Ships, Soap and Sunshine

Recently, I read a quote that was Shared on Facebook that disturbed me.  The skinny of it was that too many people bail out of relationships - be they marriages, family or friends - when the person with whom we are in said relationship shows their true colors during their time of dire need, desperation and despair.  And that we should "serve" and "be" with someone "in spite of their filthy heart."  It then goes on to speak of Love being patient, kind and deliberate, sacrificial and so on.  Then mentioned is recognizing the "darkness" in another person and not following your impulse to "jump ship".  Okay, really?

Now I realize that this author's meaning and how he or she believes and relates to what they wrote is very personal and can be construed in many ways by different people.  I get that.  How we absorb and translate every writing is personal.  For instance, I translate a "filthy heart" and "darkness" as attributes of a person I want nowhere near me. If I discover that an individual chooses not to and/or is incapable of putting some soap and water to their heart and chooses to stay in the dark and not find some sunlight, you're damn straight I'm jumping ship.  That's like choosing to remain on a scurvy-invested vessel instead of hopping on a lifeboat and paddling away.  No matter how difficult.  We can only lend someone a bar of soap and a bucket of water so many times.  We can lead another person to a patch of sun, but we cannot make them bathe in its light.  We can try and teach our family member/friend/lover/spouse/fill-in-the-blank how to scrub and seek out the warm, sunny spots, but we cannot force them to believe they can do it on their own.  I find it challenging enough to do this for myself every day.

The years have delivered me knowledge and realization, with much more to come, of course.  What I do know is surrounding oneself with as much fabulous as you can muster and eliminating that which makes one feel non-fabulous as much as possible has had a tremendous impact within me and my outlook as it comes to this life.  Have I jumped ship prematurely in the past?  I'm sure I have.  Will I do it in the future?  I sure hope not.  Has someone(s) chosen to haul off the Ship Laura?  You betcha.  But I'll tell you one thing, I'll fight a helluva battle before surrendering.  This is a Doing What I Know.

The Wonder Woman Syndrome

I have made great friends with my daughter's Gay-bors.  They are a fantastic couple with whom I plan on being friends forever and ever, Amen.  They have nicknamed me "Wonder Woman" - one reason being that they think I look like Lynda Carter.  The other, because I was beckoned to help Steve move a 175-pound (probably exaggerated, but what the hell) cement pineapple a few weeks ago.  Steve has recently gone through back surgery and in addition to this, is a perfectionist and couldn't stand his pineapple being in the wrong place on the front walk, so he caught me coming in from a run and asked me to move it to its correct location.  So in my sweaty state dressed in running attire, he said, and I quote, "Wonder Woman, you not only LOOK like her, you are also built like a brick-shit-house!"  I'm still not quite sure how to take that, but I suppose I'll lean toward a compliment.

Then yesterday after dropping my vehicle off for a check-up, I decided to walk around instead of sitting in the smelly garage waiting for my car.  As I was traipsing down a busy road, I noticed a bicycler coming my way and moved to the inside of the sidewalk, thinking I was following rules and being polite.  As he continued toward me, he started to aggressively wave me over to the OUTSIDE of the sidewalk right next to the oncoming cars.  I'm sorry, but what the HELL?  In order to avoid being cremated by a car, I simply stepped further to the inside and onto the grass to completely avoid him.  As this lug-head passed me, he asked, and I quote "What the 'F' is wrong with you????"  (To note, he actually used the full usage for 'F'.)  After I dropped my chin off of the sidewalk and popped my eyeballs back into their sockets, I started to contemplate:  did this lug-head see me as Wonder Woman and believe that I had the powers to move over and risk being forced into oncoming traffic, but be capable of reflecting the cars unharmed?  I certainly didn't have on my gold cuff bracelets that afternoon, but maybe he sensed it.  MAYBE he was Superman and he just figured I would see this with my superpowers and intrinsically know that he was on his way to rescue a baby and its mother from the train tracks that were over to the left.  Probably, he's just an everyday lug-head with no manners and a strong case of the pissed-offs.  I'll go with that one.

My stream of thought continued throughout the day and night - do I emit the Wonder Woman vibes so much that people don't realize that I do have a vulnerable side as well?  Is one of the reasons I remain hunk-less because men are afraid of the superpowers that exist in my gold bangle bracelets and that if they tick me off, I will clash them together and throw laser beams into their eyes and burn their retinas or another important part of their body?

All of the women in my life have Wonder Woman-esque qualities - we love, live, defend, protect and leap high buildings.  We move cement pineapples.  But do we show our vulnerability enough to really be known?  Do we give Wonder Woman a chance to sit on the bench and take a break from the game and watch from the sidelines?  And maybe get a mani/pedi while we're sitting there.  I've found a tremendous amount of balance in my life as of late in many silos of life, but I'm beginning to think that this is not one of them.  I'm going to find some Wonder Woman episodes to discover how Lynda aka Diana Prince dealt with the whole situation.  I mean, she had Steve Trevor as her hunk - what were her secrets?  When did she give her vulnerability a chance to shine?

This is a Not Knowing What the Hell I'm Doing.  But I'm gonna figure the damn thing out.