Amazingly enough, the list of things you are not allowed to do according to a select few in Chester County is growing.

(1) You may never ever criticize the landed gentry living on a cul-de-sac in Willistown because they are being mean to people who have a…wait for it…organic flower farm.

(2) You may never ever criticize grown ass idiots protesting in the rain in front of a mall on Route 100. It’s OK for them to express their opinion that their children are somehow suffocating wearing masks during Covid, but they would like to suffocate you for expressing your first amendment right to your opinions.

(3) It is perfectly acceptable for others to tear you down. What is not acceptable is for you to stand up for yourself

I had one woman who is (I guess) some kind of a women’s coach tell me this weekend I am essentially the most reviled woman in Chester County. But if I was speaking my piece wearing a tutu or tiara I would be just dandy? According to this woman I do the most complaining, as in, ever. Honey, you need to get out more.

I think women who supposedly spend their lives lifting other women up, yet find time to criticize me because I’m different from them very entertaining. When they say things like “women who are living a life of meaning and purpose” essentially have no time for me, what does that even mean? Then I am part of some female sub species because I speak my truth to power? Or my truth is somehow less important than their truth? Or maybe I just don’t do fake and that’s a bad thing?

Perhaps next I will be called a bad Catholic or not Christian. Now for the Catholic part, I will own it because I don’t like what I see as far as much of what poses as Catholic these days with a few exceptions. I guess I am seeing a lot of hypocrisy in religion, and a lot less of the truly good and godly people, the quiet doers. I tire of those whose version of lifting people up as a Christian is tearing other people down for being different.

However, if we’re going to talk faith, I have my faith. I know what I was raised, and I am at one with my God. I know who I am. But I will tell you that the God I know it’s not an angry, punishing entity, and that seems to be a trend. But rarely have I ever been trendy. Well except for French jeans in like 7th or 8th grade.

I have many friends who I find either to be deeply spiritual or what I would call true Christians. They aren’t flashy, they aren’t obvious, they don’t broadcast what they’re doing, they just do their good works.

I am also not a Stepford wife. It’s physically and ideologically impossible for me. And I’m not going to be apologizing for not being the identical twin to everyone else in my neighborhood or area. I am myself. And to be a woman as well as being who you are is not bad. Be true to yourself, don’t be a dumbed down version of yourself.

When you are growing up and you are not the mirror image of some, it had days that could be hard. Especially in like middle school and high school. I found it more difficult in the middle school to junior high school years because that age is just simply put, a mine field. Bullies reigned supreme and the popular lunch tables were a thing. But I found my groove and had my friends, most of whom I still have as friends today.

By the time high school rolled around, mean girls no longer took me by surprise in the least. They just did their thing, and I learned to do mine. And I am always amused to see them at reunions being just older versions of their younger selves.

But I didn’t forget the mean girls of youth because they teach you valuable lessons about yourself and others. The nice thing about age, comes the wisdom of being able to recognize mean girls as adults in their natural environment. And it’s always so funny to me how they still exist in adulthood. Only as an adult, it’s easy to put them is their box and forget them. Until some days they are just there again. But the mean girls of adulthood also teach you valuable lessons about yourself. They reinforce it’s ok to be an individual.

As an adult, you discover mean girls of all ages have the same tools. Gossip, bullying, whisper down the lane, and social media.

Now let’s talk social media for a moment. Do you think when all people post is how fabulous their life is, that their life is actually so fabulous 24/7/365? I’m not talking about a little post about their garden or something cute one of their kids did, I am talking about the full blown narcissistic social media posts. Look at me, I’m Sandra Dee. Hi there, yes we see you, can you really push a stroller in those heels?

I can’t help but wonder if because of how sociologically fascinating social media is if it will become a mainstream sociology course in the future? I did a little googling and I actually did find some schools with courses that kind of met this idea. I actually do find it fascinating. It’s like land of the sheeple, the next town over from Stepford.

But the thing is I am free to be me and you are free to be you. But I don’t have to agree with you. I don’t have to like what you stand for. If I think something is wrong locally or societally or politically and I want to talk about it, that’s my right. If I think something is wrong in my world personally and I want to talk about it, I’m not driving over a cliff, writing is my catharsis.

I don’t pretend to be a perfect human being. I can’t. We are all flawed. To be flawed is to be human. But I am not going to just take what someone preaches as their Gospel as my Gospel.

In the continual evolution of this country in which we live I find it amusing that sometimes now people are being persecuted for what our founding fathers fought for them to have as far as rights. And that’s the thing: you’re only OK in the books of these other people if you agree with them 100%.

Anyway that’s it. Just felt like Alice down the rabbit hole in the land of never evers. And I finally understand why sometimes you want to say “oh bitch, pullleazzzze.”

Cheerio!