17 December 2011

Don't be a dumbass ALL your life.

Our neighbors are the most generous people I've met in a long time. I call them Nan and Pap, because they are more like family (good family) than neighbors.

Nan just lights up the place, whichever place she happens to be. Pap hides an equally bright spirit under a crusty exterior. I couldn't ask for better neighbors or friends.

When they moved from across the driveway to the slot next door, they saw me struggling with the laundry as I transported it to the laundry room. They told me to take their wagon, which is a really cool industrial type wagon. It made the laundry days so much easier, because I could now transport it all in one trip instead of four or six trips.

Then I got hurt at work a couple of months ago. The week after the injury, I'm limping my way out the door to do laundry, and Pap tells me he can't take it, watching this. I am instructed how to use the golf cart and told never to ask permission, just to take it to do the laundry.

This is hard for me, y'all. Something about my "junkie pride" makes it hard for me to accept help. From anyone. Even though I've been told, and truly believe, that secure people accept help and insecure people don't, I still struggle with accepting help. Something about the disease of addiction wants me alone, because alone I die.

So I fought my way through this bullshit in my mind, and I pretty much just hop on Nan and Pap's cart and get the laundry to the laundry room. In between loads, when all I am doing is switching loads from machine to machine, I walk.

Yesterday, I was walking to the laundry room to grab a load from the dryer and bring it home. Pap's crusty ass saw me, and yelled at me: "Why don't you take the cart? Don't be a dumbass ALL your life!"

Y'all, I almost pissed my pants laughing. I think Pap was afraid he had offended me, because he instantly said "That was tacky, wasn't it?"

I had to assure him that it was funny, because it was true.

Well, it fucking IS true. Why be a dumbass all my life?

Why not just accept that we are none of us alone, and band back together in the real world? If we can band back together over the internet, and learn to love people we have never met face to face, and accept their love and help and support, why can't we do that shit in real life?

So I'm going to quit being a dumbass. Also, I'm going to start doing them the same way they do me. When I ask Pap how much I owe him for the 12 pack of preservatives, I mean diet sodas, he tells me I'm pissing him off. So, I got them a Christmas present. And i'm going to blitz attack on Christmas day, and when they protest, imma tell them to quit pissing me off and "don't be dumbasses all your lives".

Because we are none of us alone.

And isn't that fucking beautiful?

4 comments:

  1. I want neighbors like yours instead of the people upstairs who I swear have a pet basket ball playing elephant.

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  2. Bwa ha haaaaaa! Love it. :)

    "...secure people accept help and insecure people don't..."
    Ouch. Truth hurts-ish. Although I can assure that it might not be the "junkie pride": mine comes from perfectionism and abandonment issues (if I can always do it by myself and never cause anyone any trouble on my behalf, they won't stop loving me and leave me).

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  3. You? Are no dumbass. You pretty much amaze me with how you walk the walk eve five years in. You have a lot of happiness and joy to look forward to with the way you're living your life.

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