Do I Know You?

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blogging, existential crisis, humor, insanitybytes22, life

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I wasn’t going to write about my troubles because,  how very boring, right? Besides, there are much more exciting things going on in the world, sexy halftime shows, the SOTU address and some torn papers, scandal here, corruption there. etc, etc. But than I thought, perhaps we all need a break from such Big Happenings, perhaps there is some value in the mundane and ordinary, the darkly humorous and simple?

It occurs to me that my life can really be summed up in one literal translation, one material truth. I have a BMW, a few hundred thousand miles on it, probably  burns more oil than gas, but still a BMW, and a rather nice car. Of course, most of the doors don’t open. Need to get that fixed someday.  So I am the woman in the BMW often performing elegant agility tests, by climbing in through the back or even the sunroof on occasion. I really am way too old for this crap, or perhaps not, perhaps this is just my modern workout program.

Anyway, that is my whole life in a nutshell, I have it all together but it won’t quite stay together. I get it all figured out and I can’t quite remember where I put it. I got 90% of my life held together with duct tape and super glue and something is always coming loose at the seams.

Naturally when life is crazy, I always seem to get that straw that breaks the camel’s back, so like called to jury duty. I live in a small town, the 9th circuit of hell, so this is pretty common. Ridiculous too, because I know everybody. I mean absolutely everybody. Conversely, can you ever really know someone?  If you could, we would never need to have jury trials in the first place, right?

Since I live in the 9th circuit of hell, a fact that will permanently damage your psyche all by itself, having a perpetual existential crisis  is really normal. Hence I spent the entire day in voir dire, which literally means “see-say.”  In this context however, we are speaking of  jury selection.

So during see-say I got to ponder the question, do you know me? Ha! Well, not in a biblical way. Not intimately. Define this kind of “knowing” you speak of? Wait….can anyone ever really “know” somebody? I don’t even “know” how to answer that….

Half the time I am in trouble for not acknowledging someone. I have hurt someone’s  feelings or offended them. The other half of the time, it is just grace, mercy, good manners, that leads me to NOT acknowledge you. Like, sure I know you. And it wasn’t good. Either way, somebody is going to be sure I’m doing it all wrong, while taking absolutely no initiative themselves. 

You’ll be well pleased to know that neither side really wanted me. The only people out of there faster, were claiming to have a dreaded disease and being at risk of projectile vomiting. I regret not being clever enough to have thought of that one.  Of course, it still took an astounding number of hours for them to figure it out. I am simply the woman who really could not or would not answer a yes or no question with a yes or no if I tried. If I like you I’ll probably just say, “Well, it’s complicated” and leave it at that.

Trust me, it really is complicated.

If I’m not too concerned about your feelings, or our future relationship, I’ll risk telling you the whole story. Of course, there’s a 90% chance you won’t believe me anyway. I’m really grateful for some people in this neck of the woods that just engage in subversive satire, snark, and hyperbole. Thank goodness, because that means there is  somebody even crazier than me who actually gets it.

The system here stinks, I mean it absolutely stinks. I used to think it was just me, because it’s always just me, right? It is so not me at all. It just stinks.

There is of course a lot more going on in my world then I even  talk about, more then I write about. I often have this compulsive need to protect the guilty, to defend their right to privacy, to spin elaborate excuses for them, to rationalize some really poor behavior. I probably should have become a public defender. I’m really good at it. Too good.

Which brings me to my final conclusion, and my reason for celebration. It is so not me. And I just refuse to pick it up anymore. I am doing my best, my best is obviously not good enough, and yet whose best ever is? I mean, really.

 

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