Being a salmon sux

My spirit animal should be a salmon. Except, there are other animals that will do - solitary or disliked animals - like the animal that actually is my spirit animal - the wasp. Salmon are not actually solitary creatures - but they are dying off, and I definitely feel like a dinosaur sometimes. And they are radioactive and diseased (no, not me) - but, they swim upstream.

And so do I.

Do you know what it's like to be the only one all the time?

I'm guessing you don't. Because that would disrupt the very definition of what I'm saying.

I'm not talking about a "one of a kind." Not talking about some celebrity of the moment, something or someone that is the be all and end all. No. I'm just talking about being alone. All the time. In what you think or believe.

It sounds egotistical. Like I'm the only one like this so I'm so special. Maybe I think I'm special - because I wouldn't change anything. I can't. It's not how I'm made.

But let me tell you. It sux.

The only one that likes or dislikes something that everyone else dislikes or likes. The only one that thinks something is inappropriate - or appropriate. The only one that thinks it's ok to tell a child, yes, you are going to die. There is no heaven. There is no God. Grandma and grandpa are going to die.

The only one that thinks it's possible not to lie EVER.

And still be kind. In fact, that's kind. Not lying. Telling the truth. Or what you think is the truth.

The only one that doesn't like The Art of Racing in the Rain.

Do you know what it's like to be in a group on Facebook - because you want to belong, you want a crew, you want a team, you want LIKE MINDS in the room with you - and you go down a list of 50+ people and every single one of them loves something that you hate? How do you speak up and say, actually, I don't like that? Do you? Do you be the one person? The one that hates what everyone else loves? I dare you.

Because that's my life every single day.

And I speak up. I say, "You know, I didn't like that." And I say, "But I'm guessing you will - based on the percentages." I'm the odd one out. I know that. It's hard to speak up. But I think, people should know - not everyone agrees with them. Not everyone loves that or doesn't love that. Not everyone agrees or disagrees with them. People should know, and young people should be given an example, that it's okay to have a different opinion or an alternative view. It's okay to say "no" whenever everyone else says "yes" or "yes" when everyone else says "no".

Presumably there are other salmon out there. But I wouldn't know. I've never met one.

Because it's hard. How many are keeping silent? The only ones inside their heads?

Do you know what it's like to never have anyone to talk to that agrees with you?

Right now, I'm the only one wearing a mask. I started wearing one in February. Yes, I'm that person. Or I guess I am. I wouldn't know if there are any others - because I'm always the only one.

I wore it to an art opening in February - I was the only one. It was embarrassing. There must have been at least 100 people there. I was the ONLY ONE. And one of the curators said to me:

Thank you.

I wear it to the supermarket. I'm the only one in the supermarket wearing one. And an employee said to me:

Thank you.

But to me, my life, and the life of my loved ones - one of whom has an immune compromising situation - is more important than "going with the flow" or being embarrassed to stand out.

Then I go back on Facebook and somebody says, "I don't like Art of Racing in the Rain, either." I'm so relieved I want to cry. And it's just one person. And they don't say it to the group but just to me and I say, phew.

Thank you.

Peer pressure is real.

I know that when my lover returns to work, it will be hard for him to practice the rules of social distancing that will still be in effect - if everyone else doesn't do it too. I know it will be hard for him not to return to smoking - if one of his coworkers invites him for a smoke break.

I'm swimming upstream all the time but I'm doing it by myself. I'm carrying it by myself. And sometimes - no, a lot of the time - I have to wonder, what does it matter? That I hold fast to my beliefs and my thoughts but no one agrees with me? That I wear a mask but my lover doesn't?

That I hate bees and love wasps.

When Harry Met Sally: The Gift that Keeps On Giving

I remember when I first saw When Harry Met Sally and the question that stayed with me, "Can men and women be friends?" (without also wanting to be lovers?) The answer the movie gave seemed to be no. And the answer that life has given me has been, largely, no. I thought I believed it, too, this maxim, "men and women can't be friends." Until recently, it occurred to me, I've often tried to remain friends, or be friends, and it hasn't worked out, not because of me but because of the man.

So my new maxim is: MEN can't just be friends.

