George Costanza once commented on
women crying. He talked about it was like they are on fire and you are just
panicking and trying to put them out. That is what I felt this weekend when I
chanced into the pharmacy at the wrong time.
Kimber Caskey was using that rather isolated
place to have a small emotional breakdown and I came in right in the middle of
it. I didn’t know whether to run away or stay, touch her or not, speak or
listen. I just wanted some ibuprofen and walked smacked dab into the buzz saw.
It took me a second to get my bearings but then I did what I am somewhat known
for amongst the group.
I sat down beside her and gave her the
nonthreatening/nonsexual/hip-to-hip hug where you can put your arm around
someone. At first, I didn’t say much and let her cry. We did that gentle
rocking back and forth sway that seems to be soothing. Then I just let her open
up as much as she felt she needed to.
She wanted to be married. She wanted
to have kids. She just wanted a job and to pay bills. She wanted all those
things that we used to dread or took for granted. She wanted to bring “him a
beer as he watched football on TV.” She wanted parent teacher conferences and
opening her W2 to plug into the tax program on the internet. She wanted to
watch those dancing competition shows and flannel pajamas and eating too much
turkey on Thanksgiving.
I couldn’t fault her for what she
wanted. Maybe it is all those little things that seem so inconsequential at the
time are what truly define us as human beings. Sure, you could go through and
paint me (or anyone with broad strokes). Late thirties, white male, separated,
one kid.
That seems like tombstone stuff. It
may be how the world sees us but I would say that is not who we really are as
people. The things that Kimber wanted, isn’t that what defines us as people?
Can you better identity who a person
is based on the films they like or the TV shows they watch? By what music they
listen to or what books they read? If that is true, Kimber wanted to be
someone’s wife, someone’s mother, who worked steady at a job and would be
content and happy to have a little house with a lawn and a picket fence. That’s
a good person. That is a person worth being.
But can any of us get that back?
Will any of us live normal lives
again? Does it do us good to dwell on such things? Or is it best to just let
that old life go and live in the here and now?
The problem if that if we all just
accept that this is how the world is now, then what are we fighting for? Are we
doing all this to get back to a normal life?
Questions for too intense for a
produce clerk from Adair, Oklahoma.
