Just Because

I have a pretty swell life. I am college educated. I have a house, an SUV and an iPhone. I am married to the love of my life, and we have a goofy, tender-hearted, rock & roll loving kid who makes me warmer than a southern summer day. I go to Crossfit classes and have leisurely lunches with my friends. I tote my MacBook to funky coffee shops and write stories. I have money in the bank and never worry about paying my mortgage, let alone making sure that my daughter has dinner. I go on vacations and take smiling pictures that I post on social media.

That is my experience – today.

If I chose to only share my present experience, most of you wouldn’t know that I was born some straight up white trash. My parents were high school dropouts and raging drug addicts. We were on welfare and often without electricity or water. If I had never started writing, the vast majority of you wouldn’t know that my parents went to prison and that I’ve lived in houses where rats the size of poodles also resided.

And, from my beaming pictures with jaunty captions you wouldn’t know that there have been times in my life when I have been so filled with black rage that I feared that it would consume me like a fast moving fire. During those times, when it all felt unfair, I lashed out at loved ones and strangers alike.

But, just because you wouldn’t know it, doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen and that it didn’t shape who I am, good and bad, to this day.

I try to remind myself that just because something hasn’t happened to me, it doesn’t mean that it hasn’t happened.

— Just because she wore a short skirt, it doesn’t mean that she asked for it.

— Just because your little boy has never wanted to wear a princess dress, it doesn’t mean that your neighbor’s little boy doesn’t desperately want to wear his beautiful Elsa dress to school.

— Just because you’ve never made less money for the same job, it doesn’t mean that your sister hasn’t.

— Just because you were able to pull yourself up by the bootstraps, it doesn’t mean that others aren’t shoe less.

— Just because you’ve had access to birth control or enough money for an abortion, it doesn’t mean that the 17 year-old pregnant cashier did.

— Just because the system is broken, it doesn’t mean the system isn’t necessary.

— Just because it happened in the past, it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen.

— Just because you’ve never been thrown through a plate glass window, it doesn’t mean that that I didn’t watch it happen to my mother.

— Just because you’ve never worked endlessly at a cheap shoe store to provide for the three grandchildren you adopted and still had to rely on food stamps, it doesn’t mean that my grandmother didn’t.

— Just because you frame it as an alternative fact, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a lie.

— Just because you believe that a peaceful protest is disrespectful, it doesn’t mean that the systematic abuse and brutality of African Americans isn’t a whole lot worse.

— Just because the bullets have attempted to silence our songs and halt our dancing and snuff out our prayers and destroy our innocence, it doesn’t mean that we stop shall stop singing or dancing or praying or laughing.

— Just because you think protestors who destroy a window should be shot dead, it doesn’t mean that this country wasn’t started by people dumping someone else’s property into the ocean.

— Just because you’ve never been disowned for loving the person that you do, it doesn’t mean that many in the LGBTQ community won’t dance with their parents at their wedding .

— Just because your mom never threatened to pawn your little brother’s bike if you didn’t send her money for the electricity bill (although you knew it was really to buy dilaudid), it doesn’t mean that mine didn’t.

— Just because you have the right to vote, doesn’t mean that your great-grandmothers weren’t beaten and jailed to give you that beautiful privilege.

— Just because you believe that addiction is a moral flaw, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a disease.

— Just because you’ve never been harrassed for barbequing in a park or swimming in your neighborhood pool or waiting for AAA in your apartment complex parking lot, it doesn’t mean that some aren’t hated for having the audacity to live their lives.

— Just because you support alternative energy and a healthier planet, it doesn’t mean you can’t have immense pride in the men who crawled into a dark hole and carried out the black rocks that moved this country forward.

— Just because your fridge and pantry are stocked with healthy snacks, it doesn’t mean that despite working two jobs some parents aren’t trying to make dinner with eggs and peanut butter.

— Just because you don’t see your privilege, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need to be checked.

— Just because I accept that he is the 45th President of the United States, it doesn’t mean that I have to support his narcissistic, racist, misogynistic, anti-semitic, homophobic views and lies.

— Just because you’ve never been so ashamed and embarrassed for simply existing, it doesn’t mean that this free-lunch kid with a funny name hasn’t.

— Just because you feel like your voice is heard, it doesn’t mean that a lot of people don’t feel as if they’ve been put on mute.

And, just because we disagree, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have a responsibility to be kind to one another.

Soshally Awkward

Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.