I really think I can. I think I've had in me since my undergrad college days, at least, if not forever, if not genetically, some propensity towards that communal concept you see so often in French movies. Men and women cohabitating in unique combinations, friends and relatives, some lovers, some not, some lovers once, not anymore, some married once, now just friends, that sort of thing appeals to me.

My ex-husband and I are "friends" - except not really. The reason we are not really friends is that there is an imbalance. He still wants me romantically and sexually. I don't have those same feelings anymore. And he can't let go of them. Or won't. And so I am perpetually with the conundrum if it is really any good for us to be in contact at all, if it's not just "adding salt to the wound" - for both of us. I honestly think that I am capable of being an unadulterated friend to him. But it's not working.

I had a "friend with benefits" a couple of years ago. We only saw each other a couple of times in that capacity, but we had a sort of liking for each other and we stayed in touch. It was mostly flirting, tho, and when I moved in with my boyfriend, I found out the true nature of my relationship with that person was, indeed, purely physical - from his end. Or purely superficial, if you will. He came back into town and wanted to get together. I informed him that I had a boyfriend BUT made myself completely available to get together AS FRIENDS. I cared about him. I wanted to know how he was doing. I wanted to give him a hug. He kept angling our rudimentary attempts to make arrangements into something that would lead to going back to his apartment and having sex. My repeated efforts to meet for coffee or lunch - to be friends - fell flat. And now, we are not in touch at all. Pity.

In grad school, I had a gay friend. Yes, this even applies to gay friends. We were close, so close. We did everything together. At some point or another, jealousy, another man, got between us. I guess. I barely remember. But this friend, he also had a history of never allowing female relationships to last. Well, I missed him. Many years I missed him. I had - and have - no one to talk about the things we used to talk about. No one with whom I share that easy camaraderie that we had. It was awkward then. We had those awkward yet real conversations - if I never meet anyone will you marry me? And both seemed relieved when we both "moved on" and did meet people. I guess. I always kind of wanted it, honestly. So in that sense my boundaries were blurred, but so were his at the time. As I say I missed him and ever since I've looked for him. I finally found him and he wrote back. And then he didn't. I heard from him a handful of times and then no more. His communication fell off right around the time he went for a long stay with his husband - and I couldn't help thinking - did his husband tell him he can't be in touch with me? Why can't I have a friend? A like mind?

A man I met online. Our relationship, though tumultuous and painful, was long and real. We "broke up" - first him, then me. And he would say, "I hate that when this happens, you can no longer be friends." And I would answer, "You are making that decision, not me." I would still gladly have kept up our friendship - in order to have the intellectual stimulation that he provided. In order to know that he was okay. In order to not just let something drop that had meaning. That was part of your life. And now it's as if we never knew each other, as the song goes. I can't even tell him happy birthday or Merry Christmas. Am I the one "holding on" unnaturally or with some agenda? I don't think so. I honestly think that we could be friends. That would could partner in other ways. I once saw a picture that he drew and found it perfect for a book I had in the works. I thought, maybe that's why we met. From the start, I was open to a working relationship, and said so. Now he is gone. Doesn't answer me.

It can go the other way too. When I first married, my then husband told me to end contact with an ex that I had - and with whom, ironically, I was friends. So I did. I have always regretted that.

Men and women CAN be friends. It's men that are unable to compartmentalize, to say, this is my friend, and to remove the sexual aspect. Not women. If people, in general, would be more open to relationships taking turns in ways they could not imagine. If they could HAVE some imagination. How much more colorful and close the world could be.

This is my view. And I'm sticking to it.

Get a job.

Or go on, go on, go on

If you were thinking that the worst is yet to come

Why am I the one always packing up my stuff?

For once, for once, for once

I get the feeling that I'm right where I belong

Why am I the one always packing up my stuff? ~ Fun

The other day I told my significant other that I had had a dream wherein I was, once again, having to look for a place to live.

In the dream, I was begging a girl much more well off than I was to let me be her roommate. I was attempting to persuade her that, while I could not afford to pay her anything close to the going rate in rent, wouldn't it be "better than nothing" to get a small bit of cash from me per month?

You should know that, prior to meeting my boyfriend, my life had been quite precarious for quite some time. It's the price I have paid for being idealistic, I guess you could say, and for wanting to be in the right relationship and the right job. But it has taken a toll.

I woke up full of the insecurity that dream had represented, aware, for the nth time, of how easily my life would crash if anything happened to upset the balance I now have, and which I and everyone know is in great part due to my moving in with my boyfriend.

