Michaela Mitchell

If someone you care about is suffering through the pain of first holidays without someone they love, there are things you can do.

Ever hear the phrase, “We were poor growing up, but I didn't know it?” It was a common refrain in my family. When my mother and aunt speak about those days, they wax poetically about tomato sandwiches and bread with every meal (meant to fill an empty stomach when there wasn't enough food).

Several months ago I read a piece from a mother who was so over people comparing raising kids to taking care of their “furbabies.” The annoyance and eye rolls practically leapt off the page.

I've said before that I accept myself as I am, even though there are things I'd love to change about my body. And that's true. But it's not like I woke up one day and thought, “Yep, I'm great. My body is great. Life is great. Everything is great.”

Ah, January of a new year. Time to wake up a completely different person from the woman I was in 2015, including: 30 pounds lighter by February! I call bullshit.

I don't know if it's because I've lived in the deep South my entire life or if it's a generational thing. I do know that I was raised to “act like a lady” — always. Good girls didn't say certain things or look a certain way. We didn't raise our voices or argue with authority figures, and we apologized – a lot.

I don't exactly advocate divorce for anyone with a gripe about his or her spouse. Whatever I think of my own divorce, it's not something to take lightly. Divorce is serious. It's the death of a relationship, the end of something that was supposed to last forever. It must be grieved.

You turn your back to deal with a crying toddler (I mean, answer a customer's question) and when you look back, every single shirt is unfolded and on the floor. Just at that moment, someone else walks by and rolls their eyes and sighs at how “nasty the store is" and wonders why they "can't they hire good people to keep it clean.”

God forbid a single group, like fast-food workers, attempt to unite and fight for a better living wage. The moment they do, stories about more deserving groups who don't complain about their income are thrown about.