This morning I read a long message on Facebook from my former student GL who is gay and has had a difficult time of it. I answered him as best I could, but there are things I can't fix. All I can do is listen and sympathize and let him know I care. His parents are divorced and recently each remarried. He feels as if he is extraneous to their lives. He's in a relationship with someone who has cancer, so that's adding to his stress, as are his financial and academic woes.
Then I read my niece's blog, and despite the fact that she said, "Don't worry about me," how can I not worry about her? I wish her life was easier, problem-free. She is so intelligent and sensitive and gifted, yet she's trapped in a blue-collar dead-end life. The ONLY thing that works for people who are as bright as she is is for them to have a rich and fulfilling life of the mind.
I remember feeling as trapped and stunted as Tassina feels right now. One day I'd taken Stephen (he was a few months old) to the doctor for his well-baby check-up. In the waiting room was an extremely negative woman. Like me, she was overweight, looked like she could use a good bath and hair-washing, and like me, she responded sarcastically to everything. With a huge jolt of recognition, I realized that I was much like that woman. Because I despised everything about her, I resolved to be as different from her as I could be. I have not always succeeded, but one thing that helped was this quotation: No one can MAKE anyone else happy. You have to seek happiness from within. That's the only place it exists.
I'm not talking about being a Pollyanna, someone who blithely sing-songs, "Well, it could be worse!" even as she's having her leg chewed off by a pit bull. I'm talking about being responsible for your own happiness. That's one of the reasons I am not a religious person. I've watched so many people waiting for God to "make" them happy that I just want to puke. If God exists, then he's to blame for your life being a giant sucking swamp of misery. Right? If he's the one who can lift your misery, then he's the one who gave you that misery. At any point, a truly omniscient and omnipotent being who was a "loving God" could have stepped in and given us all good lives and the good sense to live them wisely. Apparently, we can't count on that. We make much of our own luck through the decisions we make. Some events happen to us that we can't control, but we CAN control our response to those events, if not totally, then at least partially.
As I prepare (once again) to head South to see the relatives, I am having to remind myself that they can't make me miserable unless I let them. I can smile in the face of their bigotry, ignorance, poverty, and self-induced misery, but I'll be crying on the inside. Some deep part of me wants to "fix" everyone, and I've certainly tried all my life to "fix" my baby sister, but if living nearly six decades has taught me anything, it's that I cannot fix anyone except myself. I'm a hard-enough project, after all. I just have to focus on living my own life in the best way I can live it.
Speaking of things that have changed, my younger son has decided to join us on our trip South. He's flying to Fayetteville tomorrow. Then he's also bought a ticket for his brother to fly back to California with him and help him move his stuff back to Arkansas. His plans are to find a place in Columbia, Missouri, and to become an apprentice to a man he knows who is a silversmith and makes Native American jewelry. I am feeling more hopeful about him than I have in the past, but I won't start planning my celebration just yet. His moods and decisions change with the weather.
My summer has started the downhill phase, and I'm not feeling ready for this luxurious indolence to end. But then, I never do. I want to spend the rest of my life enjoying the flowers that grow in my backyard.
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