When I told said boyfriend how scared I was of what would happen to me if anything happened to him, he first asked, "Why?" - which in itself was a bit of an astounding question; and second he said, as a solution, "Just get a job."

Now folks, I have multiple jobs. I do not have a full-time job. The reason I do not have a full-time job is a) due to personal choice of what would be the best style of living for me, after working my a$$ off in a multitude of jobs since I was 12 years old or earlier and b) because my s.o. told me my happiness was the most important thing to him; and so, we decided, together, it would be acceptable for me to leave my last full-time job and begin picking up "gig work" that made me more happy.

It worked. And I'm doing okay, money-wise. But I have no insurance. And if something were to happen to my boyfriend, this lovely life he has made possible for me would disappear. I could not afford to pay for the condo where we live.

I would be back to square one, which is square nowhere.

I couldn't believe how fast my s.o. was to relegate me back to that position in his mind. The very happiness and security that he has provided for me - and which he said was so important to him to provide to me - he saw no problem with that dissolving immediately in his absence. Or he could not imagine that this is exactly what would happen. That my life would plummet. "Getting a job" in the sense that he meant it would in fact ruin the solace I currently have. Honestly, I would not want to live if living meant going back to the "rat race." Yes, of course, that is a viable, practical option - and I have said it myself to others. "Get a job." But to me, that is anathema to everything I value at this point in my life. To have my life be owned again by someone else. To spend all of my time working to make that person wealthier, while I remain in the lower tiers, just making ends meet, and too tired and distracted to do anything for myself.

Like the entire rest of my life up until now.

Do you know what would happen to my boyfriend if I left? Sure, he would miss me. But the worst thing that would happen to his situation is that he wouldn't know where to find anything. That's it. Not being able to locate some pot or pan in the kitchen would be his biggest hardship. The rest of his life, his finances, his job, his spending, would remain exactly the same. In fact, better, of course, because he would no longer be living with me.

My s.o. has a good job - but he has no life insurance and no 401K. He has never thought about that those types of things exist not just for us but to help others when we pass. Or, due to his own experience so far, he doesn't think that someone's passing is that dramatic, financially.

While he has agreed that the condo is mine should he go, he has not added me to his insurance and has not created any kind of safety net, for either one of of us. He has told me that, because of the state of my finances, he does not yet want to marry me. Which I understand. It's scary. And yes, agreeing that I could stay here in his condo is a heart-warming, generous move; however, the actual logistics are that I would be strapped for the months wherein I had to pay the mortgage, trickling away major chunks of what I have managed to save, until I could sell, and then unable to find a decent place I could afford anyway. I can see myself just selling and fucking disappearing.

So today, I'm feeling this mixed message. From this person that actively demonstrates how much he loves me and yet, when posed a certain way, his answer to the question of my existence without him is just for me to return to what my life was like before we met.

Perhaps I fear too much. I know that my boyfriend loves me. I know he is doing everything he feels is right, at this juncture, to help me feel secure, happy, and loved. My fear, my insecurity, my financial problems - my bias that men have it "better" - none of that is his fault, nor his responsibility. I know that he doesn't "own" me. I know I am free.

And I know that he has given me the wonderful gift of breathing room, the chance for me to get my act together so that, if ever anything does happen to him - heavens forbid - I will be okay.

Perhaps love is exactly what makes everything work out in the end.

You can't unsee that

You can't unsee things.

This is probably one of the main tenets of my life.

Say what you will. I firmly believe that our brain records every single thing that we see. There is some research that corroborates this. I'm not going to find it for you, but it's there. It's part of how dreams can be explained. All the weird shit and random people. It's not random at all. It's something or someone you saw during the day. And you don't remember. But your brain does.

It's why I hate movie previews on TV and think that horror movie previews, especially, should have a warning at the beginning. I object to being subjected, against my will and without any notice, to alarming and disgusting imagery. Because it doesn't go away. Ever.

That creepy frog suit in that Japanese movie that one time? The one where some asshole hired a prostitute and then tortured her with a hair dryer? Yeah. That's not going away. Ever.

