checkout guilt

guilt is as natural a process for me, as silent farting/picking a scab/organizing my books by colour and height. these behaviors are all used to manage anxiety. however, they are of no bloody use when i am asked: "paper or plastic?" at the supermarket checkout.

"uhhhhh...which ever?"

i know those sideburny/hairy/horn rimmed spectacle wearing hipsters in weathered cords from the gap, who are scanning my bagel chips and pink grapefruit italian soda at whole foods, are judging my ambivalence. they choose "paper" for me. then ask "do you want your milk in a bag?" (as opposed to carrying a cold, wet gallon to and from the car with arm loads of paper bags that are now ripping at the handles?). they put the milk in a plastic bag.

why do organic, patchouli loving, granola munching retailers give me black and white? you either love the earth, our mother, or you go home at night, spray aerosol and roll around in several pounds of styrofoam.

(i don't recycle either).

an ethical quandary and rationalization

is it ok to forget to tell someone who has just given you a massage that you have ring worm on your hand? the hands were last, so it wont have spread to my feet, calves or shoulders. and it's not like i'm keeping something like crabs a secret.* granted i will now probably start developing fungus "sleeves" from it being pushed around my arms. karma and no health insurance sucks.


*i don't have crabs.

dipping a toe in

i have a confession: i went to church. i am sort of embaressed to admit this given the years of organized religion bashing i have engaged in. i have been the perpetual resistant and defiant adolescent. it's true what "they" say, it isn't until you are so down and desperate that you start fishing around for something. admitting helplessness and lack of control over anything is not generally my forte, but it is at this point when an open mind can be brought to the table (although i used to think this was a vulnerable state for potential brainwashing).

i heard a lot about forgiveness yesterday, giving and receiving, again not a comfortable or natural state to submerge and swim around in. i am a chronic toe dipper; the people who i trust that are already in the pool can entreat me with "come on in, the water's great" til the cows come home, and it's not that i don't trust them, i just know myself. i will stay in the pool until my toes are wrinkled and pruney if i can just ease my way in metartarsal by metatarsal.

that said, i do like going to the pool with someone who does big, splashy bombs into the water.

addiction

it is hard to raise your hand and acknowledge the truth. lies feel so much easier, denial is safe.
geography is temporary.
drama is energy.
anger feels good, it is real, it is emotion, it is something concrete to respond to.
anger is scary.
so is reality.

where do you go from here with what's left?

imperatives

"should" is a dirty word. i/you should:

clean up your room, brush your teeth, put away your clothes, save money, get 8 hours of sleep, drink 8 glasses of water, do your laundry, be happy, respect your elders, make your parents proud, do your best, do your homework, do the right thing, tell the truth, eat your greens, think about others, take your vitamins, use moisturizer/sunscreen/floss, pay your bills, get a job, buy a home, grow up, be good to your brother, start a family, change your oil, turn off the lights, wax your car, go to the doctor/dentist/optician/yukky doctor annualy, settle down, make a decision, play nicely, plan, make your bed, share, practice, smile, exercise, turn your mattress, be responsible, listen to your gut, take responsibility, write it down so you don't forget, wash behind your ears, stop biting your nails, wear your retainer, start saving for retirement, go to school, plan for your future.

forgive my trespasses

as a child there are certain things you do, that you know are wrong even when you are in the act of doing them. when we lived in saudi i remember drawing a rather primitive picture of a naked woman (lots of big circley forms) with a friend of mine and putting it in another student's desk. our goal was to get him into trouble, at this point i don't recall that he had actually "done" anything that warranted this plot on our part, however, he was an annoying boy from malta, with lots of freckles, a head full corkscrew curls and he paid far more attention to me than i preferred, especially as i had to be neighbours with him at home as well as school.

there was also the time when we first moved to bahrain and were staying with some very old family friends we had known from the south africa days. their daughter was a few years older than me and had been shipped off to boarding school at aged 13. i got to stay in her room. this resulted in several hours exploring the alien teenage turf of fluorescent orange nail polish, mirrored sunglasses, make-up, and anything else that looked "grown up". for some misdirected version of my own creative grafitti expression i felt compelled to take those bottles of polish and tubes of lipstick and "enhance" her posters of nick kershaw, boy george, madonna and michael jackson. i perceived the additions as so subtle as to be undetectable. many years later i received a letter, which i ignored, asking if i knew who had put make up all over her posters.

looking back, these are all rather trivial incidents. as an adult, the actions that we take, or do not take, tend involve larger consequences than the destruction of property or character in the classroom. they do still affect other people in our lives, and we do still know that they are wrong, even as we engage in them. however, the difference is, these are now people who are important to us, as we are important to them. with confession their is an act of acknowledgement and taking responsibility for trespasses, only now it must be followed not with undoing, but with reparation.