Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Are you a loner or just lonely because you can’t find people that you click with, that is the question. They are now classifying the gunman at Sandy Hook as “a loner”. I heard a “talking head” the other day say that the young men who committed such crimes as Columbine, Aurora and now Sandy Hook, the thing they have in common was that they were not loners by choice; that the difference between these young men and others who choose to isolate themselves was that these young men tried to fit in and were shunned by their peer group. Hurt and isolated they began to formulate a plan that would get them noticed. Angry because they didn’t fit in, they choose notoriety over being a “loser” who had no friends.

This situation and the people talking about it on our never ending 24/7 news cycle has provoked me to think of my own life and my own situation.

As a child, I was always alone in my family. Divorced parents, my brother sent away by my mother when I was only five, being raised by a mother who had no interest in me at all, I turned to people on the outside of my family. I also turned to my extended family, my grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins who were around my age. I found acceptance through them; I found happiness; companionship and I didn’t feel so alone.  But this pattern of turning to whoever was there at the time to ease my loneliness was to follow me my whole life and on many occasions has gotten me into trouble, physically, emotionally and mentally.  But I didn’t want to be alone, or more accurately, I didn’t want to feel alone.

I believe every person on this hunk of rock has felt the pain of loneliness at times in our lives. It’s how we handle it that makes the difference in each one of us. On one side of the extreme you have someone who took an assault weapon and killed 20 little children and on the other a person who calls someone over and over not because they are actually interested in a relationship in real life but because it makes them feel less “alone”. I fall somewhere in the middle I think. Because I’ve been alone most of my life, I’m not only used to it, I prefer it. I can pick and choose who I want to be with and when I want to be with them. I answer to no one which some might say is a lonely existence, however if you’ve ever been in a marriage that wasn’t good, you’ll know that this existence is a relief and is much better than being at the mercy of someone else’s whims.  

The easiest way to overcome loneliness is to share, really share who you are, with another person who genuinely cares and has your best interests at heart. I have never had a problem with this. I am not afraid to share who I am with anyone, flaws and all. There have been some people in my life who have not understood; who either used my sharing against me or used it to try and convince me that they actually cared when in reality, they did not, they were just trying to assuage their own feelings of loneliness. Like anyone else who’s had this done to them, of course I’ve been hurt by this kind of behavior but it will not change who I am. I will continue to share myself with my base of friends and family that I know genuinely care about me and the ones who have used me for their own purposes, known or unknown, will get thrown by the wayside as they always have in the past. Those who don’t care will be forgotten. When I was working in a bar in the 80’s, a very wise older Jewish gentleman once told me, “Don’t waste your time caring about people who don’t care about you”.   

Tomorrow is the first day of a new year, 2013. For me it is not a continuation of the old year, but a new beginning. My strength, respect for myself, respect for others who deserve it and my love for the world and all the possibilities it holds has carried me through to this place. The old has no place in this New Year. The people from my past who have treated me badly have no place in this New Year. They became my past for a reason. They had no respect for me, my feelings, my desires, my time and didn’t appreciate the love I gave to them. So as it always has been before I will continue on my own; happy that I answer to no one; filled with the possibilities of the things I can accomplish in this new year; safe in the knowledge that I’m strong; loving those who love me properly in return.

Happy New Year Everyone!  L’Shana Tova

Fight or Flight

In the wake of the Connecticut tragedy, I’m reminded of my own childhood and my elementary school, Glenmont Elementary. In those days we performed drills as well, just like the kids did at Sandy Hook Elementary, but for a different reason. You see, I was raised in the cold war era, where the threat was a nuclear attack and so on drill days, we were told to get under our desks, the classroom door was locked, the windows locked and the shades pulled down, the classroom lights were turned off, just like at Sandy Hook. In my young mind, the thought of a gunman coming into my classroom and shooting my teacher, my classmates, would have been unfathomable.  My Kindergarten class picture sits on my bookshelf. The Year? 1964. How times have changed.

One of the little boys in the classroom in Connecticut where the gunman burst into the room and shot first his teacher and then started riddling his classmates with bullets, got up and ran right past the gunman, out into the hall, then through the shot out front door of the school and to safety. Fight or flight. This little boy knew to run, run like the wind, run like the devil was chasing him and was just about to catch him. I cannot imagine what was going through this little boy’s mind as he left his classmates behind to be slaughtered by a crazed gunman hell bent on destroying the lives of children, teachers, families and a community and then destroying himself but I’m thinking this scene and his flight from it will haunt him the rest of his life.  He will feel guilt, shame, sadness like none of us has ever known. I hope that over time, this little boy will come to realize that he was a child and there is nothing else a child can or should do in that situation but run; run to safety; run to live another day because a child that young has his whole life ahead of him. He could become president, he could become a great psychiatrist, he could be the person that solves the problems of the world and so he should run; run for his life and the life of others.

This brings to mind something I heard recently. The system in our bodies that gives us warnings is called the Adrenal system. This system reacts to stress by releasing hormones that makes us alert and reactive. One of the problems with this system though is that it doesn’t know the difference between just a regular case of nerves and a real impending disaster.   