Once upon a time I was an older sister to a brother ten years younger than I am. He was of a sensitive nature and he did not know, for a long time, the difference between what was real and what was on TV. Scary stuff was seriously scary to him. Creepy things were real. It was all real. It used to tear me up inside when other members of the family would make fun of him and completely disregard this condition. It makes sense to me now. Nothing "sensitive" was allowed in our household. He was taunted, told to get a grip or whatever. I don't remember the exact words used, but no one ever made an effort, let's say, to avoid scary, violent, or gross things so that this kid could catch a break.

My little cousins of about the same age as this brother thought that horror movies were funny. Yeah, I know. Tons of people do. Haha. Hilarious. I do not. I despise anything gratuitous and 99.9% of horror movies fall into that category. We do not need them. They open doors we do not need to open. And we cannot unsee them. At my grandparents' house, my deranged cousins (we are talking less than 10 years old here) would turn on a horror movie - my grandparents would do nothing - and my cousins would laugh while my little brother would witness in, well, horror. I would beg for them to turn it off.

Mostly, my pleas fell on deaf ears.

And they still do.

Ya'll. You can't unsee this shit. Ever.

My boyfriend watches YouTube and I told him I don't appreciate the video compilations that do not give you any indication if you are about to see something funny, weird, gross, violent, what? I asked him not to watch them around me. I don't like being surprised with something abhorrent and degenerate that I cannot unsee. I can't help this. It's the way I've always been. Keep it away from me.

Once upon a time I lived in California. A boyfriend and I went to San Francisco and walked through the Haight-Ashbury district. At that time anyway, there was a string of seedy shops selling demonic-type merchandise. You know, I can handle some of it, skulls and dragons and whatnot, but the way these items were presented, it was grungy and scary. I had to stand outside with the homeless people.

This was years ago but I've never forgotten it. I can see the store displays in my mind's eye. That night, we went to a club. It must have been close to Halloween. It was the first time I ever saw someone wearing those very realistic devil's horns. Creeped the shit out of me. As it was meant to, I get it, and in the flickering orange and black light of the club, with the music pulsing, it was very effective. I admire a realistic costume, yet at the same time I apparently have a stronger belief that costumes should look like...costumes. Not real. Maybe it's that same line that my little brother had trouble crossing. They merge together, the real and the unreal, and it's too disturbing for me. The first Halloween I spent with my second husband (yeah, just don't even try to keep up), he warped his face into a zombie costume. It was so effective, he completely transformed his appearance with just a couple of devices, and no longer looked at all like the man I'd married just a few months earlier.

It did not do wonders for our love life. Not then and not after. I couldn't get that out of my head.

Most of you think this doesn't bother you. I know. You agree or disagree that your brain records and remembers everything. You think that the violence and gore and creep factor present in our daily lives is not damaging and does not affect you in any long-term or negative way.

I think you are wrong. 

Now I do not put sex into this. Rape scenes, yes, of course. Forced sex, yes. But consensual sex, no. I'm not a prude. And I think that those parents that freaked out when their children saw two seconds of porn on a highway billboard are stupid and ridiculous. Part of the problem with this country is how we shield our children from sex but flood them with violence. How is that okay? It's sad, is what it is.

But that's leading into a whole other topic.

The message here is. Be careful what you see. You cannot unsee it. To that end, think about what it is we as a society are allowing ourselves to see, what we think it's okay to see and for our children to see. Think about the huge mental health problem we have, the kids in juvie, the people on the streets.

Connection?

Why not choose beauty?

Plato believed that humans were so pliable that we should only subject ourselves to things that encouraged us to be our best selves. He believed in censorship. I don't want anyone determining what I can or cannot see - but I do want to be able to make the choice and not have it made for me.

My little brother has led a troubled life. And I will always remember those days when I begged my family to turn off the horror movie on the TV. I don't say that I knew best. But I knew better.

You can't unsee those things. Ever.

I discovered that I'm hygge

So I read that book. You know. The one everyone is reading. It's like the new Kon Marie but with books allowed. All things "hygge" by the CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Denmark, the happiest country in the world, and aren't they the lucky ones?

