Young, dumb and...

Everyone needs a kick in the ass every now and then to get back on the right track. Mine came in the form of my beloved auntie, who is also writer. What she said to me exactly is for me to know, but I will tell you that I am rescinding all invitations that I passed out to my pity party. I'm sorry. Forgive me.

Now with that said, my last post received the most feedback and some of the most thoughtful comments I have received since I started working on this project. I want to thank you all for reading. It means that I have struck a nerve and that there is an audience out there. I'd especially like to thank Azya, Dolly and Ja'Neen for their thoughtful commentary. You should read it.

And now for today's dose…

This column is inspired by college and twentysomething Friday nights across the country. The phrase is "young and stupid." The idea behind it is that its okay to be out of control when you're young because you've got plenty of time to fix it and be serious.

Umm…how 'bout no?

It's serious now, my friends. People our age are dying in a dusty, dry area in an unfocused, unjustified war! I'm not going to climb on that soapbox, but experts predict that the cost of this war will reach upwards of $700 billion dollars (ask me later about my sources). You, me, our parents and friends are paying for this and the price of gasoline is ridiculous. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of the government in my pockets. Please, if you disagree, let it be known. Railing against the war is not the point of the column.

The point of this column is to let your voice be heard. We are adults and we should be respected as such. But its hard to be respected when your favorite pastime is stumbling drunk out of some bar you closed down with some guy or girl you met that night. Again, don't get me wrong. If that's your idea of fun, do it 'til you're satisfied. Just don't turn it into your second (or first) job. That is not your purpose on this Earth.

Being in your twenties is not an excuse to party out of control and sow your wild oats. Being in your twenties is the time to find your purpose and conquer the world. It is the time to backpack across Canada and live by the sea t of your pants to do what you love. It is not the time to father seven kids by six women, contract any type of STI, or become a frequent flyer at a rehab center.
Too many older people underestimate who we are and what we can do, because they see us at our worst. But we are world changers. Now is the time.

Confusion Is Key

Now what?

It is one of the most resonant and fearful refrains I hear among people our age. We have followed the path most traveled and recommended to its discussed end and then...

My mother refuses to tell me what to do. "You're an adult," she tells me. "Get a job." But doing what? Where? Who do I date? What career is going to make me happy? When should I marry? Or go back to graduate school? Or buy a house? Why did they re-elect that idiot who is making it so hard for me to get a job out of college? These are just some of the few questions that we are asking ourselves as we realize that there is no Cliff's Notes for life.

And without a little guidance, the answers to these questions can be a little hard to find. You can barely decide on what you want for dinner, let alone what career you want to start out with. Take for instance, my situation. I'm a big city Southern girl from Atlanta. I love where I'm from and I know that one day I want to go back because Louisville is neither big nor Southern. I'm a writer and it would be easier to make a living in Atlanta, but...my contacts are here in Louisville. So what do I do? When my novel is published, I'm moving back home, but what do I do in the meantime? I'm in career limbo and my pockets are paying the price.

And I know mine isn't the only story out there like this. It is hard being the age we are in the time period we are in and no one seems to want to help. But part of growing up is making our own decisions. When we get shoved out of the nest, we are to assert ourselves by flying, even if it means flying in crazy circles.

Who, what, when, where and why? Those questions are to be answered by you and the only way you can answer those questions is to tune out all well-intentioned (and some not well-intentioned) people and listen to that voice inside you. Only you know what's right for you. Don't listen to money concerns or pride. Just do you, boo, as my sister says. You'll eventually stop flying in those crazy circles.

Left, right, left

So I just returned from the ATL and the only thing that seems a little clearer is that I miss home. That and the fact that I need health insurance…now. I have numbness in my hands that might be the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome and I have become a lefty instead of a righty. Don't worry about me though. This situation has given me an interesting perspective on things.

