I Need a Vacation

I need a vacation.

Not just a physical one, but a spiritual one.

I’m tired of feeling guilty.

There is a $400 million bond issue for school construction in next month’s election. If I don’t vote for it, I’m depriving the children of the quality classrooms they need. On the other hand, $450 million has already been approved and $100 million remains to be issued. Actual costs far exceed the original estimates for repair and replacement and no one seems to be accountable.

How can I deny assistance to a single mother and her children? Why am I wrong to insist that the mother take some personal responsibility for her situation and work to alleviate it? Why shouldn’t people who pay no taxes receive a $1000/child rebate? Why should those who contribute no money and who are already getting a helping hand from the government get more? Why should my family not keep more of the money Hubs and I have worked so hard for?

How can you keep someone out of the United States who is only trying to make a better life for themselves and their family? How can we support law-breaking? How can we deport a family where the parents are here illegally but the children were born here and are, therefore, U.S. citizens?

How can I deny the humanity of gays by not allowing them to marry their soul-mate, their life-partner? It’s not like straights have done a good job with marriage, with a 50% divorce rate.

How can I support a war that has cost the lives of over two thousand American soldiers and uncounted thousands of Iraqi civilians? How can I support a President who is such an obvious moron/deceiver/puppet of The Cabal? How can I see pictures of people lined up in the streets to vote (twice), hear the stories of those who lost husbands/fathers/sons/daughters to Saddam and his sons and not feel that this struggle is worthwhile?

How can I be respectful of the Islamic religion when so many of its own adherents are not respectful of mine? Or even respectful of their own traditions?

I know there are girls out there whose parents would kill them or turn them out if they found out their daughter was pregnant. Yet, why should the 80% of us (using the good old 80:20 rule) who care deeply and passionately for our daughters’ well-being surrender our rights as parents because of that 20%? And is it 20%? How many girls who request an abortion really need to be protected from their “evil” parents?

I’m tired of being considered an “evil parent” by the schools, especially the public school, until there’s a fundraiser or a “clean-up” day.

I want to go somewhere warm and sunny, lie on a beach and eat mangoes and papayas and have drinks with little umbrellas in them. I don’t want to worry about whether we should transfer our two youngest children to an out-of-district school so they can be better prepared for college or if we should stick it out and fight for better curriculum at the school just down the street (which is so much more convenient, geographically, for our family).

It’s only Wednesday. By Friday, my outlook should be improved.