Though in my head, I'm pretty optimistic and try to look at things through the eyes of a 40's musical heroine, outside of my head and through my eyes, I'm not blind to the fact that I'm actually rather prickly, neurotic, sometimes insecure, bitter, and down right AWFUL. But that doesn't stop me (see, that's where the musical heroine comes in.). I really began to go through the roll-index of crazy, ridiculous, horrifying, scary, miserable, untimely, tragic, and ultimately destructive shit that has happened in my life. Then, my mind immediately went to all of the funny, sappy, adorable, lovely, flattering, RIDICULOUS things that have happened in my life. And every single one of those things came to mind in the form of a person.
I've been told (by more than an appropriate number of people) that I just appeared in the world fully formed. It's as if I've always been a hundred years old. Which, yes, has been used as both an insult and a compliment when calling me an "old soul". And I can't really argue. I agree with that explanation of the way I seem to be and have always seemed to feel. The thing is, "coming into the world" that way makes it kind of hard to find "your people". Who could possibly identify with that or want to deal with it? You come with your own set of rules written in a language that NO ONE (not even you) understands. However, I've been very spoiled because, even though I've tried, I never really found my people. They've all found me. I've been lucky enough to know and encounter some of the most colorful, interesting, diverse people there are in the last 20-something years that I can't imagine there are more out there! But there are. And weather "my people" have known me since the day I was born, or just randomly walked into my life and became my family, they're MY people and they seem to be in that incoherent little rule book in plain sight. To truly not "need" people (yes, I'm going all Barbra on your asses) to me, is tragic. Loneliness is the worst feeling in the world. I can't say that I'll never be lonely again or that I won't have moments and lapses where I truly do feel alone, but, even though I make it a rule for myself and anyone I know to NEVER apologize for feelings, I want to sincerely apologize to my people who, you guessed it...have made me one of the luckiest people in the world. Yeah, I just went there. How predictable.
I'm glad that all of my baggage comes with an individual luggage tag signed in different handwriting. I probably seem completely unchanged on the outside, but, what was once in this technicolor, withered- before- it's- time shell of what resembles a human, is considerably changed from what was there when it appeared in a world that seemed black and white. And as saccharine as it sounds, that really is what I'm thankful for. In case you missed all of the idiotic metaphors and song lyrics, it's people. I'm thankful for people.
I'm not going to start caring about orphans or planting trees in Israel any time soon, but I really do thank everyone who has been there in any way to either delight or irritate me in the last two to three hundred decades. The best of them usually do both at the same time.
Thanks, Kids.
"Hunger and thirst, but first be a person who needs people..."