First of all, the world is clearly geared toward right-handed people. That's not fair and I'm sorry. But then again, the world isn't fair and we get over it. But again it has given me the rare opportunity to walk a mile or two as a left-handed person. Sympathetic or not, you really don't understand a person and where they are coming from until you have walked a mile or two in his or her shoes. Empathy, not sympathy, is the key to understanding.

There are a couple of poems floating the internet by way of forwards that deal with understanding time and concepts. There's the one that talks about the value of a minute, an hour and a second. In order to assign value, you should talk to people whose lives have been altered in that time period. If you want to know the value of two functioning hands, ask an artist (or me).

It takes patience and an open heart (not mind) to understand where someone else is standing on the path of Life. That is if you care to understand. And as much as you hate to admit it…you care. :) So the next time you have to deal with that coworker that makes you want to throw office furniture, take a moment and contemplate. Maybe you coworker is left-handed.

So sorry I was so short this week. I'll bring you a healthy dose next week.

Don't Run with Scissors

It's that time of the week again for my weekly diatribe on the plight of twentysomethings in America. This week finds me with a touch of homesickness (more like a full-blown case) and a bit of wanderlust. Confused? Yeah, me too, but I think we can blame it on my buddy who has just returned from Europe. But in an attempt to quell the sudden urge to move home, I will be visiting the folks for a couple of days (even though I have a job interview in Atlanta Monday).

Do you find yourself homesick? Are you homesick and you're at home? I bet you're wishing for the days when you only had to worry about how you were gonna come up with the money for prom. Or let's take it even further back and you were just trying not to fall off of the monkey bars. If you're reading this with your thumb in your mouth right now, know that that time has passed. Pay your rent, utilities and student loans, okay? But if you need to take a trip down memory lane, you can and you can use some of the lessons from back then in your current circumstance.

1. Color inside the lines. Now, I'm only saying this because you have to prove that you can follow rules and you're not a total anarchist. But do you remember the power I was talking about last week? We can and should use that power to change the lines. Draw an entirely new picture to color in! That's the beauty of being young and powerful.
2. Walk, don't run. This is something that I struggle with...a lot. Patience is a very valuable virtue, but since you've heard it so many times, you tend to ignore it. But Rome wasn't built in a day and neither will you reach all of your goals in a day. Slow down! You won't be able to see what you're passing up.
3. Loss is natural. Yes, God took away Squeaky the class mouse or if nothing else you loss an entire set of baby teeth. But what happened? Squeaky was replaced by Tom and Jerry, the guinea pigs who were a lot cooler and you grew bigger and stronger teeth, not to mention you were a little richer when the tooth fairy came to visit. Loss happens to everyone, but God is only making room for a better opportunity.
4. Stand up for yourself. So maybe you weren't the biggest, meanest first grader this side of the neighborhood and maybe your got your lunch money taken all the time. Time makes us older and hopefully wiser. So now your coworker wants you to pull the presentation together so that he or she can take all the credit. NO! Don't be someone else's punching bag again. You're an adult. Let the boss know that you stayed up until two in the morning on that presentation.
5. But work well with others. Even Jesus had the twelve apostles. You're only one person and you can't know everyone in the world. I have learned from a dear girlfriend of mine that networking can take you far. It is about what you know, but who cares if you don't know anybody?

So those are just a few of the few lessons that we need to relearn so that we can change the world. If you have any other suggestions, please post them so that everyone can see. I'll be having some much needed fun in the ATL this weekend, but I'll be thinking of you guys and the next column. OH! One last lesson before I go...Don't run with scissors. You can go to jail for that. :-)

To thine own self be true...

First of all, I want to say that all of us in our twenties need to read and/or purchase Suze Orman's "The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke." Check out her website at www.suzeorman.com.

But back to the topic...

I have a confession to make: Oprah is my hero. I love the show. I love her magazine. I want to be just like her...or even bigger! (I know...that's really big. She's a gajillionaire, but balls in, right? And yes...I just made up a word).

