View from the Couch

So far, 2011 has sucked.  I mean really sucked.  I can see the end in sight and I'm encouraged by little indications that things are getting better.  I'm not going to let this get to me either.  Going boldly forward in faith and hope. January is typically a tough month for me anyway.  I'm the budget coordinator for my division at work and our fiscal years run from July to June.  So January means I have to check where we are for the current year and start projecting for the coming year.  It take a couple of weeks and lots of spreadsheets for me to catch up with everyone, find out what's changed and what's coming down the pike.   The result of my work means that our CTO can make some informed decisions about spending for the current year and make solid predictions of where we need to invest.  This year, to complicate matters, I came down with a terrible cold.  I'm still coughing a full 4 weeks later.  It's one of those awful ...

For the past several days, since the tragic shooting in Arizona, that childhood taunt has been running through my mind.  "Sticks and stone may break my bones but names will never hurt me."  Even as I child I knew that wasn't true.  Names do hurt.  Words do have power to harm.  Ask anyone who has heard over and over from a parent, "You'll never amount to anything." "You're just like your (mother, father, sister, brother, uncle, aunt, etc.)" In my home, calling someone stupid or retard was a sin.  My mother had a sister with Down's Syndrome and I had a cousin who was mentally retarded from birth.  Those words were never allowed, not even in anger.   I once called someone a 'fruit'; I didn't even know what it meant, I had heard it on the playground at school.  The word flew out of my mouth and I was immediately summoned by my mother, "Katherine Cecelia, what did you say?"  She tried to explain to my 11 year old mind why...