"A feast for the eye, a fabulous adventure for the heart and the spirit"
I thought someone said that about my art one time a couple of years ago, but when I confronted them to say thanks, they denied ever writing it and said I was a hack.
I wasn't disappointed, not at all. Disappointment for me is something that first ended in a warm sticky mess in under three minutes and is topped with a sobbing "Sorry for ruining your sweater". Disappointment must be savored like a bowl of Lucky Charms ruined by milk that has soured, you never forget the taste and learn to check dates before pouring another bowlful. I have always tried to learn from disappointment.
"Please Shower Before Entering Pool"
When you see this sign there is a spark of excitement. You think "Cool there is a pool here". The first time I ever got excited to read a sign that stated this was my entry onto the fifth floor at St. Mary's Hospital. It never occurred to me that it was highly unlikely that a small suburban hospital would have a pool on the fifth floor....
....or on the psych ward.
After three days I finally had the nerve to ask a fellow patient, "When do they open the pool?".
The girl laughed at me and told me that another patient put that sign up a month ago. She laughed and laughed while I savored my disappointment. Another valuable lesson learned. There are no pools in life's psych ward.
Is it possible to share one's disappointment? The other day, a friend on Facebook posted how he is "SO ready to take the gloves off with Syria". That is a bold statement coming from someone who likes show tunes and sports a COEXIST bumper sticker on his Prius. When I read his bold post, I felt his disappointment that the man he openly loves and voted into office is going to have fellow humans killed. I'm sure his loud exclamation that he is a fighter and not a lover is his way of welcoming his disappointment in his leaders. While I did indeed feel his disappointment, it was a short and fleeting embrace that ended as soon as another friend posted a cool link to free porn.
Sharing disappointment is best left as a one way street. Always try and savor the disappointments of others and never share your own. The dude that wants to bomb Syria now looks like a bitter fucktard to everyone who tried to tell him that he would be disappointed in his life choices. If you ever get involved in something that disappoints you, bury it and bury it deep. Only unearth it for others to see when no harm can come from it. If you don't bury it, people will use it to cut your fucking throat.
The first time I learned not to share 'fresh' disappointment was during my early teens. I may have been 13 or 14 when I arrived uninvited and unexpected at a friend's house. Well, the kid lived in one of those 'co-op' apartments for poor families. Because of this, I always felt that I was better than him and made fun of his McGregor tennis shoes and Tuff Skin jeans from K-Mart.. I mean, come on, I was not poor as a child and thought his economic predicament was quite amusing.
Well, getting back to my story.
It was a warm afternoon near the end of a seemingly endless summer vacation and I knocked. Ray opened the door and I could tell he had been expecting someone else. He invited me in. Ray's mother worked afternoons and there was never a sitter to watch him and his slightly younger and very hot sister, so I wasn't that surprised to see her and 3 other teens in his living room smoking cigarettes. I had a big crush on her and she looked so fucking hot smoking a Newport in her tight blue nylon running shorts with white piping. She giggled and said "Hello, Topher". Ray then interrupted my dizzyingly hormonal buzz with a short statement, "There are some girls and guys coming over in a minute. We are gonna make out".
For exactly half a second, I could feel every hormone in my early teenaged body rush to my genitals.
Then came the crash.
"You can stick around, but you wont get any", Ray stated with a certain cold fact.
Ray could see my disappointment like a 500 watt halogen light bulb from three feet away.Through a hormone fueled haze, I remember telling him that I had to get home anyways for dinner. I swear I heard laughter as the door closed behind me.
A few weeks later middle school started I swear to God that Ray told everyone about that summer afternoon I was not invited to partake in my first teen-aged love fest. He got me back for every one of my "Your mom shops at Salvation Army" jokes. In his own way, Ray reminded me that I would never be welcome at the cool kid's table in the lunch room of life and that my disappointment in learning this fact tasted as sweet, to him, as free cotton candy at a county fair.
It took a couple of years for me to realize that my disappointment had fertilized the joy of others. I still roll that summer afternoon through my head trying to think of snappy comebacks to hide my own crushing disappointment. To this day, I use that day to help me maneuver through my constant and daily disappointments. That day is like a aged numbed scar from a dog bite that never healed right and reminds you to never pet strange dogs.
Remember, if life was never disappointing we would never be reminded to shower before entering the pool.
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