It’s Scare the Shit Out of B. Day

My mom decided to garden in a sweatshirt in 70 degree weather.  This lead to a nice trip to the hospital in an ambulance.  She’s fine.  Turns out she was just dehydrated.

I called my Uncle B. to tell him what was going on and it turns out that my cousin J. was also en route to the hospital with a bloody nose that would not stop and skyrocketing blood pressure.  Turns out he’s okay, too.

But if you ever wanted to see me a crying mess of a woman, you missed a good display today.

On the other hand, I did finally replace my windshield wipers, so there’s that.

Accepting Kindness

I was thinking last night about those people you meet who seem to be important in some kind of fateful way.  Like you are supposed to learn something from them.

That always fucks with me, that feeling, because I don’t believe in fate, at least not fate in that way.  I don’t believe there is some predetermined path we all must walk.

I do believe the path we walk ends up being determined by the kinds of lives we’ve lead and our ancestors have left us.  Call that fate and I’m all in.

But occasionally you meet folks and it seems clear that they’re going to teach you something.

Maybe that’s not fate.  Maybe that’s just luck.

Or maybe it’s not so much that they are supposed to teach you something, but that you’re supposed to learn something from them.  After all, the world is not made just for me and all the actors in it are not characters in my play.

I don’t know.  I was just thinking that I think the two hardest things for me to learn in my life have been to grow some balls (ha, for lack of a better term)–to act in the world instead of reacting to it–and to trust the people that show genuine care towards me.

I’ve been thinking lately about the ways we’re all fucked up and what our responsibilities towards our fucked-up-ness and how it affects our interactions with others is.

I had a discussion with a friend, recently, who was going through some major shit and all of our mutual friends were offering to help.  My friend was weighing whether to take the help or to resolve the problem in an unsatisfactory way in order to keep the folks who wanted to help from potentially getting hurt.

I said, easy enough, “People love you.  Let them show you that.”

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Who the fuck am I to say that?  Whew, that’s funny.

It’s nearly impossible for me to accept good things, to trust that, when something good is happening, I’m safe.

Part of that is, I’m sure, my Midwestern Protestant upbringing.  We’re surely taught, even if not in so many words, to not stand out or Fate will humble you.  So, to me, when good things are happening, when all is right with the world and everyone should feel safe and well-loved, that is precisely when you are in the most danger of getting fucked over royally.

This is fucked up.  I know it’s fucked up.  And I know it hurts people I care about, when they’re trying to be kind and generous to me and I stand there like a suspicious, uncomfortable blob.

I’m trying to be better about it.  I’m really trying to learn from the people who are trying to teach me to accept kindness.

But it’s hard and, frankly, it sucks.

I was thinking last night about the Two of Swords in the Tarot Deck.  It’s a woman, holding two swords (obviously), and she’s blindfolded.

As I read her, she has to do with those kinds of friends who don’t need to know all of your deepest, darkest secrets to feel close to you.  When I was younger, I’ll admit, I didn’t understand this type of friendship.  But the older I get, the more I get it, I think.

Anyway, I was planing on spending the day drinking in honor of Cinco de Mayo, which, looking at Wikipediaseems to be nothing more than an excuse to drink.  Which seems a little circular in its logic–let’s drink in honor of a day dedicated to drinking–but it’s the kind of circular logic I can get behind.

But, if I’m going to do that, I need to get in the shower and brush my teeth.