While living in a welfare state will not be a part of my existence anytime soon or ever, I did discover while reading this book that I am pretty good at hygge. Hygge works best as an antidote to whatever is stressful in life. It's finding - and deliberately creating - little pockets of security and comfort to get you through your daily life - your daily existence. It's not a "big fix" - it's everyday happiness, which apparently is what we should all be prizing a lot more than those big events/goals/rewards that we so avidly seek. Hygge needs the storm to be the calm inside the storm. It doesn't really exist without something to be sheltering FROM. And it helps if you already live somewhere where the weather is shite. As this naturally inclines you to stay indoors and practice hygge, to like warm clothes and warm drinks, and etc.

I do live in a place where the weather is perhaps similar to that in Denmark, yet a big thing not hygge about me is that I do prefer summer. Summer is less hygge but it is not impossible to be hygge in summer as you can still find those precious moments, still take in the beauty of the natural, still spend quality time with a few close friends or family. (Hygge is introverted not extroverted and Denmark is an introverted country compared to the U.S. which is highly extroverted. Therefore, the best hygge occurs with an ideal of 2-3 companions, no more).

To go along with my preference for summer, I am not hygge in that I prefer summer clothes. I love flip flops and summer dresses. I don't care about cozy sweaters or woolen socks (sorry happiness dude). In fact, please keep wool as far away from me as possible. If I can go without socks, even in winter, I will. I have a collection of soft socks, and I find them imperative to life, so that's hygge, but I'd rather take them off.

That's it though. Apart from that, I'm pretty hygge.

I love coffee and the smell of coffee. For the Danes, the number one hot drink is coffee and hot drinks are the number one way to enjoy hygge. FYI.

I combine landmark events with special purchases. Heck, these days, as my budget is extremely condensed, nearly every purchase is a special purchase. As in I plan for a month at least before buying something. In this book about hygge it is recommended to save special purchases for a time when you can associate them with something special that happened to you - so that ever after you will combine the two things in your mind. Every time you sit in that favorite chair, you will remember how you won that contest or made that big deal or whatever. I'm big into rewarding myself, which is how I would call it instead, so I make a purchase as a reward for achieving some goal post in my career, for instance. So I can indeed look around my house and associate a large number of my belongings with important events. Hygge.

While I don't care about winter clothes, I do love a cozy blanket. Cozy blankets and fireplaces are big in hygge. Fireplaces are a bit of a no-brainer and we are fond of them in the U.S. I have one now, and do spend hours sitting in front of it and playing with it. I'm a fire sign and I believe that women are attracted to fire as the outward manifestation of the fire inside of us. I once watched a little girl approach one of those garbage can fires around which several of us were gathered during a winter art festival. The fascination. The hypnotic pull. The wonder. The glee. It was all there. Then her dad pulled her away. I was so pissed. At that moment, grumpy stick-in-the-butt dad put out her fire.

Keep your fires lit ladies!

Anyway. Moving on.

I love quiet. Quiet is best for hygge because you can HEAR. I know, right? Hygge likes music, of course, music is cozy, but quiet is good for hearing the birds, the water, all the good noises. In the reverse, I require a lot of white noise assistance to block out the crap. The airplanes, the loud cars, the sirens, the talking, the dog barking, the TV....I love quiet and am very sensitive to noise. Complication arises since so many noises don't sit right with me and because, I think due to a maternal instinct, and apparently due to the lack of boundaries other people displayed around me when I was growing up, I need to listen in order to protect myself and others. I'm often conflicted between the need for quiet and thus the need to turn on a fan to block out the crap and my need to hear if anyone is sneaking up on me. Sigh.

I put wine in anything I can and enjoy sitting down for a glass of wine, in a corner, with a book - and a cozy blanket. If possible, by a window. Apparently, this combination is like the grand prize of hygge. Hygge prefers sweet food and adding wine to your entree counts for this. You also often add wine to a dish that has to simmer a bit - hygge likes food that takes time to cook. Now, I'm not that big into dishes that take a long time to cook. I don't care about sourdough or anything else you have to baby or monitor over a long period of time. So in that sense I'm anti-hygge. And probably just American. But I do add wine and I do drink wine, one glass, around dinner-time.

