For Steve… I hid from Jehovah’s Witnesses today. They knocked and I mouthed the words, “No thank you.” And walked away… I’m not one to turn and walk away from a person that I might learn from, but I have my limits. I know that they mean well and I know that the general idea is to make people aware of their beliefs and possibly, recruit you, for lack of better words. That’s the agenda and they do a very thorough job of it. I respect them for that. They get so much crap about what they do and how they’d like others to end-up where they think is Heaven. I don’t doubt that we all have our own versions of Heaven; our own paradigms as it were. Makes me think about all the other people that I walked away from that I might have learned something from. People that were a little too expressive or assertive, possibly aggressive for my tastes and comfort. I imagine that I’d be a much smarter person if I gave everyone his or her five minutes of my undivided attention. I don’t often regret things in my life, but there are times that I think that my ear could have come in better use than my mouth. Maybe looking paste my own personal agenda to see another side of things wouldn’t have been so bad. Not too long ago, I met a guy; we’re going to call him Mike. Most everyone knows a Mike so this makes it a little more personal. I liked this guy. By ‘like,’ I mean that I had the hots for this guy. I honestly couldn’t see anything paste the idea of he and I spending romantic weekends in front of the fire and him picking me up from work in his truck. I have simple fantasies and they seem to do their justice. Not too long after that, I met his ex, whom we’re going to call Steve. People know Steves, so that works. Instantly, I didn’t like the guy. Now, there was nothing to not like about Steve, I just figured that if he wasn’t good enough for Mike, then he wasn’t good company and I was. Thus, I wasn’t supposed to associate with him in a friendly manner. Instant bitch. I became friends with Steve’s roommate, who we’re going to refer to as Connie, because I find that to be an agreeable name. You can pick and choose the names you like; I’m sure we’ll develop a system. Connie thought the world of Steve. Thought that he was better than sliced bread and that he could do no wrong. I didn’t believe that, so I kept my bitch attitude towards him and that was that. I was not going to be swayed. Times I’d run into Mike and right behind would be Steve and Connie. It was small of me to exclude Steve, but I managed. In fact, I think I excelled at it. I was pretty well known for being able to make people feel uninvited when they probably should have been accepted. More often than not, people would look to me for guidance on how to interact with people. I’m not a social guru; I just have my own intuitions, which are wrong from time to time. I was having coffee with my friend and we saw Connie go by the window on the street. We waved her in and when she arrived she said, “Did you hear?” My friend and I looked at each other and although we knew most of what was in the grapevine, we didn’t know what she was referring to. “Steve died. He had a heart attack.” She barely got it out through the tears that were starting to present themselves. Instantly, I opened my arms; what else is there to do? And for a moment, I felt she was holding on for dear life. We sat there for a minute and then she composed herself. She was having coffee with some friends and wanted us to stop by on our way out, but wanted us to know that my friend and I were the last people to see him. That Steve really liked us and thought that we were great people. For the rest of the day, my friend and I were in a sort of glazed over state of mind. Lost in an instant replay and a quick recap of our interactions with Steve. Down to every nasty look and uninviting characteristic that we offered. And frankly speaking, we felt like shit. We felt like some of the biggest scum alive. And ‘alive’ was the operative word. We were always introduced to Connie’s friends as the last people that Steve spent time with and how he enjoyed our company so. How he thought that we were smart and funny and all these wonderful things and I just thought of him as an obstacle. Took me a few days to recover, not only from Steve’s death, but also my lack of compassion and decency. I really didn’t know what to think of myself after that. I had given so many chances to people freely, but when I had an agenda or thought that my space was being attacked (which it in no way was), everyone was my enemy. I saw Mike afterward and didn’t think he was so great. I still saw my fantastic little images, but there wasn’t the joy that there was before, only the memories that made me into a monster. I wasn’t even Mike’s type, just someone he thought of as a friend. Sometimes what we want and what we can have are on different sides of the world. At some point we have to decide which direction we’re going to start walking. I wish Steve could have known the great friend that I can be. I wish… well, seems too often wishes are wasted on falling stars and lucky pennies, so I’ll refrain. I do know however that there are people that are turned away because we don’t give them a chance. I can vouch for that. They’re called preconceived notions, folks. We all got ‘em and we all abuse them from time to time, some more than others. They are the nasty masks we put on people that we don’t know because they are different. They are the ugly things that we imagine the people having done without ever asking. They are the results we obtain for listening to voices of envy and distrust. We miss out a lot. It’s become part of life and we brush it off because, well, that’s life. But is it really?

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