SPECTRUMS

When I was a little kid, even before I had all my grown up teeth, I believed in love. In the most innocent way, wide-eyed and naïve… I believed. 

But then in the third grade, I learned a hard lesson.  There was a boy in school who was often picked on by other kids.  He was a little awkward sure, but that is no reason to tease the poor guy.  So I decided, much like a super hero would, that I could fix it.  I was popular in school and got along with everyone. I imagined that somehow, people would treat him better if they associated us to be friends. So, I began to say hi to him everyday in class. I would make jokes with him and trade snacks from our sack lunches.  Before I knew it, everyone was noticing.  And it felt good.

Then one day, this boy came to school with a bunch of yellow daffodils that were wrapped in a damp paper towel and crinkled foil.  He asked me to be his girlfriend.  It was a truly awful moment. I thought, Oh God what have I done?  All this time, I was just trying to give the guy a break and now he wanted more than I had ever intended. 

Well, I thought that the kindest thing to do was to accept his offer.  I went home that afternoon with the sinking feeling in my stomach that this wasn’t going to work out very well.  When my dad got home from the office that night I decided to discuss the situation with him.  My dad was the smartest guy I knew and at the very least, I thought he would be really proud of me for being such a nice girl. 

I explained the situation to him. Then my dad took a long pause and finally said, “Honey, it’s nice that you wanted to include him and make him feel special, but you shouldn’t be someone’s girlfriend just because you feel sorry for him.”

Oh crap.  I knew what I had to do.  The very next day, I broke up with him.  I was nice about it, and probably said something like, it’s not you it’s me.

From that day on, people were a little nicer to him, but not completely.  And I realized that this whole business of love was actually pretty complicated.  I just wanted people to be nicer to him and somehow, in the end, I fear that I may have hurt his feelings far more than anyone else had. Furthermore, I realized that I put myself into a very awkward situation simply out of the desire to manage how other people treated this boy.

Some time has passed since the third grade; I am a big girl now with all of my grown up teeth. I am not quite as wide-eyed and naive as I was back then.  But I still believe in love.

See, it was from a place of love that I sought to help this boy gain acceptance from our peers.  I thought I could make his world a better place by treating him equally. 

Maybe the entire situation didn’t unfold exactly as I had hoped it would.  But I did learn a little something about creating a healthy relationship with myself as well as with others and how important it is to protect and create personal boundaries.

But just as important as it is to protect your heart, it is probably equally, if not more important, to figure out how to keep it open.

I love people: the whole spectrum.  And it is unfortunate that so many people are picked on throughout the course of their entire lives. Most of the time, they are picked on for being different. But are we not all very different??

I cannot pretend to know or understand what it is like to walk in your shoes. And you cannot possibly pretend to know all the quirks and kinks in my laces either.  But if you try to keep an open mind, and an open heart, you may be lucky enough to have a full spectrum of love in your life.  Love in Technicolor and an entire treasury of friends.  

Today:

Raspberry Lemonade

Stoli Razz 

Lemonade 

Build on the rocks.

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Safe and Sound by Capital Cities