You Never Really Know Someone
You think you know me.
You don't. Not any more than I really know you.
It is easy to be put into a box. Martha is such a whiner. Cassie is a very stoic woman. Jon is a perfectionist. Bob is just plain stupid.
We all do it. We meet someone. Or even know someone for years. Maybe it is a family member. And you think you have their ticket. Families are especially guilty of this.
She is really flighty.
What a know-it-all.
He pretends to be so holy all the time but everyone knows he is mean as a snake.
She lives in La La Land.
She thinks she is the baby whisperer, but....it's just because she gives them candy constantly.
None of us really know each other. We could all work harder to remedy this but...well, that takes time and we are just so busy. I mean, good grief, I fucking work all day long and then I have to come home and make dinner. I really need my work out. I NEED that time on the treadmill to unwind. Plus, I don't want to end up as fat as Miriam. It could happen. I have basketball games to attend. I need to meet with my church group. I have papers to grade and no, they will not grade themselves.
Jesus Christ! It's the holidays. Isn't it enough that I have to sit and listen to her go on and on and on about her uncoordinated grandson's dreams of being an Olympic gymnast for hours on end? Or watch videos of her daughter singing the National Anthem at that baseball game two years ago? And god help us if somebody mentions Trump. Aunt Bertie will go off like a rocket about what an asshat that guy is and then she will move on to Pence and McConnell.
WHY does she always bring that salad? NO ONE likes it except for her spoiled brat kids who pick their noses and then dig into the radish dish. Did he just eat THREE pieces of pie? Does he want another heart attack? The women always slave away making dinner and the men come in, eat it up like squalling pigs and then go watch TV while the women clean it all up afterwards. Well, Richard helps. But, I tell you. There is something just weird about a boy who enjoys cleaning pans. I think he might be a little light in the loafers.
We don't really listen. We just assume.
She goes on and on about her grandson's Olympic dreams because she is so worried about her granddaughter's thinness. She isn't eating and when she does, she heads right for the bathroom.
He doesn't really enjoy cleaning pans but he cannot stand football or the way Uncle Biff watches women on TV and gives them a 1 to 10 rating, even though...truly? Uncle Biff couldn't get a date with any woman, any time. Plus, he likes listening to the women talk. He will write a book one day and these women's conversations will be useful. He will also make Cheri a great husband in a few years precisely because he refuses to rate a woman by her looks. Instead, he will wait for a woman who is as funny as his Aunt Bev is when she is talking in the kitchen with her sisters.
See what I'm getting at?
I have felt misunderstood often and I think a lot of people feel the same way. It used to matter to me a great deal. I never showed it, but it did. Matter.
And then I got really sick. Cancer did not give me many gifts but it did give me the gift of not giving a shit what people think of me anymore. Plus, I am far less inclined to watch other people bullied or mocked. I don't have the time nor the inclination to suffer dolts, so if you hurt someone I love, you are going down.
I believe that fae live in my Hawthorne tree and if you think
God, that is just LIKE her
I pity you. You are missing out on some really interesting shit here.
Because, like Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood, I can now see Thestrals.
And so much more. Ask me and I might tell you about it.
Or go walk on the treadmill. It's ok. I get it. To be honest, I kind of wish I could go back to treadmills and workplace desks and closets that need to be cleaned.
Where I am now is a very surreal place. Everything just seems so beautiful to me. Trees. The way the sun hits that table. The way it feels so good to be warm in your very own bed and drowsy. The way that first sip of coffee tastes. The way it sets off rockets in your mouth.
There is Emily's monologue in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. She can't look at everything hard enough. She implores her family to look at each other. To really look at each other. She says, "I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed."
She says goodbye to clocks ticking. Food and coffee. New ironed dresses and hot baths. Sleeping and waking up.
One of her last lines in the monologue is, " "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.
How many people do you really know?
You don't. Not any more than I really know you.
It is easy to be put into a box. Martha is such a whiner. Cassie is a very stoic woman. Jon is a perfectionist. Bob is just plain stupid.
We all do it. We meet someone. Or even know someone for years. Maybe it is a family member. And you think you have their ticket. Families are especially guilty of this.
She is really flighty.
What a know-it-all.
He pretends to be so holy all the time but everyone knows he is mean as a snake.
She lives in La La Land.
She thinks she is the baby whisperer, but....it's just because she gives them candy constantly.
None of us really know each other. We could all work harder to remedy this but...well, that takes time and we are just so busy. I mean, good grief, I fucking work all day long and then I have to come home and make dinner. I really need my work out. I NEED that time on the treadmill to unwind. Plus, I don't want to end up as fat as Miriam. It could happen. I have basketball games to attend. I need to meet with my church group. I have papers to grade and no, they will not grade themselves.
Jesus Christ! It's the holidays. Isn't it enough that I have to sit and listen to her go on and on and on about her uncoordinated grandson's dreams of being an Olympic gymnast for hours on end? Or watch videos of her daughter singing the National Anthem at that baseball game two years ago? And god help us if somebody mentions Trump. Aunt Bertie will go off like a rocket about what an asshat that guy is and then she will move on to Pence and McConnell.
WHY does she always bring that salad? NO ONE likes it except for her spoiled brat kids who pick their noses and then dig into the radish dish. Did he just eat THREE pieces of pie? Does he want another heart attack? The women always slave away making dinner and the men come in, eat it up like squalling pigs and then go watch TV while the women clean it all up afterwards. Well, Richard helps. But, I tell you. There is something just weird about a boy who enjoys cleaning pans. I think he might be a little light in the loafers.
We don't really listen. We just assume.
She goes on and on about her grandson's Olympic dreams because she is so worried about her granddaughter's thinness. She isn't eating and when she does, she heads right for the bathroom.
He doesn't really enjoy cleaning pans but he cannot stand football or the way Uncle Biff watches women on TV and gives them a 1 to 10 rating, even though...truly? Uncle Biff couldn't get a date with any woman, any time. Plus, he likes listening to the women talk. He will write a book one day and these women's conversations will be useful. He will also make Cheri a great husband in a few years precisely because he refuses to rate a woman by her looks. Instead, he will wait for a woman who is as funny as his Aunt Bev is when she is talking in the kitchen with her sisters.
See what I'm getting at?
I have felt misunderstood often and I think a lot of people feel the same way. It used to matter to me a great deal. I never showed it, but it did. Matter.
And then I got really sick. Cancer did not give me many gifts but it did give me the gift of not giving a shit what people think of me anymore. Plus, I am far less inclined to watch other people bullied or mocked. I don't have the time nor the inclination to suffer dolts, so if you hurt someone I love, you are going down.
I believe that fae live in my Hawthorne tree and if you think
God, that is just LIKE her
I pity you. You are missing out on some really interesting shit here.
Because, like Harry Potter and Luna Lovegood, I can now see Thestrals.
And so much more. Ask me and I might tell you about it.
Or go walk on the treadmill. It's ok. I get it. To be honest, I kind of wish I could go back to treadmills and workplace desks and closets that need to be cleaned.
Where I am now is a very surreal place. Everything just seems so beautiful to me. Trees. The way the sun hits that table. The way it feels so good to be warm in your very own bed and drowsy. The way that first sip of coffee tastes. The way it sets off rockets in your mouth.
There is Emily's monologue in Thornton Wilder's Our Town. She can't look at everything hard enough. She implores her family to look at each other. To really look at each other. She says, "I didn't realize. All that was going on in life and we never noticed."
She says goodbye to clocks ticking. Food and coffee. New ironed dresses and hot baths. Sleeping and waking up.
One of her last lines in the monologue is, " "Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you.
How many people do you really know?
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