Newscoma

I’ve been a very lucky soul lately. Things have picked up, I’m not feeling the mind-numbing doldrums that followed me for several months as I most likely went through some whacked out middle-aged crisis and the loss of my job/identity. I’m learning to accept myself again, and with that comes the willingness to see beneath the surface with other people. I’m usually pretty good about that but when you feel like you are on a lifeboat that is sinking with little bursts of air escaping every few minutes, it’s hard to do anything but get ready to swim.

Being that I’m on the upswing with some new things happening, I have started to pay attention a little bit more closely. Sometimes we know things are happening but there really aren’t words to express what our friends, loved ones and acquaintances are going through.

I have realized that some folks are just as bruised and wounded as I have felt. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m feeling much better but I see other people that aren’t and there are times that you can’t even see the signs.

My generation had it all layed out. We knew what we wanted and we, and here is the kicker, expected it to work out.  It has for some but not so much for others.  Loss and grief is a part of life and we are not our parents or our grandparents generation. Things have changed drastically. We used to have small networks that understood emotional things yet never spoke of them. Now we talk about them in larger networks.

We want more now but are only willing to give less. I have realized that time is not that hard to give and to arrogantly hold on to those moments selfishly only creates more walls for us personally that will eventually have to be torn down anyway.

Life is filled with moments.

• The homeless man at the Mapco at Cooper-Young in Memphis, who asked me if I’d had a nice day. He was older, his clothes frayed and a torn toboggan on his head. I stopped to give him a few minutes because he obviously just wanted to talk for a minute. He asked for nothing but a bit of time, which I had.
• The woman I have known for years who found herself at 50-years-old in an abusive relationship. I made the calls. She had never been through anything like this before. Her eyes were shell-shocked.
• The man who had been unemployed for three years who was on the verge of getting another job. I just listened. He was honest and said he felt like “damaged goods” and was afraid to get his hopes up.
• She is always angry. I have been the recipient of that deep fury on a couple of occasions. I realized that she has to be angry at someone. At times, I listen. At other times, when I am also bruised, I walk away. There are times that you just have to know your limitations.

There are storms. We get through them. The hardest part is to remember that as humans, we bruise. It’s even more difficult to remember that sometimes those bruises cannot be seen and that other people have them as well.

I’m constantly learning this lesson.