I’m not staying where I’m not welcome, by Abby Shepherd
Sorry, but not sorry for any “entitlement” you think others owe you. And sorry – not sorry for not showing much sympathy as you people have given me compassion fatigue for all of the littlest details of life that are normally called “adulting”
Sidenote: seriously, it’s a word and it is seriously BAD that it came into existence and even worse, these children in adult bodies believe that “adulting” is something new – and terrifying.
Have a nice flight because if you are unable to deal with the “small” things in life, glad to see you’ll be someone else’s whiny problem. It seems that the richer that America becomes, the more the tiniest of things become magnified. Wait until they learn the lesson of “the grass is NOT greener on the other side of the fence” and that they have to actually deal with thing (oh, the horror!) that most of us much older (more experienced and certainly much wiser) go – ok, I’ll just FIX this and get on with the rest of my life.
First, the recounting of her life, and her extended family’s, as if that’s all the bona fides she needs to be entitled to “deserve” a happy life (emphasis mine, reformatted):
A little over 22 years ago, I was born, seven weeks premature, at Cheshire Medical Center. I spent the next month or so growing stronger in the Dartmouth-Hitchcock NICU in Lebanon. When I finally came home to my parents’ condo in Swanzey, my mom said all of the trees around Central Square bloomed for the occasion. I was home. I went to Mount Caesar, then Wheelock Elementary School, Keene Middle School and Keene High. Saturday, I became the fifth person in my family to graduate from Keene State College.
My grandfather Bob Silk was a police officer in the Monadnock Region and later managed the Cheshire Fairgrounds until his retirement. My mother, Mandi, was Miss Cheshire County 1985 and the senior class president of Keene High’s Class of ’86. Both of my paternal grandparents, Sara and Clyde, were Keene State professors and even my dad, Scott, won a few basketball accolades at Westmoreland Elementary … a feat he is still quite proud of. And until she passed last month at the age of 105, my great-grandmother Elsie was Keene’s oldest resident. I couldn’t be any more “from here” if I tried.
OK, she’s a native. Congrats. I’m not – been in NH a bit over 3 decades, though, but not native born. I dryly note, however, that she didn’t have a choice of her beginning here in NH – I consciously moved here. And then the lament – as if it is the fault of EVERYONE else:
And in a couple months, I’m leaving the state. I’ll probably never move back.
She made quite the to-do about “being here” and now she’s about to “not be here”. Like I intimated, buh-bye! Nobody is making you stay here. If your family history can’t, there’s little that I would want to say (especially since I’ve already read the rest of your woebegone tail).
Recent legislative sessions, especially the approval last year of House Bill 1264 and last week’s vetoing of Senate Bill 1, is the tip of the iceberg. Between Gov. Sununu’s anti-college student and anti-young family policies, Internet trolls dedicated to calling my fellow KSC students and I every name in the book (including “Abby Shep-turd” — really?), and not being able to get through a shift at my job in a local business on Main Street without being blamed for “the riots,” it’s clear that I’m not welcome anymore.
I’m devastated.
Stick-to-itiveness? Carry on despite the odds? Left foot then right foot and repeat over and over? Never give up in the face of “adversity”? Dogged determination? Just do your job?
Er, nope. I have no idea why she’s all whiny and teary about HB 1264 – residency, domicile – the bill that would protect her vote against those transients (like her classmates) who should be voting in their legal residence and not in Keene. She was all about that “I couldn’t be any more “from here” if I tried” bit so she should be glad that the State is trying to protect HER legal rights against predatory voters. But no, she can’t see the forest for the trees. It isn’t fair that those in college that should be forced in doing that “adulting” hard work to vote in their home towns can’t take the easy way and “vote from the dorm”. After all, they’d have to learn to put a stamp on an envelope and put it in a….wait for it….mailbox!
Er, nope. Poor little dear – she just can’t understand why others just don’t want to be taxed any higher so that she could have access to another “free” entitlement (paid family medical leave). Free – free to vote where ever I want, free to be taken care of (as this adulting thing is way too hard – how did ANYONE get through life without Government being Big Daddy like in Obama’s Life of Julia campaign tale? It’s TOO HARD to provide for oneself these days – it’s not FAIR! Do this, do that, have these other things on my plate, other people interrupting – and the BILLS? What does life have to BE this way???
