Humanity

After the neighbors across the street moved away, a new couple moved in. I do not remember anything about the family that moved away, because I was so young.

I do remember the couple that moved in.

They lived across the street, until I was long grown and gone from my parent’s home.

We were forbidden to run across their manicured lawn. They did not have any children. However, they always kept their eyes on the children on our street, and never hesitated to call our parents if they were worried or disapproved of our behavior.

Yeah, my parents were called a few times (kissing underneath the only streetlight on our street – teenagers have mushy brains).

Many people on our street had the nastiest attitudes and words for that couple. My mother and our next-door-neighbor lady, were always trying to include and defend that couple with our neighbors.

But, the couple knew they were outcasts from the general neighborhood.

As a child, I found this completely confusing.

To me that couple seemed to have happily and contentedly figured out an answer to what seemed to be, a very difficult issue in our Midwestern white middle-class suburban culture.

Whenever the mommies gathered, there were a million complaints about their husbands, typically rounding out with a unanimous disgusted, “ugh, MEN!” sigh.

Whenever we were left in the care of our daddies babysitting (showing my age here, GenX all the way!), there were a million complaints about their wives, typically rounding out with a unanimous disgusted, “ugh, WOMEN!” sigh.

To me it seemed like the couple across the street had magically figured out how to smooth all of those issues out by finding each other.

This couple were together for over 60 years,

when they unexpectedly died within a month of each other.

I annoyed the hell out of them.

I thought they were great.

I was given some of their furniture they wanted me to have when they died.

I still have it.

Mr. Mike and Mr. Paul

Trailblazers for normality of consensual humans humaning

Coming out day is today.

Humanizing {{{hugs}}} all around

Love, Ms. Herisme xo

Single, White, Unemployed, Fuller, Female. Has ridden a camel in the desert and an amateur understanding of Brexit. Enjoys water, weather and world stuffs. Seeking.

I am not sure what I am seeking.

It’s difficult to imagine putting any of my requests out into the universe. I have done that before and it sure as F did not work out the way I imagined.

I currently tend to take each moment as it presents itself.

Oh, we’re doing this now, with a basketball and a can of sardines?

Sure. Absolutely.

I call the fork, you may have the crackers and first shot.

At a friend’s home for a dinner party (kids outside running wild with snack bags and flashlights, grown-ups inside with wild conversation), the topic of online dating comes up.

I am not online/inline/ftf dating, so I listen in. Also, again, awkward introvert here.

A lovely woman (not sarcastically lovely, she is lovely), begins telling the tales of her awesome brother’s online dating dramas. A paraphrased part of the conversation:

LW (Lovely Woman): You just would not believe the women my brother has met. It’s ridiculous how many women are out there, just waiting for any meager bit of attention. My brother strikes up conversations, everything seems to be going well, and then inevitably these women turn out to be bat-sh!t crazy. They have had horrible divorces, been abused, abandoned or have crazy ex’s who are going to kill them or kill anyone who dates them. I just don’t know how he is going to meet anyone normal on those sites. These women are crazy.

Me: (in my brain) Holy f’in sh!t. That is me. (reality moment) If I were online dating, I would totally be the crazy woman. Man, my situation is uniquely messed up. Yet, somehow also universal.

How is it that there are so many of us? What the heck is going on? Clearly we are capable of some level of intelligence – as evidenced by our ability to use a computer. Yet. There we are. And there are a lot of us, apparently.

Come to think of it, out of 8 roommates through my college years, 4 of us have been victims of sexual abuse as a child or as an adult. Possibly more of us, but I am not personally aware of abuse with the other women.

50% of my college roommates understand abuse from personal experience

Wowza

How can this be true, and then we all feel so shocked, outraged and horrified that women/girls/men/boys are abused every day throughout the world?

Are we entirely unaware that our people are no different than their people?

It doesn’t matter if you are living with a precarious religious regime, famine area, 1000+ year-old culture of castes, democratic state, autocratic state, monarchy, dictatorship, military control, suffering natural disasters, 1200BC, 1200AD, 1800AD, 2016AD, you will easily find humans overtly abusing other humans.

Even in our smug part of the world.

Power and control. Humanity being itself.

It sure is taking us a long time as a species to learn how to move beyond punching or raping someone as a means of dominance and compliance. We cannot even agree in our country, in our state, in our school, that a child touching another child in a way they do not want to be touched, is a serious problem.

We “teach” about bullying with our words, but our actions do not reflect what we are saying to our children. It’s always happening somewhere else, or it’s just children playing, or that guy deserved to be cut-off and flipped off because he pulled out in front of me, or she/he was asking for it so I smacked them in the face, etc.

Please let us stop not talking about this.

How do we allow for complete emotions, in a healthy manner?

How are we role-modeling for our children (even mistakes)?

How are we teaching our children to express themselves? To protect themselves?

To empathize with each other?

I do hope and pray that this truly is a time of enlightenment in human history, which will allow space for such a complete shift in motivations and actions, that abuse of another human seems unreal to future generations.

The news is daunting on that front.

Perhaps we can take heart that universal conversations,

now started,

like the toothpaste out of a tube,

cannot be stuffed back in.

With the instant connections and ability to humanize each other’s stories, empathize, sympathize and hold space for each other’s souls, maybe, maybe, maybe… treating each other with kindness, respect and consideration, is what I am seeking.

Love, admittedly optimistic, possibly naïve, Ms Herisme xo

HERISME

Goddess of Can You Believe this Sh!t

Couple Out

SWUFF