Fissures and closure

I have wanted for weeks now to write about the past presidential election. Happily, I've waited, rewritten, reconsidered, and have shortened my rather bitter diatribe. I guess God's hand reached down and helped me erase the hurtful things I'd written in reactive haste; hopefully what I've penned more recently will be a more intelligent, sensitive response to how I've been feeling.

But still, the election. Wow. Sordid stuff overall. The entire experience has left an aftermath of division and hard feelings on all sides. Such an ugly campaign leaves behind a foul flavor in the mouth of every decent human being, and also a slew of destroyed friendships.

Now, some of the lost were "friends" (insert emoji or thumbs-up icon here). And most of those lost friendships don't hurt much. It's upsetting, yes, but I'm guessing that most of you, like me, can't feel too distressed over the loss of someone with whom you rarely (or never) spoke.

The lost friendships that I write about today are the at least somewhat genuine friendships. The people with whom you have a history other than online. These are the folks you are quite likely to see in the real world again, maybe even on a frequent basis. The ones you might have actually enjoyed talking with. When members of your meaningful circle dump you? Yeah, that stings a bit.

At the same time, though, these losses have begun to feel inevitable to me. What I mean is that in the cases of now-dissolved friendships killed by the election, I can't say that any of them came as a complete surprise. There were signs all along, funny looks when I spoke my true opinion about things, awkward laughter and raised eyebrows in my general direction, or just silence as a reply... Am I sad that these people and I cannot have a calm, informed dialect about important subjects? Yes. However, the past months have confirmed my suspicions as fact: those former friends and I had irreconcilably different beliefs about some pretty fundamental things.

It is much easier to get along with everyone agreeably when there is nothing on the line. In peacetime, at coffee dates and school events, and in the virtual world of cat videos, we can gloss over a lot of differences. Everyone likes pizza and puppies, right? Here's a funny meme, haha! Your child scored a point, hurray! We're friends!!! Companions are plentiful when there is no real-life tipping point forcing our hairline relationship cracks into the light.

For that is what this election has done: it has exposed pre-existing relationship cracks. The invisible lines have given way to small fissures; they weren't even discernible before, but now they yawn before us like small crevasses. That stress fracture was there all along; it required only the conversational beating of dead horses in order to be revealed. And then? Unfriends abound.

I'm going to choose to view this election season as a small but effective hammer that has brought my social stress fractures into the light. And in the same way that I've decided never to finish reading an unassigned book that I don't like, I am also coming to realize more and more that it's okay not to keep up appearances of friendships. Life is too short to expend physical and emotional energy by pouring into unfruitful relationships.

In one of my favorite books, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, the author mentions how difficult is to keep up with expanding social demands: "For life today in America is based on the premise of ever-widening circles of contact and communication." If that woman thought it was tough over 60 years ago, then imagine the challenge now! There is no feasible way you can keep up with every single contact you've encountered. There is also, I would suggest, no real reason whatsoever for attempting to do so.

Trees and bushes benefit greatly from a timely, informed trimming. (Hats off to a former co-worker, Facie, for coining this great concept!) Our social contact list can often be enriched by a good trim. That doesn't mean I will be trying to alienate anyone, or that it's acceptable to be mean or rude. Be cordial, be kind, be respectful—especially to those who disagree, as they're the most challenging. But be honest with yourself when you encounter and recognize a time- and energy-sucking situation that isn't going to change; see it truly as the fracture it is. Acknowledge it. Then smile, bite your tongue, let go the friend, and skip away to freedom and peace.

Extroverts, optimistic party planners, and other menaces

Disclaimer: It's the mad, misguided Christmas season, and that can mean only one thing—Mel is in rare form and her bad side is hanging on the clothesline for all to see. And this rant has nothing to do with Jesus, for whom I am very thankful.
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Christmas inevitably brings many stress factors. Not just the shopping, the over-spending, the regular-and-expected lying to children, the preparations, the baking, the decorations which might be skipped in years past but are now par for the course with a child in the house... Those are all festive yet exhausting. But the biggest stress inducers by far, for me at least, would be the multiple social occasions that pop up and the people who pressure you to attend them.

I'm an introvert. I've confessed that here before. It doesn't mean I don't like people; I genuinely like a lot of people. I even admire some of them, emulate a few, respect several... But anyway, being an introvert simply means that I am not fueled by my time around people. I find that it makes me weary. I am fueled, fired up, and energized by time alone or with just a close friend of two.

