Love my enemies...but delete them from Facebook.

People’s reaction to Amy Winehouse’s death has really gotten my goat. I saw something on FB where someone I don’t know commented on a friend’s page saying how Amy deserved to die and she brought it on herself. With this shitty logic, everyone who smokes deserves to die of lung cancer and those who ever eat crappy fast food deserve to die of diabetes. And by this logic, the person who posted the stupid comment deserves to die from the weight of the rock he is apparently living under. I really hope that people just want to seem witty but actually aren’t at all and just feel the need to say SOMETHING about news stories like this one, and don’t ACTUALLY despise people with addiction. IT’S A DISEASE. Even if it wasn’t- how about we start analyzing your life choices, random FB dude, and see what’s what. This lack of compassion for people who are in difficult situations overwhelms me.

What’s it like to be friends with this FB guy? “Hey friend. My sister just died of a drug overdose.” FB guy: “SHE DESERVED IT! NO LOSS THERE!”

And then the comments from people who seem most concerned that they won’t get another Amy Winehouse album that I’m sure they wouldn’t even buy anyway. Life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness… and new Amy Winehouse downloads when I damn well please…apparently these are things to which I am entitled.

So I worked myself up into a comforting holier than thou rage about this, and then headed off to church. Some sweet tunes and happy faces and then a sermon about that old standard passage talking about how we should love our enemies. I HATE THAT BULLSHIT! Uh hello people, my enemies are my enemies because they suck. As the fine Pastor so astutely pointed out, this is tricky because it’s hard enough to love the people we love. Now we should add enemies to this mix? Sometimes this trying to live my best life is for the friggin’ birds.

This reminds me of 6th grade when I went home and told my Mom, “I HATE…” (insert name of girl who had a HUGE tude). My Mom, “We don’t hate anyone. We just dislike the things they do.” “Yeah, I know, Mom. That’s usually what we do but I HATE her. If you had to be in gym with her, you’d hate her too.” I only remember this because my Mom quoted that one years later. And also, because I really hated that girl and hate like that is memorable.

The thing is, I don’t think of myself as having many enemies. Enemies sounds so dramatic. It’s more that there are people that I just don’t want to deal with because they’ve done and/or said crappy things to me or people I love, or I just find their choices irritating and life is short, and I’d rather surround myself with awesome people. In thinking about this, my thoughts went to- what is love? I, like Foreigner, wanna know what love is. I want these assholes that I don’t like to show me. I know what love is when it’s unconditional family and friend love, or romantic love, or love for that delicious monkey bread with the dill butter dipping sauce I had at the Bristol the other night. But what is love for an enemy?

Practically speaking, how do I go about loving a shithead? I’m so crappy at this that I almost want to passive aggressively give examples of shitty things people have said/done just to prove how much I shouldn’t even bother trying to love them. Can you believe she said THAT?!! Can you believe he did THAT?! I like to convince myself that not talking about it and trying not to take things personally and keeping a positive outlook and pretty much ignoring the existence of “enemies” is the nicest thing to do. But alas, I think I’m suppose to actually be wishing well on these people and considering why they do the things they do. Because if most people did that than good really would win out over evil- in large scale war situations and in interpersonal relationships. Ew. How annoying is that?

The doozy is that I’m a peace-loving kinda gal at heart. And the only sensible avenue for actual peace in the world is to actually show love to everyone and think about the reasons for why people do what they do, and then….drum roll…address those reasons. Last night I watched Diane Sawyer’s interview with Jaycee Dugard. Jaycee was kidnapped and held hostage by a guy who raped her… for 18 YEARS. Jaycee exudes happiness and peace. Her life is far from perfect and she’s receiving a boat load of therapy just to get through everything now but she said it herself that she’s very happy, and holds no rage for the guy that did that to her. She won’t give him the satisfaction of wasting energy on rage. It’s amazing and inspiring and so fascinating to me. Then I thought about the kidnapper. I guess I’m supposed to love that guy. I have no idea what that means. I am curious to know what his life was like growing up and what happened to him, to lead him to do the horrific things he did. This curiosity comes more from the social worker in me that is curious about people and the desire to understand these behaviors so that we are able to look out for them in others and address problems early on and atrocities like the ones Jaycee experienced are prevented from happening again. But love the guy? Yikes. That is a tall order. The guy that led the terrorist attack in Norway? The people who have said and done racist, homophobic and sexist things to friends? REALLY?

That said, no matter how I’m supposed to love these folks, I know for sure that I can do it without them crapping up my Facebook feed.

Speaking of the social worker in me, let’s end on a happier note. The other day it occurred to me while chatting with social workers at my office, that no matter what work I’m doing or will ever do, I’ll most likely always consider myself a social worker. I love that freaking profession so much and am so glad that I happened to fall into with what seems like zero forward thinking on my part.

Trying to love people that aren’t easy to love… I suppose that is both social, and it is clearly work. I should be better at this seeing as I spent 40k on a masters in it.

Back on the blog-wagon.

I haven’t written on here in a while. Partially it’s because it’s summer and I’m living by the all free time should be spent outside philosophy. Also, the death of my niece left with a lot to reflect on but most of it is nothing I’d want to write on a public blog. There are so many moments shared with family and new and old friends that feel sacred and I want to remember everything about them forever but I also can’t even put them into words and don’t know that I’d want to try. I am grateful for many things in life and this month my family’s ability to retain their sense of humor during a tragedy is high up there. It’s not the kind of humor that is avoiding the truth. It’s the kind that is celebrating the beauty and tragedy of life all at once. It’s the kind that makes me know we’ll all be okay no matter what life brings us. Also, we think we’re so damn funny and no amount of tragedy will stop us from that dumbass one-liner.

I also spent a good amount of time thinking about how awesome siblings are. Hanging out with just my three brothers for the first time in a while made me realize how weird and incredible it is that the four of us are friends. If we weren’t raised by the same parents, we’d most likely never come into contact with each other. But, the situation is what it is, and here we are in a world where even though there is probably no one political issue the four of us agree on, we’d all take a bullet for each other.

It’s trite to talk about how death makes me think about how precious life is but just because it’s trite doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I’ve done my best to appreciate small moments this month and so far it’s working quite well. Swimming around in Lake Michigan this weekend with some friends... the water was perfectly refreshing on a sunny and hot summer day, conversation was top-notch, the Hancock and Sears Tower in the distance... pure joy.