I awoke early this morning (damn Daylight Standard Time) with the following Tweetable thought (though I haven't counted characters):
"There are two kinds of people in the world -- those waiting in line, trying to decide what they want and those waiting in line to pick up their orders." There are any number of things wrong with that construct, not least of all that I absolutely abhor "there are two kinds of people" statements (while my job often involves cataloging information, when people start putting themselves and others into boxes --whether Zodiac or Myers-Briggs -- they dangerously start excusing or justifying choices as innate behavior) It also completely ignores the third kind of people in the scene -- those making the sandwiches (yes, in my mind, this little play is performed in a deli). So much for my drooling subconscious mind. That reminds me, Jamie and I went out for lunch this week, and I had a really nice Rachel (turkey on rye toast with cheese, coleslaw, and Thousand Island dressing).
Our topic at support group this week was surviving the holidays (insert shameless plug for 50/50 raffle here). As usual, that really means finding strategies to survive the holidays. Of course, it's a joyous time of thanks, family, friends, and food. But it also often devolves into a frenzy of trying to please everyone.
Our conversation also wandered (they often wander) into the territory of conscientiously choosing how we spend our time and with whom. One woman's awesome strategy is to take advantage of the right-side neglect caused by her car accident and stroke by sitting to the left of people she doesn't particularly care to engage with.
While I can't shut people out (my left-side neglect cleared relatively early on), I have been fairly selective of late as to where I expend my limited social energy. I spoke about this in great detail last night with one of my new best friends and life coach (I'll call her Coach, since she was looking for a nickname anyway). Have I ever told you my theory that John Fogerty's "Centerfield" is actually about him wanting to be middle class again (Is the lyric, "Put me in, Coach" or, "Put me in Coach"[as in, flying Coach]?)?
Coach revels in peeling people's onions, and I don't think it's because she masochistically craves the tears. She could easily peel her own onion for that. She's just a sandwich maker at heart.
Back in the deli, I'm still very much making up my mind and simultaneously waiting for my order (which I'm preparing for myself). I have to move past Ken 1.0. Me 2.0 is still very much a work in progress and at times too weighed down by my previous incarnation (who may or may not be a figment of my imagination -- unless I'm a figment of his). Coach and I whittled away at my psyche until we got to the gooey, somewhat-senseless core of survivor's guilt, which in my case translates into the sense (sometimes) that what's happened to me has hurt my friends and family similarly to the consequences of actually dying on the operating table. No, that's not the same as saying I'm as useless alive as dead. I'm saying that once in awhile it feels that way and that damage has been done. Not irreparable damage, mind you, because I'm very much alive. And intellectually, I know that I am not at fault. But guilt is not intellectual.
And I'm ready for something tasty now. Hold the onions.
My favorite punctuation mark is the semicolon. And it's an apt metaphor for recent years of my life: it's more than a comma pause, not quite a period stop; it usually appears in the middle of a sentence; no one quite knows how to use it properly; it's a sigh of contemplation; a knowing wink; an upward glance of reflection.
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