Good morning. At the tone, the time will be 6:13 am Central time and I’m fired up.

I was chastised in the past 24 hours for “making it political.”

Really though, I wasn’t being chastised because I made it political (something that I do with a higher frequency now than I did, say 6 years ago), but I was being bitched at because I was audacious enough to say something I believed in and that thought was not congruent with the other persons belief structure.

That’s ok.

We are not going to always agree on the things (BH, I’m looking at you brother.) I believe though that we should be able to have conversations without shutting someone down.

If I wanted to be shut down for speaking my mind, I would go back and live with my parents. I have a different belief structure than them about well, just about everything except homemade bread, fresh tomatoes, and Michigan sports.

I am tired of casual racism. I’m tired of overt racism. I can’t understand how some people still view people of color differently. I honestly can not wrap my head around this. I don’t understand how the rules are applied so differently. I don’t understand how one life is valued differently than others, and please, don’t tell me it isn’t. If Tim Tebow would have taken a knee during the National Anthem to protest the restriction of a Christian belief, you can NOT tell me that the national narrative would be different.

I’m tired of people trying to infuse their personal religious construct and beliefs with the government and law. Let us harken back to the days of Jefferson and remember : “I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’, thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.” 1802, Thomas Jefferson in a letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.

I’m really tired of men trying to legislate a woman’s body. VERY TIRED. For the record, and if you were confused, not all women use birth control as an abortion (??) I can not believe that in 2018, there is still debate about this. If we were to be candid, and I am always candid, I will say this: despite my utter misery of never having children, every 90 days, I go get a birth control shot. Not because I am avoiding having children (I can’t), but instead I’d like to regulate my cycle enough so I don’t bleed 28 out of 30 days. But you know, “now I’m talking about something private.”

I’m tired of the fact that we are not having louder conversations about the hundreds of children down in the valley separated from their children.

I’m confused as to why there is more angst about Nike supporting an athlete for taking a stand then there is about the babies in holding cells at the border. What we as a nation choose to care about confuses me.

There are people in positions of power that still try to legislate what comes out of our bodies, but we are ok with kids held in detention centers.

I’m tired.

I’m tired of being told that I’m narrow-minded because I’m not a super fan of this administration. I don’t see the financial benefits that many are seeing. I’m not ok with this trend of evangelical legislation that suits a percentage, but not the whole of the nation. I can’t believe more aren’t pissed that coal is still an active conversation. Have they found a cure for Black Lung? Are all of the risks associated with mining gone?

I’m really tired of people not speaking up. We are coming into a critical election cycle. Register, vote, have your voice counted. You can be a conservative and still speak out against something. It’s ok. You can be a liberal and speak out. Just, for the love of G-d, say something. It’s ok to make it political. We have a voice too.