When I was in grade school, we had a club at recess that would meet under the pine trees by the driveway. It was a girl’s only -no boys allowed club.
To get into this club you had to either like Joey or Blake. Two cute, outgoing boys in the class. You couldn’t like both, you had to make a choice and then your name got added to the list in one column or the other. Of course, like expected, this list eventually got captured by the boys who had a lot of fun teasing us about it.
I hated my choice because I liked both boys equally but at that age, if I had to choose, my valentine would have been given to Mark, who wasn’t even in my school.
But it was Joey or Blake. Black or white. In or out.
There was no, choose your own path because if you did you couldn’t be in the ‘club’ and of course we all just wanted to be in the club.
All of our life we have had to make decisions. We have had to choose things we might not have wanted to do because they felt like our only option. We’ve all given in or compromised from time to time.
That is, however, until you hit middle age, like myself, and realize that life is dang short and you only get one go around …so you kind of stop caring what other people think as much as you used to.
Today I showed up to school drop off in rain boots (it wasn’t raining but they were easy to slip on), a ball cap, no make-up and I can’t even remember if I had brushed my teeth.
There were many days in my younger years where that would never, ever happen. No way, no how, I would rather die than be caught dead like that… in public… gasp!
I cared too much what other people thought, but now if you asked me what Suzie’s mom wore to drop off today, I would never remember because I have realized that no one cares as much as we think.
I remember an interview I did once for a radio road show crew in my university years. It would have been a dream summer job, driving around in a radio station van, going to cool events and doing live hits on the radio. I was pumped. I put extra care into what I wore that day and recited over and over again all of my answers to the questions I thought they would ask.
I felt I nailed the interview… I walked out of there so proud, only to discover as I passed by the large mirror hanging in the entryway of the radio station, that I had white deodorant all down the back of my black top. We’ve all been there right?! When you put the deodorant on first and then pull the black shirt on and you end up with zebra stripes… yep… well damn, I felt so embarrassed I wanted to cry. How would they have taken me seriously saying I was very detail orientated when I obviously don’t give myself a once over before leaving the house. They didn’t call me back, and to this day I will never know if I just wasn’t right for the job or if they spent the whole afternoon poking fun at me.
I have a book full of stories like that. Embarrassing moments or choices I made that now make me shudder. I’ve messed up, but I’m me.
Last week as social media was blowing up with the Will Smith a Chris Rock debate, I stood back and watched in unfold. People were making a choice, like a Joey or Blake situation all over again and I wasn’t gonna have any part of it.
Truth is like the Joey and Blake days, I didn’t like either one enough to care. I wasn’t prepared to sign my name on one side or the other.
I was dumfounded. I didn’t watch the show live as quite frankly I was on puppy duty and can’t watch TV downstairs as the puppy still has a habit of peeing on the carpet… but I digress… I missed it live, but my social media feeds were filled the next day.
As I thought it out long and hard, here are my two cents…
People mess up.
People are trying to fit in.
People are burnt out.
People are emotionally tapped out.
People make mistakes.
People think with emotion.
People regret things they did.
People are people.
People mess up.
My brother-in-law had alopecia… and my husband and his older brother for sure threw kids down to the ground who made fun of him. Punches were thrown, kids got hoofed and tears ran hard.
They were a family who went to Church on Sunday’s, they were good kids, they just loved their brother enough that they wanted to protect him.
Somehow hurting the kids who made fun of him made them feel better… for a moment.
Until they went home and had to answer to their dad.
I get it.
Imagine being a bald 8-year-old boy who was constantly teased? I’d probably throw a beat down for my brother at that age too. Emotions run high, when the joke isn’t a joke but your reality.
I get it.
I’ve also said things I regret and gotten emotional when I should have just taken a breath and gathered myself. Coming out of two years of Covid, we are all not the same people we went into it as. Lessons have been learned, both good and bad, relationships strengthened or fell apart, loss was had with jobs, loved ones and life itself. It was a lot. One hell of a lot.
I don’t know these two men and although they are public figures, they are humans.
They act for a living and I often wonder if that is hard to turn on and off.
Hitting someone is never okay.
Poking fun and someone’s wife is not okay either.
We excuse a lot because “oh he’s a comedian that’s what he does”, or “oh he’s a public figure and should have known better”.
I agree. I do.
But I see them.
We all mess up.
We all fall down.
I thank my lucky stars my youth wasn’t documented on social media, but nowadays we aren’t so lucky.
We see everything. We take what we want from everything. We form an opinion on everything because we feel we should.
We forget that we mess up too.
We are just lucky cameras are not constantly rolling on our own lives.
I’ve kicked and screamed at my laundry hamper when I tripped over it and then dropped all of the clean laundry to the floor; I probably screamed at it, not because I tripped over it, but because there are one thousand other things I’d rather be doing than laundry, for the seven hundredth time this month, and the unleashing of my emotions came out on the poor hamper.
Every rection comes from so many factors. We can’t climb into someone’s head so why try to dissect it?
Two men messed up.
Empathy has been lost somewhere.
We all feel like we need to judge to fit in.
Like somehow if we point all of our fingers at bad behaviour it will shine a light on our own.
We’ve all over reacted. Heck I’ve had many a meltdown when I’m running late and can’t find my car keys… I turn into a person I am not.
I mess up. I’m human. I bet you do too.
So learn lessons as you go. We now know we will never make fun of someone’s wife or slap someone who does… we’ve also learned in reading this to always check the mirror and do a full 360 before an important job interview and also not to sign our name on a list just because we feel we have to make a choice.
No one is perfect. Find the lesson in it. Move on.
We’ve got this.
@half_full_most_days