Pork wrap

I was so upset, I could feel my heart pounding in my neck.  Maybe I’m over-reacting, but it made me question everything – the entire relationship. 

He definitely had a hard day — it rained and he had been soaked for hours. The 9:30pm bedtime was long past and he arrived home just before 11pm, knowing he would have to get up for work again in 5 hours.  Shitty – I agree.  I did what I could to make it easier.  I packed his bag for the next day, as he had planned to stay overnight Thursday to avoid the 3 hour drive home.  I made his lunch and laid out his clothes.

When he walked in the door, I was in bed, but I was awake and the TV was still on.  I said hello and I received a pathetic “hi” back.  There was silence as he peeled off his soaked boots and coveralls.  That’s when he said it… as he walked by the bedroom door, he asked, without stopping or looking at me, “Could you make me a pork wrap, please?”. 

I know, I know — not the devasting comment you were probably expecting, given how horrible I’ve made this sound.  It may be a small comment, but it’s led me to seriously question things. 

He then made his way through the kitchen on his way to the bathroom for a shower.  Let me explain what “making a pork wrap” entails. 
Step 1.) Take the pork wrap out of the freezer.
Step 2.) Remove the plastic and place on plate.
Step. 3.) Microwave for 2min.
VOILA!

I could not even believe that the man I’ve been dating for 1.5 years just asked me to get out of bed to do something that would have taken him 30 seconds to do himself.  If he had needed some help in order to get ready for the next morning or to get to bed as quick as possible I wouldn’t have flinched… I would have helped in an instant.  But the fact that he had no issue with asking me to get out of bed to do something so easy, when he was already IN THE KITCHEN… I was just completely insulted.  And a weak apology has done nothing to calm my emotions.

It was one of those moments where you question the kind of person you’re with.  Are you with the kind of person who will do as much or MORE for you as you do for them? Are you with the kind of person who goes out of their way to make your life easier and more enjoyable? Are you with the kind of person who would give you the window seat on the plane?

Or… are you with the kind of person who will ask you to get out of bed to make a pork wrap? 

There’s something to think about.

Empathy

I read a quote about empathy from a website that I can’t recall at the moment.  It referred to a story about a group of aliens came to earth (I know, I know — lame plot).  It was soon discovered that one of the differences between these aliens and humans was that the aliens actually FELT the feelings of others.  For example, if they said something hurtful to someone, they would, themselves, feel the hurt they inflicted on the other.  And the alien they hurt would know this — that their pain was shared by the other alien(s).  When the aliens realized that humans did not share this characteristic, they looked sympathetically towards us and gently stated “How lonely you all must feel.”.

How lonely we all must feel.

How lonely we must feel to know that our feelings — our pain and sadness — are ours and ours alone.  How lonely we must feel to know that no one can truly understand how their actions and words affect us.  How lonely we must feel.

Stop to think for a minute — imagine a world where we could FEEL what others felt.   Do you think high school shootings would be common? Do you think people would bully other people? Would we have to worry about terrorism or war? Would we have to try so hard to protect our hearts from being broken? Would we all not treat each other with kindness and respect? Wouldn’t there be much more happiness for everyone to share?

It is a shame that humans weren’t “built” a little differently…

how lonely we all must feel.

Men vs. women (part I)

As usual, my alarm went off at 4:30am this morning.  I woke him up and got out of bed.  As usual, he rolled over into my warm spot and proceeded to go back to sleep… if he was even really awake to begin with.

I do this every weekday morning. I get up three hours earlier than I have to, in order to get him out of bed, make him breakfast and lunch and see him out the door around 5:15am. 

Other people have asked me more than once why I do this. Why don’t I just make his lunch the night before and nudge him in the morning instead of getting up with him? To that, my response is: GOOD QUESTION!

In all seriousness, though, it’s just not an option for me.  I can’t just stay in bed knowing that my sweetie is in terrible agony because he is getting up for work at 4:30am.  You would understand if you could seen him at that hour. 
Have you ever seen someone so pathetic and miserable that it gave you physical pain to watch them? You just want to do whatever is in your power to ease their suffering? I know I’m being over-dramatic… there are much worse things in the world than having to get up at 4:30am — REALLY, there are! But I need to be up with him at that ridiculous hour to do whatever I can to make it easier for him. And I think just having the company makes it that much more tolerable to be awake.

Here comes the punch line. I KNOW he wouldn’t be doing the same for me if our situations were reversed. It has happened that I’ve had to work when he did not and he didn’t even get up with me at 7am to help me with my morning.

This is what it has taken for me to realize one of the most important lessons about men that I will ever learn (and forgive me for the generalization, please):
Men are not empathetic - or, at least, they are significantly less empathetic than women. 

I do not mean that there isn’t a single man that is more empathetic than a woman, I just mean GENERALLY, men don’t feel for someone else’s suffering to the same extent that women do. Please understand that I speak from my experience, which is, of course, restricted to a small subset of the male population. It could be skewed. I could just be hanging out with a non-random sample of un-empathetic males.
However, I highly doubt it. 

And so begins my not-so-deep thoughts regarding empathy.  Stay tuned…

Only 50 years left…

My father usually has great advice. He’s the person I turn to when I want someone to be open minded, yet honest with me about things.

Recently, I had a conversation with my Dad regarding the state of the world. I voiced my disapproval of people bringing children into the world because they do it for selfish reasons and there really is no need for more people in this world. I mentioned other thoughts I had on pollution and our unsustainable lifestyles. It was generally an altogether depressing conversation.

His advice surprised me. He didn’t try to encourage me by reassuring me that we can make a difference. He didn’t tell me that every effort helps. He simply told me “Oh Linz… don’t worry about all that stuff — you only have 50 years left.  Just enjoy your life!” 

Is he right? Are people who try to “make a difference” just decreasing the quality of their lives and making sacrifices that ultimately achieve nothing?
Perhaps more depressing than the idea that the human race is doomed to continue to self distruct — I only have 50 years left! And that’s if I’m lucky.

I’ve been taking life for granted for as long as I can remember… I always long for something better than what I have. “If I could just get to there, THEN I’d be happy!” The only problem with that is, I’ve reached there more than once and I’m not happy yet.

Fairy tale

He recently informed me that my life thus far has been a fairy tale. His exact words were “You realize you were living a fairy tale life?”. The comment was in response to mine – “So this is what my life has become?”.

There is it is then. The best of my life is over and I should just come to terms with that and be complacent with what my life has become.  I have to question if he’s right. Or perhaps we’ve just grown up in such dissimilar worlds that we’ll never understand each other… a depressing thought, to say the least. 
I know he loves me… but is that enough?