Er, nope. People calling you names? Calling your friends names? Can’t get past a junior high school taunt? I went YEARS being “four-eyes” after going to school for the first time with glasses on. Third grade – elementary class in the back of the auditorium. Decades ago – listen deary, you learn to ignore them – it’s part of growing up. Or it used to. But then again, an entire generation raised on self-esteem rah-rahs, trophies for just being “Present!”, safe spaces in college, and not understanding that other people not only don’t care about your emotions but aren’t responsible for them in the first place?
Sob on, sister. We just don’t care because you’re not the center of our lives. Our wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors – yes (and in that order). Someone we don’t know and who hasn’t decided to learn that life isn’t fair and that “stuff happens”? Yeah, well, life is what happens in between all your planning, like this:
I always pictured raising my kids here, getting married at St. Bernard’s Church, where I was christened and received my First Communion.
And the piece that ties it all together – no silver platter in her future:
Unfortunately, there’s nothing left for me in the Granite State except minimum-wage jobs, out-of-touch government and outdated attitudes.
In this, one of the best economies in decades, if you can’t earn more than minimum wage, the fault isn’t others and it isn’t the fault of Government (which, it seems, you believe should be setting a “living wage” just for you), the fault IS on you. You didn’t say what you studied while at Keene State but if you chose Womens’ Studies, Underwater Basket Weaving, or some other totally useless major, that fault is on you. Now, if you studied petroleum chemistry and engineering (at Keene? Please – just an example), I could understand having to move – but not a min wage position either.
Out-of-Touch Government – really, just because it doesn’t cater to your needs, your beliefs, your expectations, just plain….you? How narcissistic. No, Abby, not everybody believes that our government is out of touch. Remember, lots of people vote for their representatives and just because you ain’t getting the deals you want, it may mean that others are. Like a government that stays in its lane, doesn’t over tax, does the few things it should and does them well (instead of the Progressive idea of doing everything for you as long as you give it all your income). There are a lot of us who want that limited government and one that stays out of our way and out of our lives.
And that’s not an outdated attitude. Mostly because a lot of us have a LOT more experience than you, have learned a lot more than you, and have endured far more bad things than the items you list and for which you want a pity party. Our ideas and our attitudes were forged by both good and bad experiences (and learning the hard way more from the latter than from the former). It is YOUR attitude that has already stultified in that Progressive hothouse you believe was a form of kindergarten, pixie dust, and unicorn thinking than the House of Horrors many have seen play out in our lifetimes. Hey, if you’re gonna go, go try out Venezuela – they went about as Progressive as a country could go. Go there, live there about a year, and report back, eh?
State Sen. Kahn, whom I respect greatly, wants to prevent the “brain drain” of smart, hard-working young adults. He’s right: New Hampshire’s rate of high school graduates attending college out of state is more than twice the national average.
That’s nice. That’s also the wish of those at my end of the political spectrum. However, Kahn want’s an activist government (which generally causes more problems than not) while we want, as I said, one that pulls back and let’s us determine and seek out our own sense of Happiness. Instead of telling us what it is supposed to be.
Ever think that perhaps it is the Govt that’s in your way? Going to Keene State, growing up in one of the most Progressive areas of the State? Probably not. You probably didn’t learn that Conservatives, on average, are happier than Progressives (hint, hint).
But I’m not going to stay where I’m not welcome. This lifelong, fourth-generation Blackbird, Owl and proud progressive has better places to be.
Ah, so when your family history isn’t helping, your educational upbringing seems to have failed you, your professional life is in the dumper, and Government won’t cater to you – that’s making you feel unwelcome?
You’ve many a lesson to learn so let me clue you in on a first couple, ok?
- None of those things say “you are unwelcome” – you’re just being a over-hyped brat who is made she hasn’t gotten her way or the future she dreamed about to believe that
- Life owes you nothing – not a welcome and not a goodbye, either
- You can make your own life – but that’s up to YOU and not anyone else around you. Feeling unwelcome is an emotion – get control of those emotions FIRST. Stop emoting and start THINKING.
After all, that last item is the first lesson of “adulting” – one, it seems, you have yet to learn.
ABBY SHEPHERD
120 Emerald St., No. 202A
Keene
And I suppose you’ll classify me as a hater even those I just probably gave you better advice (with a bit snark to get your attention) than anyone else thus far (according to your letter – which blamed everything on everyone else with no responsibility of your own – yet another lesson to be learned).
(H/T: Keene Sentinel)
