I've been struggling with what to write on here lately. You know, something like a close friend dying really changes your life. I've been so blessed to not have to deal with death much at all. I've had two grandparents die, years ago. But they were old and ailing and it seemed natural. Sad yes, but natural. Having a young, healthy 32 year old friend die doing something your husband does/has done is unnerving. It's scary and it's dramatic, and sad and unbelievable.
I can't imagine how magnified all those emotions are for my dear friend Meg (his wife). I try to understand best I can, but how can you?
While surfing Facebook this morning, I was reminded about how much I don't care about things I used to be so passionate about. Not because of the sudden death of a friend, just in general. Because I'm not in that 'stage' anymore. You know what I mean?
For instance, when I had young nurslings I was extremely passionate about promoting breastfeeding. I wrote blogs about it, posted on FB about it, talked about it at length to anyone who would listen, (ad naseum I'm sure). But being over a year past that stage just gives me almost complete apathy about the whole situation. Like, meh, I still think it's a good idea to breastfeed. And I think there's a lot of misinformation that gets spread or passed down generation to generation. But really, I could care less about what you do with your baby. Now, if you're posting about how you 'can't stand to breastfeed' then also post about all your baby's tummy troubles and switching formulas every 3 days all over FB, it stirs up old emotions about my arguments I would have made 2 years ago. But, mostly I know that if you're that person, you're not going to listen to what I have to say anyway. So, oh well. What do I care?
Another one I used to be really 'nazi-like' with, was car seats. I even took a class on how to install car seats. I had them checked and knew all the rules when Carter was a a baby. But, really after living in Korea, my zealousness just...faded. Maybe it was the loads of kids that hop around in the backseat not strapped in at all over there, maybe it's just, meh. I don't really care what you do with your kid. I still install our car seats properly. And I like to think I'm at least mostly as zealous to buckle my own kids in safely. But, I just really don't care if everyone does. You know? I used to send out e-mails with statistics about how many people installed car seats wrong. I think it was something astounding like 80%. I used to mention to people I didn't even know about car seat safety, yes, like a crazy whack-doodle.
What I'm trying to say here is, I still care if my children are breastfed or buckled in properly. And yes, I do care about others' children. I'm not a total heartless jerk. It's just that I don't feel passionate about educating the general populace anymore like I used to. I used to feel like I wasn't doing my part as a citizen if I didn't post about it on FB, or talk to strangers about my stance.
But I think that I am SO OVER everyone having some extreme opinion about EVERYTHING. Like, you can't possibly love your self/children unless you have an EXTREME opinion on something and DEMAND that others see your point of view. If they don't see your way, you must have clearly not educated them enough.
We all know someone, or everyone who is super passionate about being vegan, or all organic or obsessed with working out to extremes. We all know the lactivist, or the intactivist. And I know everyone has good intentions. They feel great or guilty about their own decisions, and they just want everyone to have the same feeling (or in cases of guilt - to be able to bypass that feeling by making the right decision). To have the same benefit. But it just gets SO OLD reading about everyone's platform.
And this isn't to say I'm just laissez faire about everything when it comes to my life, or children. I still have my views and I still believe in what I believe in. But I just DON'T CARE what everyone else does. I don't feel it's my civic duty to persuade everyone, or to educate everyone. I think there's enough people to fill that role these days, which is good. Because I'm tired.
