Please, God, I Don't Want to Be a Cranky Old Man*

*(I realize my title is passive voice, and yes it does make me slightly grumpy).

Have you ever been motivated by the wrongs, the negativities, and disgusting actions around you enough to want to do it all differently?  Last blog I wrote about my favorite eccentric memories growing up. I'm lucky to have great memories. My childhood seems to be a rarity.

Because I work in a people industry, I'm constantly surrounded by messed-up people. People whose perspectives, attitudes, and actions tend to rub off on me. Yet at the end of the day, most of these people are simply acquaintances, and their viral moods cant seep into my DNA; most of their infections can be re-rubbed off, scrubbed off, or antiseptically soaked in a bottle of alcohol.  Most of us can self-medicate the annoyances of the workforce fairly well.

It's family that's difficult to wash your hands of.

Remember when they used to sell "Homies" in the
quarter machines?  Yeah, that was weird. 

When it's your blood, your kin, your clan, your peeps, your homies, (okay, too far) and they are hurting, being hurt, or acting like babies or brats...it's just, different. Blood infections need hospitalizations. And most of us don't have time for down-time or sick days when its only our souls that are being hurt.

Perhaps I'm being vague, and yes, I am.  My family, on both sides, is hurting. I won't get into specifics, because it's family, yet I seem to get dragged into these battles and find myself emotionally attached to one side. I'm trying not to pick sides in their affairs, but sometimes events force you into annoying situations.

I was forced to defend someone I love to another family member (whom I also love) while he was prosecuting his case against the original defendant (while heavily intoxicated). I know better than to argue with a drunk.  Not that arguing with this prosecutor while sober ever yields positive results, but on this occasion I had heard his evidence and didn't care. I'm sorry, prosecutor, even if the defendant is guilty of these minor offenses; even if he's been guilty of minor offenses all his life; even if their is no willingness to ever show growth and change...he's my family, and I'll always love him. No amount of belittling, posturing, positioning, angles or fancy courtroom shenanigans is going to convince me to convict him.  Is he guilty of most of the offenses? Yes. But we aren't Amish, we don't shun our own. Blood is blood, even if it's sick or infected.

What I clearly witnessed was what I do not want to be; what I sometimes am: a lawyer, a judge, a critic. I'm tired of finding faults in people. I'm tired of picking sides. How hard is it to love?  How hard is it to say, "Yeah, that was stupid, but I still love you, man."

I'm sure Judge Judy is a blast around the Thanksgiving table. 

I'm not saying to throw out discipline, or advice, or even giving people a hard time; I'm just wondering why some families have such a hard time showing each other affection? This is your blood, your flesh. What other thing was so entrusted to you to grow, nurture, and give happiness to?  Why do some people give more affection to their cat, their cars, their belongings, than their offspring?

The older I get, the more I realize how messed up we all are. Humans are a stupid species. We make constant mistakes. I'm lucky I have a family I can run to in any situation and seek shelter from the storm when I suck it up in life. I'm lucky I have a God who hears my complaints, my needs, my prayers, and fills up the chasms in my soul that drinking, complaining, and crying don't. I'm glad I have love all around me.

It's funny how the one I'm speaking of, has so much family, so much love around him, and yet contains so many chasms in his soul. I hope I'm constantly reminded of the love around me, because everything else in me wants to become that angry, old, prosecutor; lamenting about how life has done him wrong, how family has done him wrong, how he was somehow shortchanged by circumstances...

Because I'm incredibly lucky. Some people don't know how to receive or reciprocate love.