That said, you can imagine that the Christmas season is fraught with peril for people like me. Suddenly, a relatively open schedule is littered with events, parties and dinners and family occasions. It's hard to squeeze them all in, but more than that, it's difficult for someone like me to embrace them and anticipate them with anything other than a heavy sigh. I already know what they will entail. There will be long hours of conversation, often about things I don't know (at the many occasions that my happy, friendly, extroverted husband has been invited to); there will be lots of fattening, rich, sugar-laden food (that I will have to avoid so as not to aggravate my prediabetic condition); there will likely be other women I don't know fawning all over my guy, which makes me a tad uneasy. There will be several events which don't allow children, and that's fine here and there but introduces some friction into the works because although they're not my events, I am expected to find childcare—which can be challenging anytime, let alone at Christmastime...

To make matters more complex, my spouse loves people, adores these gatherings, and is happy not to miss a single one. Indeed, all the people who are like him, who also happen to be planners (thank Heaven the spouse is not), are delightedly setting up all sorts of fun evenings (and some daytimes) in which every attendee can come and happily revel in the wondrous company of all the other scintillating people.

Well, here's a newsflash: some people just don't revel in it. Some people find it tiresome after awhile. Maybe even after a very short while.

Just because people have good intentions does not guarantee that they always have good ideas. Sometimes, other people need to be honest and explain the flip side of all this Christmas activity. I don't want to be a hermit, but I am worn out with biting my tongue and saying yes, with shouldering blame for simply being who I am, for the implications from others that I am a strange, twisted, mean-spirited misanthrope when all I really want is meaningful time with my favorite people instead of frenzy.

That is all...for now. I apologize for being a damp dishcloth.

Happy, happy
Joy, joy.
-Ren and Stimpy

Just a little pinch

This post might make some people angry. I'm not even sure how I want to say what I'm going to say. I guess I'll be blunt (since that's really all I'm capable of being). Here goes: I'm tired of free programs to help the needy, especially needy children.

I love children (well, most children). I love the potential in every child. I love how each one was created by our Maker to be unique and wonderful. I also realize full well that I had a great childhood, a blessed upbringing that continues to bless me in adulthood. I am very thankful. I realize I was shaped hugely by those young years.

I did not have a luxurious youth; I had a youth where my needs were met. I was given the necessities, a few luxuries, and love. I was supported by a married couple who also happened to be my parents (that's a bonus, isn't it?!) and who had no problem reminding me—frequently—that I was the kid and they were the adults. The adults who also happened to be in charge.

So I didn't have everything. But I had the essentials and a few extras. It's a big difference. Giving a kid all the physical tools for success, instead of giving them what they most need (which may or may not be a kick in the pants and some chores,) makes for a kid who gets a lot of stuff... but misses out on the most important building blocks of life. And it can happen in needy families, for sure. Those kids often run wild, with little to no parental modeling and supervision, and no matter what "stuff" they get from society, it's not going to make up for what's missing.

Maybe it's the recent election that has me thinking about helpful programs in general. Maybe it was today's book fair at my son's school, where all the children will receive a free book from the PTO. (I think that's awesome, though, because a few of the children at the same today couldn't buy a book and looked rather downtrodden. Plus, the government did not purchase said books; the PTO did.) Maybe it's just the fact that I'm beginning to realize that I, my little family, what we value—I fear we're the minority. We're becoming even more of a minority every day.

And I'm wondering who is populating the country. Who's having all these kids? Based on the countless help programs out there, and on increasingly alarming recent statistics, I'm guessing it's mostly the uneducated, unmarried, unstable, too-young or unprepared population. And I'm thinking this awful but true thought: I'd rather give money for birth control than keep on supporting kids who are not getting, and won't get, the basics.

Before you call me a monster, please hear me out. I spoke with a friend who subs for the City of Pittsburgh. She explained how it's a jungle in many of the schools. She explained how even the regular classroom teachers, often seasoned educators, have to address the children in short, loud terms instead of kind, soft tones because the kinder, gentler voice goes unnoticed. The kids are so unaccustomed to hearing that sort of language that they don't even notice, let alone respond. She shared, too, a meeting where she'd gotten a good look at the curriculum for elementary students. "What they want to teach them," she said, "is wonderful. Teaching it to kids who don't even know how to sit down and be quiet? That's something else."

I feel as if we're trying to arm these kids with advantages, with free meals, with new books and classroom aides. Yet I believe, truly, that none of those things will make a dent if the children aren't first taught the most simple skills of sitting still, listening, focusing, and showing courtesy. If a child can't stop shouting, how will he or she learn anything? If the kid doesn't know that some words are inappropriate, then how can he/she be expected not to use inappropriate words?

