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Recognizing my own prejudices and standing up for myself

It took until today for the 'glow' of this rural lifestyle to darken a little. I forget that with the good comes the bad, and I was called out for my 'offensive' slogan on my waterbottle and my planner both last week and this.  As a result, they've been given makeovers of sorts, but just for the summer. The f-bomb is not exactly welcome around here I'm learning. And that's okay. There is a place and time for everything, and while I would have loved to declare why those slogans should be displayed proudly, there are times in your life when you just have to bite your lip and swallow your pride, your creativity, your uniqueness, in whatever form it takes. For me, it was a sticker on my water bottle and planner. Maybe this is just part of what it means to be 'professional'. I just hope every time it happens it doesn't make me want to cry, because it's a shitty feeling to happen over and over again. Hence, the makeover.

On a related note, I think internally I'm getting my own sort of makeover as well, realizing how many prejudices that I had about rural Kansas and didn't realize until they were continuously proven wrong. How appreciative I am of these moments! I think it will make me better equipped to stand up for those that live here when I am living in the big city and this summer feels like some distant memory. It's also making me realize how ugly some of my thoughts had been. I generally consider myself to be a positive person, with a bright outlook for the future and for the most part pretty hopeful. Of course, school has taught me that most people have an agenda, nothing is usually as good as it appears to be, and that everyone is flawed in some way. You can't fight a battle alone, you can't expect good things to come without the bad, and surprises are found where you least expect them to be hiding. I may be a good person in general, but I didn't realize that I have a lot of internal 'revising' to do, if you will. It's kind of like every time you travel abroad and you start to see things with new eyes. I look around me, and having once seen a podunk town of less than 4,000, I now see opportunity and a slow pace of life.

Driving all across North Central Kansas also gives me new thoughts, a lot of them depressing because I'm surrounded mostly by different commodity crops. But there are small glimmers of hope: sitting on the beach at Kanopolis Lake and hearing mostly conversations in Spanish around me; talking to rural economic development directors about innovative farmers; growing food in my neighbor's yard; 25 cent day at the Economy Shop, where every article of clothing is only one quarter. :)

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