Melissa Roth -- Freespeak Blog

There are people in my life I have trouble having a conversation with, without disagreeing.  No matter where the conversation starts – current events, the weather, a television program, a book, or family status – it ends up with diametrically opposed points of view.  When someone you are close to has a world view that is the opposite of yours, it makes spending time together challenging. I try to focus on what we have in common, our feelings.  I come away from the exchanges many times feeling beaten down and attacked.  When someone attacks my beliefs, my politics, my world view, they are attacking my essence.  For me, my beliefs and values define who I am.   Each of us lives up to a code of behavior and standards.  We might get those standards from our family, our culture, our religion, our community, or our country.  Some may come from role models or were learned in school.  And some have been defined through life experience.  ...

Something about the whole "controversy" about Wendy Davis' life story has me bugged.  As an editor, I understand condensing the story and making it easy for people to grasp the gist in a sound bite size.  I have no problem with that, although I can understand people who are upset by what they see as lies. What I don't understand is the big concern over her husband working and supporting her while she finished school.   I personally know dozens of men whose wives worked and supported them while they finished school and no one thinks a thing about it.  I am sure there are some cases like that in the legislature and in congress.  Why is it considered a flaw in Wendy's character?  Is it simply because she is a woman?  In most marriages I know, people work together for the good of the family and sometimes the roles of primary and secondary breadwinner get switched.  I have yet to see it reflect badly on a man when his wife worked as a nur...

I have spent the last week in tech support hell.  My beloved Sony ereader died.  I loved how open source it was and lightweight.  Alas, Sony is out of the ereader biz for the most part so I had to decide between Nook, Kobo and Kindle.  I already own numerous epub books so Kindle wasn't my first choice.  I did some research and decided on the Kobo.  There weren't any brick and mortar stores that carried it so I ordered it online.  It came and first of all was not lightweight, but the fact that it lights up and I can read it in the dark was a big plus to me.  Then I tried to download some of my books on it.  Yikes, did that ever open up a can of worms.  Somehow, I just assumed that digital copyrights on ebooks (epub) were handled the same way digital music is handled.  In other words, once you bought the digital file, it was yours.  That is not the way it is set up.  You cannot just copy an ebook on your hard drive ...

A few months ago I had a costly (financially, emotionally, and physically) experience with a dentist.  When doing my forgiveness work and reviewing what I had learned, I realized there were numerous warning signs that preceding with this dentist was a mistake.  I ignored them.  In order to reinforce my hard-won wisdom, I told those near and dear to please remind me of this the next time I seemed to be in a similar situation. And they remembered.  Sadly, I did not.  Recently, my doctor gave me a referral order for a colonoscopy.  Since I am still learning the whole insurance game, I checked to see if the doctor was in my network.  I couldn't find him in my network on the website so I called the insurance company.  The person who helped me was very pleasant and went to a great deal of trouble to okay my going to that particular doctor.  She told me there were no doctors in my network within 30 miles, which was why I said okay.  Sh...

I have been thinking about how grateful I am for all the things that make my life better and easier.  Most of us have made a gratitude list at some time, whether it was mentally, verbally, or written down.  You know the drill--think of all your blessings or think of all you have to be grateful for.  If you're anything like me, it went something like this:  family, friends, children, food, shelter, job, health, life, love, faith, maybe material possessions and qualities like determination, courage, honesty, and kindness.    The things I have been thinking about recently are a little more specific and detailed.  I am grateful for things like floss, toothpaste, running water, pillows, an icemaker, a microwave, the DVR, my stereo, my computer, paper, pens, a garage door opener, bandaids, q-tips, a hairbrush, and so much more.  It is astounding really how many things I could think of once I started looking at what my life would live like without t...

I haven't been spending much time, enough time really, navel-gazing lately.  I've been floating along and not examining my feelings and my motives.  I have been following the id path – I want, I don't want.  And that is about as deep as it has gone.  I miss the self examination, and, at the same time, I like that I am thinking about other things.  For instance, I have been overloaded with learning how to navigate using health insurance and catching up on my personal medical checklist (the one I have formed while waiting "until I have insurance".).   I have been setting up appointments, spending countless hours on the phone and online with my insurance company trying to understand how things work.  I had to find a doctor which doesn't seem like it would be a big deal.  You just look on your network list and call for an appointment, right?  No, apparently doctors don't really want to take patients that are over 40, soooooo, I had to m...