Since Last We Left Our Intrepid Blogger...

The last month has blown. In a life of occassionally blowy months. This one has been one of the blowiest. I'm tired of the people that tell me that things will work out... and that at least I have my health... and that there are many people that are worse off than me. No fucking dah. I am accutely aware of how good I have it, during my times of blowiness. And yes... I know it will work out in the long run. Key word being "long". Why do we feel the need to address the whiney trauma-ists in life with these platitudes? Most of us are used to the roller coaster. We've been down. We've been up. We know the score and the game and the best we can come up with is "things will work out"? Of course, we feel bad. And of course, we feel helpless when talking to people in the middle of a down stretch. So we fall back on the easy answers. Because silence just seems silly and embarrassing.

On the flip side of blowiness... are a few people who actually seem to care. This surprises me. Because, at heart, I know that I care. But I'm so jaded at this point that I assume everyone else is just pretending. Why do we do that? Assume that no one else really cares. I mean, I suppose that life teaches us all sorts of lessons regarding this. One is that... no one likes a whiner. But everyone likes a winner. And so we all hide it away and say "everything is GREAT." Which really means "things are so f-ed up that all I have left is this fake smile." And we smile and see all around us the same facades in all the faces we meet.

I met a women once and we had many deep conversations about this and that. Very deep. I was fourteen or fifteen. She was more than twice my age. I'm sure now I had a huge crush on her. But at the time it was all about the deep conversations we had about things. We talked about this exact thing. About the surface platitudes that we share with those around us that we only ever know on a surface level. We made a pact that we would always ask each other how we REALLY were. And we would mean without all the covering crap. I grew up and we moved on and we talk every decade or so now. And when we see each other we ask each other how we REALLY are. And we laugh. And then we provide each other with a load of platitudes.

Because no one really likes a whiner.