When I was a kid I thought bay windows were the gods' gift to mankind. I'm a reader so that's natural. Like any avid reader I seek out little nooks, and I do love to sit by a window but it doesn't need to be a bay window anymore. I'm over that. But I am still keenly aware of design - and good design. I haven't made a concerted effort to include good design in my life (apparently the Danes call their TV shows "furniture porn" and will happily drop over a thousand bucks for a good lamp), but I am painfully aware of its absence and I sure do know what it is. I think fluorescent lighting is a curse and I understand that natural is better than artificial. Everything around me doesn't need to be made out of wood, I'm not that into "the rustic," but I can wabi sabi you all day long. And I get that those artificial flickering candle things a friend just gave me for Christmas are fun - but they are not hygge. We are using them anyway cuz glitter and sparkly lights can still make you feel cozy and secure - Christmas is the favorite hygge holiday - so Christmas-y type lights must be ok (the Danes tend to light candles instead). Hygge is what makes you feel secure in an insecure world. So if it's artificial colored lights then what-have-you.

Also, pockets of light. My boyfriend is unconsciously hygge in that he has stocked his apartment with standing lamps versus overhead lighting. Hygge prefers diffuse and indirect light.

Books. Now, the CEO of happiness did not mention how many. I am guessing being messy with your books is not hygge. A well-stocked and artistically laid out bookshelf is probably best. Kon Marie only allows 30 books, or so says the latest meme. That's crazy to a book lover. So while I doubt hygge promotes having sloppy piles of books or tons of books you will never read, I'm probably hygge in that I have a healthy set of bookshelves that are arranged attractively - and I have read all of them or only have a handful waiting to be read.

It's a challenge to be hygge in an extroverted world. A lot of people need noise. My boyfriend has just come home from a breakfast run to Chinatown. That's hygge, I think. Making a special trip to get a specific thing for breakfast because you wake up craving it and because that food brings you comfort. He's gotten me a pastry that I like, totally hygge, and he got it ready for me. I made my coffee. And I will join him. My boyfriend has to have the television going at all times (yes, I said "television," the snob version of TV). On my own, I never watch TV. Many years I didn't even own one. So the constant TV is a constant threat to my hygge. I will go sit with him, because sitting next to him is my hygge. I will enjoy my pastry and coffee and get as cozy as possible. Probably I will try to zone out some other way by playing a game on my computer* (I never use sound), so that I can block the TV out; but eventually, I will retreat to the bedroom, turn on the air filter so I can get some white noise, get under the covers, sit in my pocket of warm light, drink my coffee, and be as hygge as possible.

*technology is not very hygge by the way. Hygge needs in-person social contact and technology generally promotes being alone. Facebook can make us happy but it's on the bottom of the list.

Sometimes I look forward to going to bed so I can wake up and have my coffee. Reading this book made me realize that hygge can get you through life. Give you something to look forward to.

Damn. I think the Danes are onto something. And I thank goodness that I was able to get onto it myself.

My hygge reading nook is coming along. I don't use it all the time, yet it's comforting to me just to know it's there.

Things you don't know until you know

It has come to my attention over the past year or so that one of the irksome things about being a human being and the challenge of the hundreds of decisions we make on a daily basis - is that oftentimes we don't know if we've made the right decision until AFTER we've made it.

Do you know what I mean?

Let's start with how do we make decisions in the first place? Some are obvious, obviously. We rely upon past experience, what has worked and what hasn't worked, what we like and don't like, what we need and don't need. But there are a lot of gray areas. And how do we have integrity within those to both ourselves and to the people with whom we may or may not have obligations?

For a certain period I studied martial arts and one of the main tenets we were taught in my dojo was to follow through. What I took this to mean was that if I agreed to do something, I should do it. Period. Regardless if I change my mind later or "don't feel like it."

Yeah. Well.

This doesn't always work. Perhaps I participate in a committee for a few sessions and then I determine that we do not really have shared goals. Or that, no matter what my input is, the head of the committee is determined to push the project in a certain direction - in other words, my input is practically meaningless. At that point, I am just a name on a program - if that. Do I keep attending? I sort of kind of have a "gut feeling" that I don't want to. I hem and haw wondering if this commitment of mine will payoff "one day," what impact it will have on public relations related to my work, and various other way too heavy thoughts. But the kicker is that until I actually say "I am not attending the meeting today" and hit "send" on that email - I have no idea if I made the correct decision.

Afterwards, I feel good or bad, depending. Usually good. Thankfully. I do trust my instincts.

