My mother had a system that she used to make sure me and my brother kept our room organized. She would start with the chest of drawers and the dresser, then the closet, and then finally under the bed. She would pull, pour, and dump everything in the middle of the floor and then we had to go through it and clean up. I didn’t care for that at all. (note to self: dump stuff in floor when I get home) I loathed the chore. I can remember how hard it was to actually read all those notes…handwritten notes too, and to open all the folded up papers to see what they were. I had all kinds of contraptions and broken action figures in there. I had pennies and those 25₵ bouncy balls. It was crazy. Even though I hated it, I look back now and long for the day when I had time to go through the trash before I threw it away.
In a way it’s similar to the way that we deal with people. Maybe it’s a stretch but then again maybe it’s not. It seems like when I was younger losing a friend or an acquaintance was more of a process then it is now. I didn’t have that button that just allowed me to get rid of folks. To un-friend someone required thought and weighty issues. Who would I play with? Did anyone else live close enough? It was a miserable time during a rocky point between friends and there was little happiness until play resumed. That rocky point might last a whole day but there was a bond between young friends that couldn’t be broken or severed simply because of a fight.
But now there has come a new day. A day when we chuck people to the side like yard crap from a stray dog. At any minute we may cut ties and never speak to someone we have known practically our entire adult life. It doesn’t even have to be a life threatening occurrence or an accident resulting from negligence…they just have to do something we don’t like and that’s it… Just like trash.
For once during this whole blog endeavor, I can finally speak from a place on the other side of the issue. I’m not saying that I have never participated in the human shot put, but I realized a while ago that just haphazardly cutting people out of my life or placing obstacles in the way of repairing valuable friendships and relationships was not the way to handle business. And yes, I do thank God for giving me the courage to be honest about that aspect of my life. There is no way to be the critic of myself that I need to be without looking from what I would consider His perspective.
So to everyone who has not harvested that nugget of information here is something to think about. People are not your waste. They are equipped with roughly the same emotional spectrum as you. Getting a point across is never a good enough reason to disregard someone you supposedly care about. If you care you will explain…as many times as it takes and adapt to compromise if necessary. Once human trash is disregarded there is no guarantee that you can locate it in the city landfill and the recycling process may hurt your feelings. There are just as many reasons to sling you across the pile. And you can’t tell how bad the trash smells if you have one of those stinky sinus infections (might be your upper lip).
If at all possible I would say to pull, pour, and dump people, their worth, and their possible benefits into the middle of the floor. Once it is all spread out then you need to unfold all the little pieces of paper and read all of the notes and count all the loose change and play with all the toys. After you have looked through it all then the decision to do away with anything will have received the due diligence it deserved.
On the days that I do remember to set the trash on the street, I never hear the brakes of the trash truck and get upset about what is on the curb. The truth about it is, if you find yourself upset at that moment then you should have looked before you decided to take out the trash.
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