Yesterday, she had a couple on there where the husband had a sex change and went from Jim to Jen. The couple was still married, but were no longer intimate because the wife Deedi said that she was not a lesbian. And the couple had two young sons. I can only imagine how the wife and those boys feel.

But here's the thing...it's very easy to classify Jim/Jen as a freak. And he thought it wasn't right to want to be a woman because he suppressed that urge for TEN YEARS! But in the end, his true self won out. He could've lost everything, but in the end, he still became a woman.

Now that's a really extreme case of being true to yourself, but it underlines how important it is. I asked my Mom and Dad if it would be important enough to get a sex change to put your young sons through that. My mother said that if she had a penis, she would cut it off. My father said he would blow his brains out, stating that his suicide would be less traumatic than his sex change.

What do think? Would you be willing to risk it all to be true to yourself? Leave your comments and tell me what you think.

Not Your Parents Problem

Okay, I know you all remember when cartoons were cartoons. I mean for us, nothing could be better than the cartoons from the eighties like Thundercats, the Smurfs, etc. Two of my favorite cartoons were linked because the main characters were brother and sister. That's right. I am referencing He-Man and She-Ra. He was the modern day Hercules with superhuman strength and a wicked sword. He would run around yelling, "I have the power!" She-Ra was the Princess of Power. Nothing else needed to be said.

And yet, I am a little disappointed with those of us who got up early to watch these cartoons. I don't think we really took those lessons to heart. We, as twentysomethings, have power that goes untapped. We have the power to be heard and to lead. We haven't done much of that lately and I don' know why not. Our parents left us with ample examples of both powers.

The 1960's and '70's were filled with activists movements led by young men and women everywhere on anything from civil rights to Vietnam to the right for women to make the same amount of money at a job as a man. They were passionate about their causes, their beliefs and they made sure everyone else knew about their displeasure. They stopped traffic, schooling, and businesses. They endured water hoses, dogs, tear gas, and sometimes-even death. And things were changed. They didn't just simply sit back and live the lives that their parents built for them. And neither do we have to.

While we aren't standing toe to toe with the KKK today (well I had a couple of years ago, but that's another editorial), there are still a lot of battles to be fought. AIDS is spreading globally in epidemic proportions. Women are still having a hard time getting paid the same as men. You have to take a loan out to gas up your car in an economy that makes it hard for college graduates to get a job. And there's certain military activity going on in a far away country that bears a distinct resemblance to a war led by the US some thirty to forty years ago. That's nothing to say of the myriad of issues before our elected officials, and you're telling me that there's no issue out there that's important enough for you to peel yourself away from the new season of Real World?

If you're looking for the next Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or Gloria Steinem to conduct the next big movement, you better look in the mirror. We twentysomethings have the same energy and passion that our parents had in the 60s and 70s. Research an issue that really pushes your buttons then act. Start a group. Write letters to your elected officials or to the editor of a newspaper. Set up peaceful protests. Vote. Vote. Vote. Please vote. We cannot rely on our parents to take care of our needs. They're busy taking care of their own and since we are different generations, they are not familiar with what it is that we need and want. Who better to represent your interests than you? And remember the words of a cartoon character from the early nineties: "The power is yours!"

It's August!!!!!

Oh. My. Goodness. Where did the year go? And on that note, where has time gone? I've got former high school classmates who are married and/or have children. I'm afraid that if I had a kid right now, that I would scar the child for life. Being a godmother is nerve wracking enough. My hat goes off to you parents, especially you single mothers and fathers out there.

This isn't the weekly column...that comes Wednesday so look out for that. This right here is just a shoutout to those who have stopped by and left me some love on the page, by email or in person. Bless you all because you all are my inspiration, the reason I write. And let your friends know about this coulmn. By the way, my mom named the column so y'all show some love for Mrs. Hanley. She believes in me and forced me to believe in myself, so if y'all need some of that, let me know. :)

Even though the coulmn only appears once a week, I'll be posting musings from time to time, so check back often. And...I sent my materials off to a book publisher this morning. *Keep your fingers crossed.*