"The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." ~~ E.B. White
When you’re a little kid, at least when I was, your experience of the world around you was, unbeknownst to you, driven at times by mixture of fact and ignorance, served on a plate of absolute honesty. When I was wrong about something I was capable of being wrong on a massive scale. Having arrived at these moments honestly, they’re all okay with me
Example. My friends and I called each other douchebag way before I had any idea what a douchebag was. When I found out, I was mortified!
Which brings me to today’s holiday, Labor Day. When I was a kid, I was aware of no reason to alter my view that labor day was the day all mother’s tried to have their children. It was their goal. Made all the sense in the world to me.
For any relationship of any kind to be healthy and flourish, you have to be able to be yourself – safely – with the other person. This means, acceptance. Accepting someone for who they are is as loving (and reassuring) as it gets.
Yes, there us compromise in any relationship. One likes Crest, the other, Colgate. Fine. Get both. One likes the toilet paper coming over the top of the roll, the other from underneath the roll. Fine, whoever puts the toilet paper on the roller puts it the way they like it.
Giving up parts of who you are is another story altogether. If someone asked me to stop reading, or, “For the love of God, Peter, spare us all and please stop writing!” Well, that’s not going to happen.
Remember, you love someone because they are who they are.
And yes, there are difficult and dangerous realities some must content with.If someone is an active alcoholic or addict (I repeat myself), accepting the presence of that reality does not mean you support its presence. It does mean you can say, if you are not going to take care of you, then I need to disengage from you, as long as that destruction is present. Though it may be hard to see and digest at the time, it is the most loving choice.
Taking care of yourself is not an act of disloyalty to anyone else.
. . . On this day my mother ended her life in 1992.
What do I say? I watch the words hit the page this morning and I know if I charted the distance between them and the pulverizing impact of her suicide it would take more than a millennium to cross the divide.
The facts of it all sit like dusty stones – cold, and hauntingly still. It was the second time in the span of a year that she talked of ending her life. We had intervened the first time, and, for the moment, succeeded, at what I wonder. It only delayed the inevitable and in the days after her death, I would learn from her oldest friends that she had been talking about suicide since I was a boy. What had it been like for my father? I can’t imagine.
Sadie looked at him and said, “I looked you up online a little. You don’t have any assets.” It wasn’t a question.
Harvey’s jaw wanted to drop, but didn’t. “That’s true.”
“I have assets.”
“I’m happy for you.” What the hell else could he say? He was too busy keeping his sense of humor pinned to the mat. She had large breasts and when she told him she had assets, he could’ve sworn she puffed her chest out. That her breasts had nothing to do with what she meant by assets, he understood. It was simply one of those moments when, alas, the healthiest choice on the table was silencing humor.
They were sitting across from each other at a picnic table in a large town park, boasting some 1,500-square acres. The smell of pine trees turned air into a delicacy. Across the way, kids were playing soccer. It was Spring and you could hear the birds.
Sadie had dark hair parted in the middle. A cataract reached the base of her neck and stayed there. She continued. “The last man I got serious with had a problem with prenuptial agreements. I need to protect my assets. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“I can, very much so,” Harvey said, and meant. And he meant it. Yes, he didn’t have any in-depth knowledge of life story. However, he knew enough about life to recognize she’d been wounded along the way. Her instinct to protect herself didn’t come from nowhere.
Harvey looked down and then back up at Sadie.
“Sadie, how long would you say we’ve known each other?”
“I don’t know. Between phone conversations, texting in person? Two, three hours maybe?”
“Today is the first day we’ve met face to face, and you’re worrying about prenuptial agreements.”
The woman asked me, “Why do you tell people you love them?”
I’d just said, “Love you, brother,” to the man who bagged up some groceries for me. The man always greets me with a smile and a good to see you. I said, “Because that’s how I feel.” “But you don’t even know him.” She sounded appalled. “I don’t have to know somebody to feel loving towards them.” “Nobody ever really feels loving towards someone, unless they know them.” “I don’t know what to tell you.” “I mean I know when I like somebody, or, sometimes, you know, sometimes you know straight away you don’t like someone.” “Hold up.” Her head tilts. The movement asks, “What?” “How is it knowing you like or don’t like someone without knowing them works, and feeling loving towards someone you don’t know makes no sense to you?”
“It’s two different things.”
He knew the healthiest word and said it. “Okay.”
Two hours later, they were out for a walk. A neighbor down the street had a box of puppies out front so they could get some sun. He watched her face light up with joy when she saw the puppies, hurrying over to get a closer look.
“Honey, look! We can adopt one, she said so. Look at them. Don’t you just love them?!”
He knew the healthiest word, so he smiled and said it. “Okay.”
Peter S. Kahrmann - Est. 1953 