in

Get out of bed, make a hot drink and go outside. You owe yourself that much. Maybe you still cry in far too many public bathrooms, but I swear, you stay a few seconds less every time. Smile at strangers if it’s all you can do, know that life doesn’t start when the sun rises or the credits roll but when you decide it’s time to go after what you deserve, and you deserve everything because we are alive both only once and a million times every day and every minute is something new to learn and someone new to love, and if it all crashes and burns as it so often does cling on to hope through it all and don’t ever ever ever let it go. Start your life again whenever you need to. Repeat after me: it is not yet the end. It is not yet the end. It is not yet the end.

a greater reality (via deathmutt)
in

Think dehumanizing women in the public sphere, portraying them as sex objects and victims of men and simply vessels to be fucked or abused or turned into a great big joke is completely harmless? Tell it to the office worker whose boss referred to her by asking a colleague “if big tits has come in yet”. Tell it to the woman who was asked by her boss in front of 30 colleagues “If I ‘wax my crack’”. Tell it to the girl of 10 who was walking home from school when “two older boys said ‘show us your tits’”. Tell it to the child of 13 who didn’t even understand when two men in a white van asked her if she had “a tight pussy”. Tell it to the woman who reported being groped by strangers “at least once a week and often much more, regardless of what I wear, where I am, how I behave.” Tell it to the woman who declined to talk to a group of men and was pursued down the street by them, shouting “rape!” Tell it to schoolgirl who was “beaten by her boyfriend” and whose “friends asked her if she was going to stay with him until after the prom so she’d have a date”.

Laura Bates, in an article titled The 12 Days of Misogyny, explaining why your hilarious jokes about women actually do matter. (via ceedling)

Marriage

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Considering my religious background, I always figured I would marry, as oppose to just move in with my partner. Yet, now it seems like marriage is a formality many people are opting to skip. It’s seen more like a waste of money, and an unnecessary step, rather than a given. More often than not, people are choosing to simply live together, have children, and never make it legal. And if they choose to get married, the wedding portion is skipped. It’s more like, lets sign the papers but not advertise the union.

I’m tempted to do the same.

Considering the cost of tuition, and how important money is in terms of providing your children with opportunities, a big wedding seems unwise. It’s interesting because lately I’ve been thinking about children. I don’t intend to have them now, but the idea of being a mother is more tangible now than it ever has been. I find myself thinking about how I’d raise them, how my pregnancy experience would be etc. However, I don’t find myself thinking about marriage. Marriage still doesn’t seem tangible to me. I don’t think about the proposal, or my partner, or my wedding day, or any of that. I skip over that entire step, and go straight to motherhood.

But then I think about marriage without money in mind. There are legal privileges, and rights you receive when you are legally married. Also psychologically speaking, children with married parents tend to be better situated, than children with parents that aren’t legally married but live together. Lastly, the religious significance of marriage is something I consider very beautiful.

So all this to say, I’m very tempted to just sign a few papers and call it a day. And maybe that’s because I’m young and marriage isn’t something I sympathize with just yet. However, I’m not completely abandoning the symbolism of marriage, the spirituality in it, the unity, the outward expression of it….

I wouldn't be afraid of spiders if I could just talk to them, you know?

in

Me: Oh, hey whoa, this shower is occupied.Spider: Omg man I didn't see you there. Me: We cool? Spider: Yeah, yeah, we're cool. I'm just coming down to scope out the tub. Me: Oh, that's legit. Hey, you might wanna move over some--you're descending right into the shower stream and I don't want you to drown. Spider: Hey thanks, bud. I'll be careful. Me: So...can I get out now? Spider: Sure, sure! Sorry I'll just move over here. Me: Thanks. You have a nice night. Don't come into my bedroom, okay? Spider: Nah, that's your space. We're cool. Have a great evening.

in

Women are socialized to make men feel good. We’re socialized to “let you down easy.” We’re not socialized to say a clear and direct “no.” We’re socialized to speak in hints and boost egos and let people save face. People who don’t respect the social contract (rapists, predators, assholes, pickup artists) are good at taking advantage of this. “No” is something we have to learn. “No” is something we have to earn. In fact, I’d argue that the ability to just say “no” to something, without further comment, apology, explanation, guilt, or thinking about it is one of the great rites of passage in growing up, and when you start saying it and saying it regularly the world often pushes back. And calls you names.