The body can’t tell what are nerves and excitement, panic and doubt, the beginning and the end. The body just tells you to get the hell out. Sometimes you ignore it, which in many cases is the reasonable thing to do. In most situations in life most of us are not faced with a life or death situation and so we train ourselves to ignore the panic, ignore the doubt and carry on. But sometimes, we listen. You’re supposed to trust your gut, right? When your body tells you to run….run.

Something must be done, now! We can no longer as a society stand by and watch our children, teenagers, parents, friends, family, teachers be gunned down by crazed madmen with assault weapons. We are better than this. The issue must be looked at as a whole. Yes, it is a difficult one. Yes, there are people on both sides of the issue of gun control but we have to, as “reasonable” people on both sides of the issue realize that there is no reason that makes any sense at all for a normal person in our society to have weapons of military grade that belong in a war theater, in the hands of our people on the streets. No one shoots a deer with an AK47 automatic rifle. No one shoots a bird with a Glock 9. These weapons were designed for one purpose and one purpose only. Massive killing of human beings. We as a society have to put our collective feet down to the gun manufacturers who are in bed with the gun lobby in congress and shout “NO, YOU CANNOT MAKE ANY MORE MONEY OFF THE KILLING OF INNOCENT CHILDREN AND ADULTS IN OUR COUNTRY”. We have to hold our congress people’s feet to the fire and shout “DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS, NOW!” Now is the time for us to have all the conversations surrounding this issue; from gun control to the mental health system to the security of our schools where children are supposed to be safe. Actually, the time to have had these conversations was BEFORE 20 children were shot to death from three to eleven times each, in a sleepy little picturesque town called Sandy Hook. Anyone who thinks it’s not the time to have these conversations, think about the mother and father going out to their car and removing the child seat strapped in back because they don’t need it any more, their child is dead; think about them removing the presents under the Christmas tree because the child they so lovingly picked out presents for is gone. Think about the future Christmas’ and Hanukahs of the parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers and friends of these fallen little ones and adults which will forever be marred by memory that this was the time of year when they lost something most precious and they lost it because our society did nothing after Columbine, nothing after Tucson, nothing after Aurora, nothing after Fort Hood, nothing after Milwaukie. Isn’t it time NOW for us to do something? We cannot expect the government to take up this cause on their own when they are paralyzed by the gun lobby. We have to take up the cause ourselves. “We – The People”. We have to force the government to take up this cause. After 20 children between the ages of 5 and 7 lost their lives in the worst mass shooting in the history of the United States, WE HAVE to do something.  

Suggestions?

Ban gun shows – huge loophole, people purchasing guns at gun shows require no background check. 40% of guns purchased by people in the U.S. do not go through even a cursory background check

Reinstate the ban on assault weapons which expired in 2004 because the statistics show that more mass killings in which more than 2 people have been killed by these weapons since then than the total number of mass killings since 1966.

Shore up the mental health system in this country through the insurance companies, the police departments and the school systems so that kids and parents with kids who have mental issues can get the help that they need.

Now is the time to do something about this. Do not let any more people die because we could not come together as a society and make the decisions that need to be made to ensure the safety of our citizens.

My prayers go out to the families of both the victims and the survivors of this horrifying crime.   

Moving On Is Not The Same As Letting Go

Here’s a question. Can two people really be “meant for each other”, “soul mates”? It would be nice if this were the case. It would be nice to know that all of us have someone out there waiting for us; us waiting for them. I’m just not sure I believe this any more.

The argument for believing it is “Why not believe it?” Who doesn’t want more romance in their life? Who wants to feel alone in the world? Not any one that I know. Maybe it is just up to us to make it happen; to actually show up and be “meant for each other”. If you do that, at least you’ll find out for sure if you’re really meant to be or not. But so many are not willing to even show up; not willing to take the risk that they could be wrong.

It can be very scary to find out that you’re wrong about someone. But we can’t be afraid to change our minds; to accept that things are actually different than what we thought they were; and that they will never be the same. For better or worse we have to be willing to give up what we used to believe. We have to be willing to not just move on, but to let go of those old beliefs. Because once we know we were wrong about someone, there really is no point in belaboring it. If you don’t move on AND don’t let go, you end up in a vicious cycle of telling yourself, “Well, if he had only done this or that”, or “But he had these ‘special circumstances’, that’s why he behaved the way he did”. As Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory said, “If ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ were candy and nuts, oh what a Christmas we’d have”. The fact is, they didn’t do this or that, and their special circumstance doesn’t give them special rights to hurt people. So forget it, move on, let go. Accept that they’re a crappy person and you were wrong in thinking anything else; that you weren’t “meant for each other” and that’s that.

The more we are willing to accept what is and not what we thought, we’ll find ourselves exactly where we belong. If your two hands are busy holding on to someone who wasn’t right for you, wasn’t “meant for you”, you have no hands to embrace the one who is out there waiting, the who actually does show up; is willing to take the risk of possibly being wrong and can make the saying “meant for each other” a reality.