The Playpen

There’s a playpen in my office, where you cool kids congregate.  It helps you to feel special being in your very exclusive club.  Seems you may have missed the lessons most of us learn in high school – the ones where exclusivity breeds contempt, where being adult means being interdependent with the rest of society, where diversity is the word of the day. 

When you disengage from the majority of your peers, and keep isolated to your own small social circle, you miss out on all there is to learn from people different than yourself.  You reinforce each other’s ideas, believing your shared lies, and lose out on what is truly true – that there is no 100% truth. 

I could remove myself from being affected by shutting off the resource that is me – choosing to remain isolated only to those who are free, open and interdependent – but try as I may I just cannot put myself in that head space.  Sure, I help you – whether you are interested in helping me or not, sure I cover your mistakes whether you choose to put mine under the bright light of day – but I MUST do that to remain true to myself and to continue to grow as a person.  I can’t join the shutting everyone out club because I love people (well kind of – I can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times). 

I don’t laugh at people’s mistakes.  I won’t judge them on their clothes, hair or car.  I don’t believe I am all that, and that you are not any of that at all.  I don’t sneak away from my desk to jump into the playpen. I don’t give professional ethics the bird.  I don’t think I’m better than you – different, sure – but not better. 

I realized a long time ago, that if you stay in your playpen, you will never grow up.  You cannot play childish games and be mistaken for an adult.  People’s feelings are not fodder for your entertainment.  And, without getting too religious on you, even JESUS chose not to judge – so exactly why do you feel entitled to.

You might be reading this, right now, maybe even over my shoulder, and say – hey, wonder who she’s talking about because people like you never see yourself through the eyes of others  – that, my friend, would take empathy.

So, jump back into the playpen (actually didn’t need to say that since, of course, you are already in there giggling with the other geese) and convince yourself that you are better than the rest of us.  Go ahead, I approve of it.  Why – because the rest of us are outside the playpen growing and are more than happy to have the space around us filled only with adults like ourselves.

Does Anything Matter

I have to wonder if anything really matters any more.  Is this instantaneous gratification of likes, this half hazard way we “wish” someone a happy birthday, this “you’re a meme – I’m a meme – everyone’s a meme meme” {sung to the tune of Old McDonald Had a Farm} nonsense, how the HERO of an awards show being the best photo bombing water bimbo – really, does anything matter any more?

I see R. Kelly is relevant again.  Of course he’s relevant because he’s a perv who’s accosted multiple YOUNG women.  Guess that doesn’t matter, after all, as long as they spell your name right – right?  Feel a little bad for Al Franken and Kevin Hart – I mean, they were just trying to be funny – but hey, what does it really matter.  If a comedian tells a bad joke in the forest, will he be allowed to ever make a sound again?

Hey youngun’s – do you know back in the OLD DAYS we used to walk our ass to the card store and buy greeting cards for those people we cared about?  Crazy huh?  And know what else, we’d talk to them WITH OUR VOICES.  Yup, we spoke on the phone, or even … wait for it … in person.  Crazy huh?  And don’t get me started on dating ….

I really don’t know if anything really matters any more?  I do know I hate to fall into the irrelevant relevancy trap where I check my Facebook as if it were something real, something important.  I’d hate to stop having dinner with someone I love to upload the crap on my plate to Instagram.  I put off taking the newest, latest, greatest medication that promises to cure something that didn’t even exist a few years ago – a pill whose side effects include death.  I know, I know – this doesn’t make sense … or does it?  Maybe I imagine that hitting Like for every post does not necessarily equate to love.  Could be just I’ve finally lived long enough to sit with the other old biddies talking about the good ole days. 

Does it even matter?

What I Think Versus What I Do

Despite years of quick, pithy “I am me” type answers to who am I, it’s a question that I, like many others, struggle with. In my case the search for self becomes complicated by unrealistic expectations and a very personal, and vital, code. Growing up on my own made the creation of a code of behavior a survival tool. It’s kept me from falling into the darkness that has overtaken others similarly situated. Having a code has kept me from stealing (even to eat), from taking drugs (no matter how low my lows would become) or from seriously hurting anyone (no matter how much they may have deserved it). But, and this is a big but, I’ve never been quite able to truly be righteous.