And the ball continues to be dropped, so many times, because it seems to me (just IMHO, of course) that so often the very nature of helpful programs is rooted in a well-meaning, liberal-minded member or members of society—people who want to help but would feel quite uncomfortable putting a foot down with their own families let alone strangers, people who want to believe in the innate goodness of mankind. Perhaps it flies in the face of the good they're trying to do, this unwelcome idea that good can't happen until order happens, that change can't occur if it's unlearned the minute a child leaves the helper's presence. Or perhaps these kind-hearted folks just cannot be the heavy hand.

But a heavy hand is much in need. Self-control is learned, not innate; to boot, it's often learned through suffering. And my guiding principle? People are basically bad news, not good. (Again, that's my opinion.)

This is why I say Yes, teach love for others, teach tolerance, teach abstinence. Give to good causes, help the little people of this world who don't have much, who need square meals and their own books and a warm bed and coat. But first, address the behaviors that make improvement impossible. And if you're not willing to go there? Then please, tell me where I can give money for those hormone shots to be administered to any and every young woman who isn't willing to go there either. Especially the ones who already have a child or two or five. For the love of God, let me give to that fund instead of watching us all try to play catch-up in a flawed and feeble system that, by the way, is failing miserably.

It doesn't "take a village." It doesn't require nearly that many people, at least not in this country. We need to start being honest about what it really takes to be parents.

See? I told you I'd make some people mad. Now, please excuse me while I go establish the "Free twice-annual BC shot if you opt out of other child support options" program. *


* Think about the money we'd save: the cost of shots twice per year, compared to the thousands upon thousands of dollars expended in raising a child—especially a child who is more or less supported by the taxpayers.

A weird sort of camelot

I saw an old friend today. Reminiscing with her reminded me that many of Todd’s and my friends happen to be people we met at an old job. The same job where, conveniently, we also met each other. It’s odd; I exchange Christmas cards with one lady I taught school with, I'm still close to a gal with whom I suffered through a year at a law firm…but I keep close tabs on about 10 folks from that one communications firm, not counting my husband, and I stay loosely aware of the whereabouts of at least 10 more.

Why? What is it about the time spent there that keeps us in overlapping social circles? Most of us have discussed how it’s unusual, and the only thing we’ve ever come up with as far as explanation is that this particular company hires great people. Not to sound smug, but they really do. I met some of the brightest, most creative people I’ve ever known when they were my co-workers at that firm. I still wonder how I made it through their doors. Desperation on their part, I guess. ; )

But it has to be more than that. I can’t help believing there’s a deeper reason for us to keep reaching out to each other, even now—especially when you consider that the vast majority of us are no longer employed by this company.

I have a theory, and I’ve decided to dub it “The Camelot Factor.” When I first joined the firm, and for about two years after that point, the company was profitable and popular; they made every effort to wear that success well. The leaders didn’t do everything perfectly, by any means, but by and large, they were generous and kind. There were numerous off-site meetings, some rather luxurious, and there were parties and celebrations for every possible achievement. Even when people left the company, they received commendations and a luncheon of some sort. There were funky, artsy clients that amounted to great freebies and discounts for us. There were a number of singles there, most of whom actually liked each other. The result of all this is that a great number of my work memories are of genuinely good, fun times.

But the Camelot Factor requires more than festivities, perks, and social outings to seal that bond between workers. It also requires a majority of folks who are comfortable with who they are and who they’re becoming. It requires a lot of people in similar circumstances, with similar interests. It requires a shared appreciation for hard work well done, and respect for each other. Maybe it even requires some shared suffering. But not just suffering—Lord knows I’ve suffered at some other jobs, and still never formed any lasting bond with my colleagues.

For me, the romance of the place remains rose-tinged because, even though it drove me crazy by the time I left it, I honestly started to like myself when I worked there. I started to feel as if I had something to offer, talents to explore, amazing people to befriend and learn from. When I first started there, I felt so blessed to be part of it. I wonder if my former colleagues recall the same sort of glow, in themselves and others they knew there.

Even now, having chosen to leave the firm years ago, I still carry that blessing, those friends, that wide range of experiences and lessons learned there. I still feel pride that I was part of it in its shiniest days. Stupid, misplaced pride, perhaps—but I can’t deny that it’s in me. Mostly, I am grateful for the many contacts from those days whom I still enjoy on an almost daily basis.

It certainly was no Camelot. And yet—it was quite a “congenial spot,” if not for ever-aftering, then for making memories.