Rock and Roll Saved My Soul

I Am Me By Kate Marie Robbins My name is Kate and I belong to the LGBT community. Does that surprise you? It shouldn’t. And you know what else? It shouldn’t even matter. Who I choose to love is my business and no one else’s. Just like it doesn’t matter that I choose to write with my free time. What I do is my business.      I didn’t always know I was pansexual. It’s not even something that I can pinpoint the exact moment when I knew. It was always a part of me; it just took me a long time to realize who I was. It’s taken me a long time to even love myself, so why should my sexual orientation be any different?       I’ve dated men and I’ve dated women. That doesn’t make me a bad person—not by a long shot. Being pansexual is a part of who I am, but it’s not the only thing I am. I am a friend, I am a daughter, and I am an aunt. I am a woman with many talents and skills that I use to put good back into the world. So why should my sexual orientation dictate...

Is it easier to hate or to love? Why? Kate: Honestly, for most of the world, it's easier to hate than it is to love. We're so full of prejudice that we are unaccepting of  anyone different than us. However, just because it is easier to hate, doesn't mean that we should. Easy doesn't equal right.  Sandy:  Michaelle:  I, also, believe it depends on your past. Facebook Weighs in: Depends on your past I suppose. I tend to hate easier than love. I’ve been fucked over a lot. However, I also try not to hate because hate destroys both you and the world. Hate comes easier for me and it’s also a task to let the hate fade away -Katie G. I think it depends on you as a person. I had a rough childhood and adult life. Those who have wronged me or stood silently by hate comes easy. On the other side there are people who I love and will love with my last dying breathe. One person in my life I both love and hate for different reasons -Shauna Y.

Can love really last a lifetime, in your opinion? Sandy:  Love can certainly last forever as long as both parties have Patience, understanding, forgiveness and most of all both communicate with each other. If both sides dont have this and fight for each other then things will not work. However, it is not impossible to make it last. Michaelle: Aisling:  In my opinion, yes, love can really last a lifetime. Any relationship takes work and commitment, true love will always prevail. Sid:  I think it can. If it's honest and true and an effort is made.  Kate: Absolutely. Life and love aren't always easy, but if two people love each other, they'll stick through the good and bad times, working things out and taking life as it comes. Facebook weighs in: I think it can, but you gotta work at it. -Andrew K. Absolutely. But true love isn't just a fantasy inside one's head. It's time, effort, energy, commitment, loyalty, living together...

Dating in the Digital Age By Kate Marie Robbins Where do you find a relationship when you live in a small town, work in a field that is primarily dominated by the same sex as you, and the bar scene isn’t your cup of tea? I didn’t meet my husband in high school or even college like most people do. So where does someone like me turn to? In this day and age, the only viable option for someone like me is the internet. We all have our own reasons for choosing for using sites such as Plenty of Fish, Match, Tinder, Facebook, Meetme, etc. to find dates and none of those reasons are wrong. There is so much stigma still in using the internet for dating and I don’t understand this.  If you’re being safe about what you’re doing, which is key, then it shouldn’t matter where you meet people. It baffles me that some people automatically assume that just because you met someone online that there must be something wrong with them. I decided to write this to try to help try to brea...

By Michaelle Madrid  "When a mother dies, a daughter's mourning never completely ends. Motherless women have always intuitively known this." Hope Edelman "There's a sense we share of being adrift in the world." Irene Rubaum-Keller, Therapist (mother died when she was 7.) Adrift, that is a good way to describe how isolating it is to grow up without my mom. Out all alone, on the ocean, on some makeshift raft. My mom passed right after my fourth birthday. I remember the day my dad told me she was gone. We were in the car and he was upset and crying. I remember we were leaving my paternal grandparents home where we had been staying after having just lived a short stint in east Texas. My mother and father were divorced and he had full custody of me at the time of her passing. Being so young at the time, I was easily distracted from her, her death, and my maternal side of the family.  It didn't take long for the sdistractions to fade and memo...