“Don’t be a Dick” – Ghandi
“Send Nudes, Not Hate” – Thomas Jefferson
“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope” – Sun Tzu

And my favorite…
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet” – Abe Lincoln

Recently I came across what seems like a real quote on the internet and I’m running with it.
“The ugliest thing I have ever seen, is a human being without compassion” – H. Milne

Henri Milne was a French Zoologist in the 1800s. He wrote papers for the French Academy of Sciences and in his career named 5 new species of lizards. If he did actually say this then I think he hit the nail on the head. If it was someone else who said it and you know who it was then let me know, otherwise the credit is going to Henri. #VIVALAHENRI

Translated into 2019-speak…without compassion, you’re fucked.

My family has a Thanksgiving tradition that has helped my girls grow to be compassionate young women. When they were very little, I talked about what compassion means, how to be compassionate and how to show compassion. Mind you this was sprinkled into their daily diet of Dora the Explorer, Handy Manny, chasing the dog around the house and pulling all the labels off of our canned food. So needless to say, I wasn’t really expecting a speech about morality and empathy to keep their attention. To be fair, even to an adult it’s a really tough concept to explain. So I switched gears and instead of talking about compassion, I decided to show them what compassion looks like in our daily lives.

My husband and I wanted to find specific things we could do together as a family that would be fun and engaging for our young children. If I’m being truly honest, when my kids were little if I could find an activity for the family that didn’t require us all leaving the house, that was a win in my book. So one chilly November many years ago we started to “adopt” a turkey for Thanksgiving. Living in a suburban area I obviously wasn’t going to find one and take one home, although there is something mesmerizing about a creature that looks like its scrotum is hanging off its face.

For many years now, we all gather around the computer and show a little compassion that any 19^th century Zoologist would be proud of.  We each pick our own turkey (right online) and someone else cares for our “new member of the family” who is enjoying their life on the farm and not on someone’s dinner table.

After lots of research, I found Farm Sanctuary which operates a 275 acre sanctuary in Watkins Glen, New York and a 26 acre sanctuary in Los Angeles, California. They rescue, rehabilitate and provide care for hundreds of animals who were rescued from stockyards, factory farms and slaughterhouses. Each year, we go to their website and pick our turkey from the pictures and bios they provide. This year my daughter with a soft spot for “Frozen” is adopting Elsa and my musical daughter chose Hank Williams. My hubby wanted to adopt Pamela “The Lover” because he said she was the hot one. After I reminded him that jokes like that won’t be doing him any favors in the bedroom he reconsidered and agreed to adopt the whole flock.

Compassion isn’t always about writing a check or the subject of a silly meme…it’s a state of mind. Compassion is a verb. Kindness, caring and a willingness to help others should be something we all should be teaching and learning every day.

I’m going to leave you with 3 final quotes that I think sums it all up.

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – Dalai Lama

“Compassion is the chief law of human existence.” – Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Living Clean and Dirty is my favorite website and newsletter.  You’d be an idiot not to subscribe” – Helen Keller

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I’ve had some doozies.

• Eat more kale.
• Eat fewer desserts.
• Perfect my Daffy Duck impersonation.
• Declare myself a pirate on my tax return.
• Slay my enemies.
• You know…the usual.

When I hit my mid-thirties (for about the tenth time), I gave up on New Year’s resolutions and started declaring each year my “Year Of…”

My first was the Year of Fear.

Instead of making promises I knew I’d break, I decided to spend an entire year saying yes to things that scared me. Nothing crazy. I wasn’t wrestling alligators or jumping out of airplanes. I started with things like parallel parking and buying a pair of long, dangling earrings because I’d always convinced myself they weren’t “me.”

Eventually I worked my way up to public speaking at my daughter’s elementary school graduation, jumping off a cliff into a swimming hole, trying a trapeze and riding a trail bike down the side of a mountain.

That last one wasn’t my finest decision. I broke my shoulder in two places.

Live and learn.

The next year became my Year of Me.

Not in a selfish way.

In a healthy way.

I started saying no to PTA committees I didn’t actually want to join. I stopped feeling obligated to attend every family event simply because I was expected to. I started reading books again, knitting some truly ugly scarves and slowly removing toxic people from my life.

Don’t get me wrong. I still emptied the dishwasher, went to doctor’s appointments and handled all the things adulthood requires.

I just stopped putting myself at the bottom of every list.

So here we are, hip deep into 2018, my third year of YO. I’ve learned to embrace my fears and put myself as a priority so when you mesh the two together you obviously get the Year of No Fucks Given. Let me explain…I’m tired, obviously as a mom I’m sleep-deprived but I’m talking about being TIRED. I’m TIRED of always doing the right thing, TIRED of being the bigger person and I’m sure as shit positively EXHAUSTED by not sticking up for myself at the risk of someone else’s feelings.

So here’s a little slice of my 2018…there’s a guy I know and he’s super creepy. And by creepy I mean if I was to hear that 20 dead hookers were found in this guy’s basement my first thought would be “hmmm…thought the number would have been higher”. He’s also got a little Family Feud era Richard Dawson in him and likes to kiss hello every female in his path. It doesn’t matter who it is…85 year old grandma, the cashier at the bagel store, young hot mom in Kohls and especially a hot ticket like me. To make matters worse, when he goes in for the kill he turns his head trying to plant one on the mouth (ugh, it’s just as horrifying as it sounds).

So for years I’ve been enduring the sleazy cheek-kiss, I got wise to the head turn early on and compensated for it. I would change my route so I didn’t run into him, some women have feigned a cold and other women have pretended to be on the phone when they saw him…but no one ever stopped him, no one ever told him no. Now, you can pass judgement and say “Oh I’d never”, well if I was sitting at my computer braless in a pair of 4 day old pajamas I’d say the same thing. The first few times you’re caught off guard and then it just becomes too awkward of a situation so you just put up with it. As women, I think a lot of us were raised to take the figurative “hit” before we made another person uncomfortable.

• “You can’t say that, you’ll hurt his feelings”,
• “Oh there’s no sense in making a scene, he doesn’t mean anything by it”
• “I know he’s a little creepy, but he’s your uncle so just go give him a hug.”

I’m here 24/7 busting my ass trying to raise 2 warrior daughters and I don’t feel comfortable telling some low-budget lothario to keep his mouth off of me? There’s only one mouth I want anywhere near me and it sure as shit wasn’t this guy’s. So in my Year of No Fucks Given I decided that awkward or not, this shit had to end. The next time I saw him, he leaned in for the attack and I put my hand up in front of my face and said, “Please stop, the kissing makes me uncomfortable. Just say hello”. He looked shocked but then accepted his fate. This public kissing booth was officially closed.

And that was it.

Years of women changing direction when they saw him. Years of awkwardness. Years of silently tolerating something none of us liked. It ended with one sentence.

Maybe that’s what my Year of No Fucks Given is really about. It’s not about being rude, selfish or impossible to get along with. It’s about finally understanding that protecting your own boundaries isn’t something you should ever apologize for.

Late last year I declared that 2018 was going to be the year I really poured myself into Living Clean and Dirty. Like a lot of resolutions, life had other plans. But there’s still plenty of 2018 left, plenty of stories to tell and plenty of opportunities to keep becoming a better version of myself. I’m still here, still fighting the good fight and still trying to figure it all out right alongside you.

And for any haters out there who would like to break my balls about not posting enough new material this year, please write me at my new imaginary email address None@Fucksgiven.com

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