT mean that I judge others for making different choices than I do. You made assumptions and have decided that because I don't do things the way you think I should, you have no respect for me. That is unfair, and unkind. This conversation is over, because you are not showing me the respect a friend deserves."

Her: "Political action works. History confirms that."

Me: "Ok, fine. But it is not how I choose to do things most of the time."

Her: "Silence implies complicity."

Me: "Fuck. Off. Don't you EVER tell me that my actions imply complicity. Or my silence or inaction or whatever else you have assumed about me as a person. DON'T YOU FUCKING DO IT."

Her: "If you have done anything, please correct me."

Me: "I have NOT done anything politically. No protests. I didn't vote. If that is enough for you to condemn me as a human and more importantly as a friend, then there is nothing more I can do."

Her: "'The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.' - Edmund Burke."

Me: "Over and out. Peace."

And just like that, she cut me out of her life. I waited for a while, but never heard anything back. Eventually I un-friended her, but didn't block her. She has never reached out to me. All of our years of friendship and caring and supporting meant absolutely nothing to her. Instead, her mind and emotions had become so clouded with black and white thinking, had been so completely filled with all the drivel constantly spewed these days, i.e., if you disagree on any point you are therefore guilty of all, that she lost a dear friend in a matter of minutes.

Yes, I didn't vote. I know that's a very serious thing to do. I claim responsibility for what that might cause, and I may find one day that I made the wrong choice. But I made the only choice I thought I could, in good conscience, make.

People aren't seeing people as people these days, but instead as groups, classes, skin colors, and ideologies. There is no nuance, there is no allowance for nuance. You either ARE, or you AREN'T. To assume guilt because someone makes a different choice than you, is the height of intellectual immaturity. It's what drives ideologies, and it's this inflexibility of thinking that has been causing such division. Few people seem to know how to have a discussion if it involves disagreement of any kind.

What's funny (but not really) is that folks have oftentimes blamed religions for employing the same tactics (and often enough it's true), and left them for that very reason.  But a lot of these same people really need to get off their self-righteous high horses, because they are doing the EXACT SAME THING. And if they stopped judging for five seconds and took a look at themselves, maybe - just MAYBE - they could see that.