Where I Stand, and Who I Stand With.

I haven't been on here in a while, in general or otherwise, but I've been doing a lot of thinking. About a lot of things. It's a highly political time, and I have never been publicly invested in any sort of politics or anything similar. In addition to that point, I had pretty much sworn to never get political on this site, as I thought it was a surefire way to get people to hate you.

I have since had a liiiiiiitttle bit of a change of heart. I only thought that politics was a surefire way to get people to hate me, because the politics that I was invested in (at the time) were, and are, exactly that. To be fair, most of the time they deserve it tho..

Call it ~character development~ if you will.

As many of you know, I was raised in a community full of people that are religious. VERY religious. And theres absolutely nothing wrong with that. Everybody believes in something, so if that's what it takes for you to be a decent person, or to get you out of bed in the morning or whatever, then by all means. I've lived the majority of my life thus far that way. I'm not sure where I stand currently, but maybe we'll find out as this entry continues.

Anyway, religious. My family growing up? Very religious. My school as a kid? Very religious. My high school? An SDA academy that wouldn't let you clap along with a song for fear of making a syncopated beat. You get the idea. I had no job, and everybody that I knew and loved lived in this little bubble of a place where "everybody" was straight, 99.9% (quite literally) of the community was white, and everybody with a voice was a God-fearing Christian that voted Red every four years. That sounds like two seperate traits but I promise that it is most certainly one.

Much of my free time in my teenage years was spent on Twitter, arguing with people in Ben Shapiro's comment sections, looking for fights and ways to prove that police brutality wasn't an issue, or that we shouldn't let immigrants into our country, or that being a part of the LGBTQ+ community was bad, and a sin, and whatnot.

To further shoot myself in the foot, remember the post I made about the Halftime Show a year or two ago?

Just painting a picture for you.

So fast forward to 07/26/17. I had just gotten a job at the Casino down the road. The one whose hotel lobby I'm sitting in right at this very moment. My job was in Housekeeping, and honestly? I hated it. It lasted one singular summer. I was stuck working with a crew of middle-aged brunette moms, and any men that I worked with were either there working with their wife, high all the time, or were only there for a few weeks because of their.... "offenses" we'll say...

Fast forward just over a year from that day. Food and Beverage. A lot more people, every single day. From everywhere. All sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of stories to accompany. I loved that job. Worked it for.... three (?) years. That opened my eyes a bit.

Fast forward to February 25th, 2019. It's three in the morning, and I'm in a puddle of tears, writing as excellent of an appeal as I can muster on such short notice to the Ad Committee of the previously mentioned academy, for actions of my own that I didn't feel warranted an expulsion two and a half months from graduation. That event, the level of understanding not exactly ~showcased~ throughout, changed my perception of the church, its branches, and a lot of the members associated with it, familiar or not.

After that specific event, I was at home alllll the time. School? Online. Work? Full-time hours, no benefits. Because that makes sense. I had a full schedule, and I was avoiding church for previously stated reasons. That one day each week was pretty much the last connection that I had to that community, so with its disintegration, I didn't see most of the people in that community at all.

My friend group got pretty narrowed down for a while. I couldn't see any of my classmates at alumni weekend, camp meeting, etc, because I couldn't touch campus, and that was like 90% of my friends in the first place.

My friend group was, unintentionally mind you, narrowed down to a group of misfits, if they don't mind me calling them that. Not only misfits, not very conservative misfits as well. I started to work with people that identified differently than myself. People that loved different people than I would. People with different viewpoints, people of different religions, people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

I started to pay attention to what was going on in the world. I started to use critical thinking when listening to anybody talk about anything political. I started to have conversations with people, to learn from them instead of to argue with them. I came to some conclusions.

I believe that religion can be good, but the bigger you go consistently, the less true that is. "For where two or three are gathered, there I am with them." You get more out of a healthy discussion with somebody about the Bible than you do sitting in the same pew week after week, listening to the same man regurgitate his own stance on any given matter to you for like an hour or so.

I believe that who people love isn't going to play as big a role in any coming judgement as a lot of people think. I've had people ask me if I think that it'll keep them out of Heaven. Would I be the one to know? I sure as hell hope that it doesn't, but I don't make the rules. Everybody believes in different deities, and each one has a different set of rules. We are made to love. I highly doubt that who it is that you love will tip the scales in any manner.

I believe that every single person on this planet is created equal. Every single one. If you are alive you are a life. And life is sacred. Which brings me to my next point.

Anybody that exists has a body of some kind. No matter what it looks like. Nobody should be able to tell you what to do with your body as long as its not affecting anybody else. I have my own stance on a few things in this category. I don't like the idea of abortion. Do I have to worry about getting one? No. I don't have a uterus. Do I want every pregnant person to abort? No. Is every pregnant person in a situation to raise a child, birth a child, etc? No. I think that that choice is up to them. They're the pregnant one, not me. You can fight me on this if so desired, although it's hard, but not impossible, to argue with that. Try and bring up the mask idea in my dms, I dare you ;)

I know that this is probably gonna step on a few toes, and that's cool. I'd like to point out that political stance aside, none of these points are political. These are all social issues. Human rights issues. Those things should not be politicized in any manner.

I'm gonna wrap this up shortly, because this whole thing has gotten rather lengthy. There will probably be a part two? I think? I'm starting to build a little bit of a routine again in my time off, so that's fantastic. It's not going to be another four months before I post again. I had to get this off my chest, and there's a lot more that I need to address as well.

Until next time my friends...

-Dominic Romeo

2103 EST

03/29/2022

Happy Birthday Fran! :)