Sometime after that stint in martial arts I started a different practice which was this: if I am more than 50% in doubt, I don't do it. This seems selfish at times. You just don't do the things you don't "feel like" doing? Actually yes. I'm a damn grownup! Surely there has to be some benefit to that sometime! And guess what it is? You can say no! You can change your mind! There are so many unwanted things that as adults we already "have" to do over the course of our days. Why do more?

But again, until we actually take the plunge and make the decision - and share it with someone else - we don't know if it was the "right" decision or not. It's like when you decide to give something away to the thrift store. You think you maybe want to get rid of it. You know you haven't worn that shirt in years or that you never will. You know that it was given to you by someone with whom you are now estranged and that just looking at it, never mind wearing it, makes you unhappy. But until you actually hand the item off to the guy at the back door of the thrift store and step on the gas, you have no idea if it was what you needed to do.

Weird, isn't it?

Walk a mile or live a mile?

People say you won't understand someone until you "walk a mile in his shoes."

I don't know if I ever really knew what that meant. I thought it meant "try to imagine what it would be like" to "walk a mile" in someone's shoes. What else could you do? You aren't that person. I supposed it was a mild platitude espousing sympathy. And that it is. I was even irritated at organizations that won't hire you unless you have experienced what they are treating - drug abuse and whatnot. I thought, I have brains, heart, and sympathy - why can't I help? But now I get it. Walking a mile only gets you so far. What walking a mile doesn't get you is empathy. Living the mile is something else. No matter how imaginative you are, no matter how smart, how sympathetic, you will never fully understand what someone else has gone through UNTIL IT HAPPENS TO YOU.

And the thing is - it could happen to you. Anything could. But we don't realize that.

When something happens to you that you never imagined could, that's living the mile. You are no longer at a distance from that person whose life you previously thought was so unlike yours. You are no longer imagining what his or her life is like. You're not intellectually appreciating what certain factors in someone's life lead to, the genetics plus the upbringing plus the economic demographic plus gender, education, and on and on. We can all be sympathetic (even though a lot of people aren't). We can all nod and listen and say, "How bad for you." We can even help someone to get out of a bad situation. But we can't ever "get it" unless we go through it ourselves. That's the thing. You know how people watch a scary movie and they admit that, while they might like to think they would fight back, they wouldn't really be able to know how they would respond in a situation until it happened?

That's true. Which is why it astounds me that so many people are so judgmental against those in dire circumstances. As if somehow we choose to be molested by our parents or beaten by our husbands. That kind of thing. You hear so often, "but how could she/he stay with him/her?" Or the total lack of not just empathy but even sympathy towards those forced into prostitution. As if it's just something a person chooses to do. As if she could have done something else.

The thing is we are part choice, and then we are part circumstance, and we are part unconscious. We can end up in a place and a position we never thought we would - but now we are.

Now don't get excited. I'm not going to tell you I was a prostitute. But for two years or so, I experienced a lot of what might be termed subtle abuse in my relationships and during that time, I was made aware that it's a slippery slope. And you don't know - YOU HAVE NO IDEA - if it could happen to you. But it could. You could think you are "above" all that and the next thing you know you are behind a bush with a pervert that wants you to touch his dick. And you are not a child.

That abused person. It's not something he or she chose. And getting out of something is very difficult when you are barely aware of it in the first place. It takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness and self-confidence to extricate oneself from a bad situation. I had just enough. But many don't. And it's not their fault. So don't judge. If not for the grace of God - and my own heightened sense of self-preservation - there go I. There go YOU.

I once posted on Facebook that I wondered what I would carry if all I had in life was one shopping cart. Everyone - and I mean everyone - thought I was making a joke or playing a game. No. Really. I walked by a homeless person, and I KNEW that could easily be me. One missed bill. One health emergency. One destroyed relationship. You could be on the street. Yes, YOU. I know. I almost was.

Do I wish everyone would get to that edge? So that more people would be less asshole-ish about the misfortunes of others? So that more people would realize how ridiculously difficult life can be sometimes? No. I don't wish bad things on people but take it from me. You don't know until it happens to you whether it could happen to you. So you might as well have a healthy understanding that the possibility is there. And live accordingly. Don't judge. Give not just your ear and a fake smile but also your heart to those who are experiencing bad times. They didn't bring it all upon themselves. They wouldn't know how to - and they might not know how to get out. Maybe you think there is no way you could relate - and you don't want to find out - but yes, it could be you. Any of you.

I lived that mile.