The art of “no.” « CaptainAwkward.com  (via blissed)

Don't Ask Me to Forget

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If you ask me if I still think about them, if I sometimes wonder how they are doing, the answer will be yes. It will be yes today, tomorrow, and 10 years from now. Why? Because the impact they had on my life was grand.They taught me something new about myself, they helped me better myself, and they made it possible for us to be. So don’t ask me to forget, or to stop thinking about them. I won’t. And if we ever stop being, I won’t forget you either.

You see the nature of the relationship doesn’t matter. Whether we were fully immersed in each others lives, almost together, or only made each other smile for a short period…it mattered, it matters. It affected me, and so I hold it close to my heart.

It won’t change what’s happening now, it won’t revive what happened then. It will only make me appreciate the big picture.

So let me enjoy my history, it led me to you.

Strong Women?

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Most of the women in my life see a need and meet it. They don’t concern themselves with who’s supposed to meet it but didn’t, who is slacking off, or who could do it but refuses to…No, they see something that has to be done and do it. Other people see this characteristic in them, and decide to take advantage of it. They ask them for favors, tell them what to do, and when slack needs to be picked up, they turn to these women to get it done.

If these women slack off, or refuse to do the extra work, they are looked down on, guilted into doing the work, or are reprimanded.

At this point you may be wondering why they put up with this..I believe it’s partly because they know it’s a lost cost. The people they are dealing with are stubborn, or in higher power. Also a stale mate is usually out of the question, because it’s not only their lives that will be affected. For example, if their mother needs to be driven to an appointment, and all their siblings refuse to do it, they can’t just let their mother miss her appointment. So they push through, and pile on the work load.

I see this all around me, in different aspects of my life, and it saddens me. It’s unfair. These women are putting their dreams and personal goals on hold, because the people around them don’t know the meaning of responsibility and consideration.

My mother has always told me, what other people do is none of my business. My only concern is doing what I have to do, and doing it right. That’s what I do, I take care of my responsibilities the best I can. The problem begins when people come to me, looking to lighten their load. I tend to say yes, because I can sympathize. Unfortunately, it eventually goes from lightening a load, to completely dropping off their responsibilities. Sometimes I fight it, but I usually just do what’s asked of me.

I already see where this is headed, and I’m not having it. I haven’t worked this hard to be limited by other people. Some people will be inconvenienced for a while but it needs to be done. I’m not anyone’s personal assistant.

in

schaudwen:

z0mbie-pirate:

briannacherrygarcia:

terminallylemer:

spazzyena:

ravenworks:

explosionsoflife:

Wow.

Okay, that is positively magical to watch happening

This is animation porn oh my god <3

I need to rewatch this movie, I have all kinds of respect for it now.

*drools over animation*

^ this is how some of Tim’s movies are made…especially The Nightmare before christmas and the corpse bride….

If by ‘tim’ you mean ‘tim burton’ -  Burton had no role in Coraline. Henry Selick directed both coraline and nightmare before christmas. Tim Burton was a producer and cowriter, but a lot of people attribute Henry Selick’s work to burton for some reason.

in

[gallery]

dynamicafrica:

“If you don’t like someone’s story, write your own.”

“Nobody can teach me who I am. You can describe parts of me, but who I am - and what I need - is something I have to find out myself.”

“We cannot trample upon the humanity of others without devaluing our own.The Igbo, always practical, put it concretely in their proverb Onye ji onye n’ani ji onwe ya: “He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.”

“When a tradition gathers enough strength to go on for centuries, you don’t just turn it off one day.”

“When the British came to Igbo land, for instance, at the beginning of the 20th century, and defeated the men in pitched battles in different places, and set up their administrations, the men surrendered. And it was the women who led the first revolt.”

“When suffering knocks at your door and you say there is no seat for him, he tells you not to worry because he has brought his own stool.”

“While we do our good works let us not forget that the real solution lies in a world in which charity will have become unnecessary.”

“It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.”

“I would be quite satisfied if my novels (especially the ones I set in the past) did no more than teach my readers that their past - with all its imperfections - was not one long night of savagery from which the first Europeans acting on God’s behalf delivered them”

“That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.”

RIP Chinua Achebe.

Re-run

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I bask in the happiness I feel right now, because I can’t handle the thought of things falling apart like they did. I can’t imagine wondering whether or not it’s alright to say hello. Can’t imagine having to re-arrange my whole mindset after years of thinking I had it all figured out. I bask in my happiness…but I keep my walls up just in case things aren’t what they seem.