I suppose I could happily go about my day – la la la – skipping along without struggling with the larger, less answerable questions but I think this would be a disservice to the fact I am here at all.  I go back into my past and think about the things I’ve done, places I’ve gone, people I’ve met and one thing becomes crystal clear.  God must have, or have had, a purpose for me.  I feel like I have to pinch myself and make sure I’m still here.  How in the world did I ever live this long given what I am sure are experiences that are NOT of my imagination.  Of course, perhaps I’m on borrowed time and my usefulness has been realized.  I’ve got my kiddies, which in and of itself is a pretty good reason for God letting me hang around as long as He did.  I mean, I’ve got my Grandkiddies who, if my kids were not enough, are even more of a reason to justify my existence.  Than there’s the people who have needed me over the years, I haven’t been needed in a while so that excuse for keeping me around is gone.  Uh Oh, I might need to hold your hand crossing the street at this point – tick tick tick goes the clock of my life.  Just Kidding!  But, to get to the point (which I’ve taken the long road to get to) I realize that my life can’t be explained by la la la – oh happy day – let me stay ignorant to the deeper aspects of being.  Thus – I face my daily question.  WHO AM I?  Am I what I do or what I think?

I am a sinner – I have had impure thoughts. For example, I occasionally want to hurt people – sometimes really really bad. There are moments where it takes every ounce of my resolve not to rip someone’s head off.  Shoot, I had to stop myself only yesterday. But, to my credit, stop myself I did. Despite what I was (livid) what I did was have someone remove me from where I was so what I did followed my code. I did what I believed I had to do, and despite a day of remaining silent I was inevitably able to let it go – all playing out within 8 hours. So who am I? Am I the raging maniac that could only see red and entertained such anger as to show in the very color in my cheeks or am I the person who would share a cute poopie video? Who am I – is what I am what I think or what I do?

Am I Faith Full (I wrote it that way intentionally so stop snickering). I trust in God, I speak to God but I do not seek active entrance into the Lord’s home on Earth. I am not even sure that there is a home of the Lord here on Earth (well, that’s not exactly true – I think that we are all the Lord’s home on Earth). Am I what I do spiritually – and if so – what I don’t do as well? Am I a NON-churchgoer? NON-tither? A NON-saver of souls? Am I a believer who finds proof of existence unnecessary. Am I of such faith that I do not need answers to believe? Or am I only fooling myself and what I convince myself is faith is, in reality, a cop out to true spirituality.  Am I what I think I am, or am I what I actually do?

What am I?  At any given moment I might be thinking up or thinking down – the good and bad seem to share the same road and walk hand in hand.  Can I use what thoughts I have to find an answer to whether those very thoughts encompass who I am?  Should I, instead, take stock of everything I have done – and have not done – and say that these are the measure of the person that sits within me.

Never mind, my head hurts and I’ll leave this reflection to another day.

A Bunch of Plastic Plants and a Grow Light

In my direct view, on my desk, I have a bunch of plastic plants and a grow light.  Crazy huh?  But it kind of works.  I’ve had people come up and start smelling my plants.  The light gives these “plants” authenticity, and since I don’t want plants for oxygenation it works.  Sometimes, as much as we think we may want something, there is something underlying that want that is removed from the item of our desire.  Take me for example.  I wanted a new computer so I could start writing, and a desk, and an office with a window.  Now I have a computer on a huge desk right in front of a window.  So I changed the object of my want – I wanted a Surface Pro so I could write on the go, just, y’know, write.  So I got a Surface Pro and I think I’ve used it two, maybe three times.  So as I kept bringing my iPad on the bus with me, my boyfriend tried again to help me to write and bought me an iPad Pro – the big one – with a keyboard case so I can write on the run.

See, it isn’t all those tools that I need for me to write, it is ideas, it is feeling passionate about something.  I remember when my beautiful Ralfh passed I would write nearly daily.  I would write with a pen in a journal, I would write at work, I would write at home – I poured out of my all of the emotion inside until I finally felt drained and I could go on.  And go on I did but without writing anything.

So, instead of the act of writing ON something I need to figure out what I am trying to obtain by writing.  Like with my plants, I’m trying to obtain a little zen in my space since things can get really hectic, no oxygen required.

I think in my case writing is really about letting go, of releasing the sounds, the thoughts, the past, the present, the injustices, the ails of the world from inside of my head.  It’s about finding the words to express how I feel about the world I’ve seen and the one I see now.  Writing is my therapy, and there are times when I go back and read something written long ago and not only do I not recognize the author, but I no longer FEEL the words that I am reading.

So I will try to find my voice, my words, my salvation and turn on the light to the darkness that has been within far too long.