Celebrate The Tiny Victories 💪

The KKK is targeting Black women in North and South Carolina. Both states have set out advisories till the first week of February. Please be safe!!!

If you are a BIPOC stay home or go somewhere with a group. DO NOT go anywhere alone for the time being!! Be safe out there!!

okay look. i get a few asks every now and again about age gaps in relationships and i know that there are exceptions to every rule but.

i know three girls my age, twenty four, who are stuck in relationships that they shouldn’t be in because an older guy groomed them when they were young teens.

one was thirteen when a seventeen year old boy started flirting with her. she was flattered. she started lying to her parents and sneaking around with him. she fell in love with him. he says he loves her back, and maybe he thinks he does, but he doesn’t act like it. he quit his job without telling her when she was pregnant with their second child, almost singlehandedly raising their first, because he just felt like it. no regard for the family. and she laughed about it when she told me, like it was the funniest thing, like he hadn’t endangered all of them on a whim. because he’s done so much little shit over the years that she’s accustomed to it. he always gets his way and she cleans up his mess because she loves him.

another girl works a full time job and then comes home to cook and clean because her unemployed boyfriend refuses to. she was fourteen and he was eighteen when they started dating and she is still convinced he’s going to change. he quit smoking when she threatened to leave but literally weeks later, as soon as he’d cowed her back into submission, he took it up again, and then tried to paint her as a villain for ‘trying to take away his joy’.

all three girls become completely different people when their partners are around. quieter, smaller.

when it’s just us they laugh as they tell me about the men losing their tempers over something small, like knocking over chairs is a rational response to her asking if she can go away with her friends for a weekend.

they’ve been with these men since they were so young they cannot imagine their lives without them. their entire identities are forged around these uneven relationships.

and that’s the key - they’re uneven. i don’t doubt that two fifteen year olds can get together and stay together happily, because they both had the opportunity to grow up within the relationship, at the same pace. if it’s a fifteen year old and a nineteen year old, though, one has already done so much more growing than the other. they’re at completely different stages of development, they’re psychologically unable to have an equal balance of power in the relationship.

basically, please don’t be flattered by older people showing an interest in you. instead, consider why they don’t want to date someone their own age, who is far more likely to stand up to them when they get controlling. all relationships should have equal shares, but age gaps between early and late teens, or teens and adults, don’t allow that. please don’t take a chance on you being the exception to the rule.

when someone loves you - really loves you - treat them gently. text your best friend back when you can. tell your mother you noticed her haircut and that she was right about that recipe. tell your grandfather that the boats in his bottles are the best things you’ve ever seen. be good to the people who are good to you. it’s the least you can do.

Europe is currently being burned alive and people still think climate change is a joke. It’s warmer in North Europe than in the middle eastern deserts.

Nearly all northern countries broke their decades old heat records this week.

Manage expectations accordingly (x)

every year around christmas me and my grandma play this fun family game called “maybe you want to put jesus in your room instead, sweetie? :)”. now, it’s important to note that the jesus referred to in our game is not actually the real jesus christ, but instead a wooden figure i made in 2011 that has an uncanny resemblance to the lord and savior himself

so what happens is that i place jesus in our living room, and my grandma smiles and asks me if i don’t want to decorate my room with him instead. i ask her in return if she thinks my jesus figure is ugly (which he is), but she reassures me that this is not the case. however, a couple of days later jesus mysteriously disappears from our living room, and appear in my room instead

now, the real jesus christ might have been able to perform a miracle like this, but please remember that the jesus in our story is only a figure made out of wood. he can not move on his own, so i think we can safely say that my grandma is the prime suspect here

the first year i would often confront my grandma about this, but she would always make up an excuse and never straight up tell me she moved him because he’s so ugly it’s an embarrassment to the family

eventually i grew tired of her lies, so now we only move jesus around in silence. one second he’s in the living room, the next he’s back in my room. in a way i think this adds an extra element of excitement to the holiday season, because you never know for sure when jesus is going to be moved again

My brain, having a meltdown like a toddler: I just can’t do it! I don’t want to !! I can’t!! Me, parenting my tired toddler brain: Take a deep breath, it’s going to be ok. We don’t have to do everything today that’s overwhelming you. Let’s pick the most important thing to work on, ok? What’s the smallest step we can do to work towards that? My toddler brain, wiping away tears: Um, I think we should…open up the important spreadsheet and look at the first row. Me, parenting my tired toddler brain: Great! Let’s do that, and then we can have a popsicle, ok? My toddler brain: *nods through drying tears, upset, but cooperative*

You are free to feel [OC]