An Apology

Today, I read something on a blog that really upset me. Who am I kidding, it made me furious. I responded with the same hateful and ignorant attitude as the blogger herself. I shared my rage: with people who didn't get it, with people who did, with my kids, with my cats, with my husband. I brought it out of the internet and into my home, head and heart. I let it ruin my evening and cast a pall on the family. I apologize for that. I apologize to my family, for taking my anger with a stranger out on them. I apologize to my home, for bring such negativity into it. And I apologize to myself: for the time and energy wasted, for sinking to that judgmental level that I dislike so much in other people, for exposing myself to something that I knew would upset me in the first place.

The internet is a strange land. For some people, the more they are exposed to, the more narrow minded their view becomes. I fell into that today. I still think the blogger was distasteful and wrong, but I didn't need to become that way myself. There will always be choices, attitudes and belief that I disagree with, that, in some cases, I abhor. My job is to keep myself and my family away from those people. I can't change them, they can't change me (as much as they'd like to). Holding on to anger about it won't hurt them any more than it will help me. So I'm letting it go, and praying that someday, the other people accept that they can't and shouldn't control my choices any more than I can control theirs.