Monday, June 1, 2009

Fits of Unreasonableness

Do you remember being young enough to say 'it's not fair!' and really believe - while you were saying it - that fairness mattered? I truly don't. Being one of the youngest of seven children I don't remember fairness having much to do with anything. Being older and bigger counted for a lot. Being the littlest counted sometimes. I wasn't either of those and I remember realizing at a pretty young age that sometimes you win or get or have, and sometimes you don't and that's the way life worked. I do remember Britt's struggles with fairness, though, and I think of them on days like today when I'm searching for some small measure of balance in a tilted universe.

Most days, I find the balance, usually only in my head and usually only after giving myself a stern talking to along the lines of 'life's not fair, Deb' or 'no one ever promised it was going to be easy.' Some days, though, I just don't feel like lecturing myself and I allow myself to wonder out loud if perhaps the universe doesn't think it's heaped enough huge piles of crap on my head...it has to also do things like make parking near the bookstore impossible while it's storming (I've seriously considered asking my doctor for a handicap tag for my car but I don't think emotional handicaps count) or infest my garden with aphids (really? What's next? Locusts? Hmm?). In the interest of fairness and balance shouldn't I - just occasionally - get a pass? Shouldn't I be able to ask the world in general "Are you KIDDING me?"

Well, of course not. And I know that. If things worked that way, well, life would would be a whole lot different for all of us. So, I don't give in to fits of unreasonableness often, or for long, but I do occasionally have them. I figure I'm owed that much.


4 comments:

Cara dB said...

Yes to everything.

Kaethe said...

What Cara said.

Jesse Wiedinmyer said...

Do you remember being young enough to say 'it's not fair!' and really believe - while you were saying it - that fairness mattered?

Yes, I do. And I still believe that it does. To me, if to no one else. I guess it comes down to the difference between what I expect of others or life and what I expect of myself, though.

Debi Harbuck said...

Jesse, I definitely expect other people to behave with fairness. They don't always, but that doesn't keep me from expecting them to.

The universe as a whole, though? Not so much. I've come to think there's way less Instant Karma than Random Chaos afoot.