Being human isn't supposed to be easy! | auroraborealis's Blog

Doc, you said something to me last night: "I am afraid I can't understand how someone can feel better that way" in response to me letting go of the anger and embracing my feelings for DB.   It's complicated, but I'm going to do my best to explain it here.

Dr. Rieux "...I feel more fellowship with the defeated than with saints.   Heroism and sanctity don't really appeal to me, I imagine.    What interests me is being a man."

Tarrou: "Yes, We're both after the same thing, but I'm less ambitious."

--Albert Camus, "The Plague"

We are in an era of information overload.    The 24 hour news cycle, friending and unfriending.   No one can keep up, there's just too much going on all the time.   Work, kids, family, church, on-line friends, real life friends, will I have a job tomorrow, will I find a job tomorrow, deadlines, committments, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty five days a year.   We are all completely exhausted.    No one has time to really pay attention anymore.   So we simplify.    People are only as good or bad as their last act.    It's easier that way.    But it's wrong, very, very wrong.   It leaves no room for human error and, as humans, erroring is what we do best.   It's how we learn and grow.   Making mistakes is how we become better, more interesting, more educated people.    But making mistakes requires having room and support to make them, and in this fast-paced, ever changing world, who has time for that?

The fact is, and I absolutely know in my heart that this is true, DB is a good person who just whiffed it.    All of the pain and misery I've been going through since January can be summed up in one simple word:  oops.     He's a good person.   I spent a lot of time with him, a whole lot.   I know who he is and what he's about and I know, truly know, that if he had grasped just how sick I really was he never, ever would have treated me that way.    Never.    It sucks, but the truth is, Doc, it was just an oops, plain and simple.

I don't have it in me to reduce people to caricatures to simplify my life.    I am willing to simplify it in lots of ways--I don't have a cell phone, I limit how much I watch TV, I take time out to go walk in the woods to get centered.   I'm willing to simplify my life in many, many ways but I will never, ever reduce a person to black or white because it's easier for me.   It's absolutely wrong.    I've been reduced, I've been simplified, I don't like how it feels and I won't do it to anyone else.

I know DB better than anyone here.    I know what a good person he is.    That's exactly why I fell for him as hard as I did.    I know, absolutely know for a fact that he is a wonderful human being.   But I also know for an absolute fact that he *is* a human being.    Therefore once in a while he's going to get it wrong.   And he got it wrong.   Oops.    The act can be simplified, the person cannot.

Doc, Sweetie, treating people, all people, like they matter is important to me, it's very, very important to me.    Taking the time to treat people with respect means taking time to understand the whole person, not just what's convenient in the moment.   It's hard work, but it's what we're meant to do, it's how we are meant to live.   It's what being human is all about.

Is this making any sense yet?