Accept me as I am.

Inspired by Blogadda to enter this competition “What Women Want”

source: Google

There may be some women out there who are the angry lot, some aggressive, some wicked and some may even have some serious weapons to attack their man but they are not me. I am the woman in love; I will do anything to bring you into my world. But you should also care and love me back and accept me simply the way I am

I, as a woman want acceptance of being what I am, give me freedom to think. The only place where you trust me is in your kitchen, isn't it? You never enter my kitchen. You will eat whatever I cook because you are too lazy to cook for yourself. Yes I know, I am partly to be blamed for your laziness, I am crazy in love with you, I cater to your every demand, but sometimes you are impossible, especially on the days when the food does not live up to your standards. Please understand that I too have my moods, give me a break sometimes, and take me out to a restaurant on my bad days.

Allow me the liberty to handle the bank accounts too. I know to write the numbers in words from one to ten thousands of millions in text and yes all the spellings are perfectly right too, did you know that there is no alphabet ‘C’ in any of those numbers? And that letter ‘A’ appears first time in one thousand? Did you notice that alphabet ‘D’ appears first time in one hundred? And letter ‘B’ is not present in any numbers till you reach the billion? Well, I know it. I am clever, you must trust me. I have spend many hours in practicing my signature, but you never allow me to sign any check on my own. You are always lurking, breathing down my neck. You make me nervous, don't you see it? Whenever I make a payment more than a thousand, you go red, green and then deep blue. I know the value of money much better than you do, I can even handle the managerial job if you allowed me to, but you wont, not even when you know that I have spend many years studying and have a thick folders of degrees and awards.

I want some independence in deciding where I wish to go. Don’t ask me the hourly reports of my day, stop calling me four times a day and enquiring about my wherabouts and then repeating the same questions again at the end of the day to check whether my answers match. During the day I have lots of errands to do, I go to the market, temple, dentist, our child’s school, go to pay bills, visit the sick relative, chat with a friend on phone, kitty party, go for a evening walks, sometimes gym and many more things to do, and there are days when I prefer to sleep all day. It’s the luxury I enjoy after some sleepless nights when I keep awake because you were stressed. I don’t wish to give you my hourly itinerary. I am always at home before you reach home so tell me why are you so inquisitive? Don’t you trust me at all? Take that chain of your suspicious mind off my navel, I wish to be free.

I want you to pay attention to me, to hear me talk while I speak, to observe my shaped eyebrows, my new hair cut, my new dress, my funky shoes. I am disappointed when you are stuck-up like a couch potato while I am struggling with babies’ nappies, Help me sometimes with household chores and when relaxed, let me watch football match with you. Don't call your friends home and make a mess, my back aches lifting up those used cans and cigarette butts.

I want you to walk with me, matching your step with mine, on equal footing, when you go right I too will turn right but on your left why am I left behind?

I, like every other woman, wants to be accepted for what I am. Be closer to me but let me breathe, stand far away from me but not too far that even when I stretch you cannot be reached.

Love is the message and Pass this around……

Muse over FB message 'Acceptance'

With twitter and facebook becoming a strong board for exchanging ideas and thoughts in this social media network, not all status messages are funny and light hearted, some are thought provoking too and force us to re-think on issues which could be just a passing phrase. One such message, that I copied on my page and then was pleased to see it on my friends’ page too was:

"My wish for 2010 is that people will understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease; children with disabilities are not looking for a cure but ACCEPTANCE........93% of people won't copy and paste this, WILL YOU be one of the 7% that does and make this your status for at least a hour?”

I saw this message on many of my friends’ pages and someone even argued saying that “Just by copying and pasting are people going to change the attitude? No offence to your friends who have already copied and pasted it, they may have done it because they are among those few people who understand that children with disabilities do not have a disease......”

My reply to that comment was: “yes! Attitudes do change with the wind. .specially by those who believe in the message and pass it on....and unfurl those soft pebbles off the hard rock...

But the page that really caught my attention was when someone commented:

“Wait a minute... I'm pretty sure that people with disabilities ARE looking for a cure... No one willingly accepts that they are disabled when there is a readily available cure out there that can make them "not disabled."

He found it difficult to accept the fact that handicap people can be accepted in this society as productive member of the society if they are allowed to perform the task to their best of their ability.

He argued that “You can’t accept someone who is disabled as a productive member of society when you still have to watch over them and make sure that they don’t fall and/or jump in whatever they need assistance. If that’s the case then there is no full acceptance, only fake acceptance that will make these disabled people feel a false sense of security of their place in society. And to be honest, if I was disabled and wanted people to treat me with respect, the same respect they treat everyone person, and you were patronizing me in this way and treating me as if I was less of a person then I would hate it. Your saying that disabled people want to be treated like everyone else.. well you can’t treat them only half way, because they still aren’t equal, and never will be. It’s all or none. I’m afraid.”

Actually I would hate it too....but that is where my point was, I meant to say that either the people are patronizing the disabled too much or ignoring them completely and both ways it hurts the differently-abled person.

Society just cannot see the talent beyond the handicap at a first glance, a differently-abled person has to prove their capability from time to time, they have to prove that they are capable of performing as perfectly as any normal person , and there is no need to sweat over them if they are able to deliver....independently....every disabled person can also be the productive member of the society, if he is allowed to follow the profession in which he excels and in which he has faith in, but the society never allows him to forget his handicap.

Every individual should be able to decide when they need to be over-protective and patronizing and when they should just accept them and let them perform to their fullest ability and in every case, acceptance in important because they are not freaks.

And he was confused as to where does one draw the line?

What gives anyone the right to tell one person that they fully capable of working on their own and another that they cannot be trusted to be on their own and must be supervised? He argued that when people say that "We wish that society would accept disabled people as being productive members of society, there isn't a special clause that states: " this only applies to people who are able to function independently, with out supervision, everyone else isn't fully accepted as fully functional and must be watched and cared for."

And he wondered as to what happens to those who don’t meet those specific criteria? Are never to be accepted as part of society and considered the useless ones who have no place in the society?

“ I know it seems harsh,’ he continued, “ but if they cannot be accepted as productive members of society then what are they? Or do we reevaluate what that criterion is so they can be accepted? But what about the people left over from that? Who are not accepted after that second evaluation of who is productive and who isn’t?

It’s an endless cycle that will never end.” he concluded

And I am left wondering whether the society will ever wear the cap of acceptance…ever……