I've Given Up Everything to Live Longer

Today I hung out with some ladies and was amazed by the different ways in which people live.  One woman will not go to public pools, eat at diners or go to public-type places.  She hasn't potty trained her son yet and was aghast when I suggested that he would eventually have to go to the bathroom in a public place.  I mean, what am I thinking?

Then there were the other women who are afraid of germs, potties, toys that aren't sterilized and a day without antibacterial hand sanitizer.  I don't even own any of these items?

So here I am sitting there wondering, what the heck am I doing wrong?  My mom claims to be a germ-a-phobe, my sister is afraid of getting food poisoning and here's me, sitting on toilet seats, playing at playgrounds and eating at restaurants without a care in the world...what gives?

I watched a documentary the other day where they interviewed Canadians.  These people were asked if they lock their doors and their answer was, "NO!"  What do they mean, like, never? At night? During the day? If they forget to turn the deadbolt? NO NO NO! They just don't lock their doors...ever.  I couldn't believe it.  How could an entire country just not lock their doors.  Don't they know all the bad things that could happen to them?  Aren't they afraid?  And the resounding answer, NO, they are not afraid.



HUH?  Is that it?  Is it that we American are just forced into the systematic fear that we are going to have bad stuff happen to us constantly?  Are we programmed to believe if the chicken salad doesn't get us the bacteria-infested potty at Target will surely take us down?  Can we no longer imagine eating a soft pretzel at the mall without first hand-sanitizing our entire self for fear we touched an elevator button?!

I do none of these things...EVER?  And we are never sick....like E-V-E-R!  My son Cody was the sickest kid in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Metro Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio.  His first three years of life were spent on oxygen, meds, sedated and filled with pneumonia and he never is sick?  He sits on toilets, eats out, never hand sanitizes and probably has the susceptibility to be very very sick...but he isn't..hmmm?

How could that be?  He ate dirt as a kid, he walks barefoot and I am quite sure goes to school without a hat...how in the world is this kid not dead?

Perhaps it is because all of this insanity about germs, bacterias, and hand-sanitizer is a bunch of malarkey! Perhaps we need to read a book or stand on our heads when the news is on instead of succumbing to the insanity of the fear mongers waning us to wear body condoms to leave the bloody house!

I have been reading the local paper recently and have been contemplating getting a hand gun for my purse.  Seriously!  Not kidding!  I am now afraid of being mugged when I put Emersyn in her car seat and I have my back turned in a parking lot.  But then I watched the documentary.  I watched how the news, the media and the world is paralyzing us into a submissive, fear coma...and that is it... I was entering the fear coma and was going to get a gun to protect myself from, hmmmm, I don't know who?

So the next time you use the words, "I'm afraid of_____" or "I don't_____" or "I'm scared to ______," ask yourself where the fear came from, and if it is serving you and your family.  Ask yourself if you GAVE UP that fear, if your life would improve?  Ask yourself if you have concocted this fear, if you have given this fear a life of it's own, and if you could eliminate the fear, if you or your family really would die?

All these fears, these phobias, all of this nonsense is strangling us to the point of not going to pools, not going to the restroom, not enjoying a warm summer breeze because God forbid we open the windows....Those screens don't keep out the bad guys ya know....

We revel in the idea of being germ-a-phobes.  We wear the label like a badge of intelligence.  We put our hand sanitizer on little clips on the outside of our purse like guns in the Wild West.  We bath ourselves with stories of day-long cleaning adventures and pride ourselves with "you can eat off my floor!" HUH?  Is it just me or is all that crazy?

Just stop it already! Our parents and grandparents ate day-old, warm chicken salad and didn't die.  I ate mud pies and didn't die and my kids don't use hand sanitizer and aren't living on a breathing tube in the hospital... JUST LIVE YOUR LIFE.  Turn off the news and get back to reality, because the crap that the media is feeding us has you more dead than any dirty potty ever will.

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