Hell
of a day, isn't it. I have been thinking of all the weird things that have
gone into making me who I am today. The trips to the allergist when I was
a child and getting my allergy shots twice a week for two years. Nearly
dying from appendicitis and all I have to show for it is a scar on my belly.
Traveling around America in a van like a later day Scooby Doo. Going to
a college in the middle of nowhere for four years and majoring in something
that has had absolutely no effect on my everyday life, except to be the
punch line to a joke about actors and politicians.
The truth of the matter is that I am the result of a series of ever less
funny jokes. A constant barrage of one liners that no one, especially
me, thinks are funny. My scars from these barbs are both physical and mental.
The hatchet scar on my hand, physical. The loss of my first love,
mental. The image of John Kopec coming out of the St. Mary's River, covered
only with a beer can, definitely mental.
I suppose the point of today's meandering is this; are we as people the
scars or are we everything around the scars. The most interesting
things about me and the people I love are the things which make us unique.
The time they almost died in a car crash. When they lost their wallet and
had to hitch hike in the back seat of someone's mini-bus. These truly terrible
things are the things that make people interesting. Not the good homes
and normal families they grew up with.
You know that scene in Lethal Weapon 3, where Mel Gibson and Rene Russo
start showing one another their battle wounds and it turns out to be their
form of foreplay. That is really the way I think of new friendship.
When I'm getting to know someone for the first time, I'm looking for the
scars.
I see them on their surface as someone who probably had a nice suburban
life growing up. They probably went to their prom with their high school
sweetheart. They got their second choice for college and they work
at a job which they either love or they hate.
Then the truth comes out. They grew up on a farm in Arkansas and
they didn't have running water. They went to the prom with a cousin
from out of town. A cousin who they had to give twenty dollars to just
so she would kiss him and everyone would think this was the mysterious
girl from Niagara who he hooked up with over the summer. Or she didn't
get her second choice of colleges and instead worked on a fishing boat
for a year before she could even get enough money together to go to Junior
College. They don't just hate their job, they're stealing money from
the company so they can finally move to the south of France and drink all
day.
You don't see those things the first time you meet someone. Hell,
you may never learn those things. But, those are the things that
make us worth knowing. It's the scars that are interesting, not the
smooth clean flesh around the scar. It's the story behind the bruised
psyche that I love about you, not the fact that you were homecoming queen.
The beautiful souls do not rest with those who have lead faultless lives
because they had it easy. It's those son's of bitches, who strive
everyday to be a little bit better and a little kinder, because they know
what its like to be hurt, those are my friends.
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