Insanity Defense

The very first time I ever went white water rafting I knew I found a sport for me. It was love at first brush. I also spotted white water kayakers and knew they were insane. Give me a nice safe raft, thankyouverymuch.

That was 12 years ago.

Since that first summer so many years ago I have been white water rafting a whole bunch, and sea kayaking quite a number of times. And, as you may recall, I took those paddle and roll classes. And, then, Tuesday afternoon I left work early for my very first run down river in a kayak.

It is safe to say that the bug has bitten me and, now, I, too, am insane.

We went down a very moderate class 2 river—an excellent first river. I borrowed a buddy's inflatable kayak (IK) for the adventure. Unfortunately, we discovered once I was in the water that it leaks. Bummer. It made the run down the river a little bit hesitant, but I was confident that I could do it.

We put in a little downstream from a waterfall, I immediately paddled up to it. Awesome sight to behold. Then, down the river we went. The first rapid was a 2+/3-, and the biggest water we'd see all day. When my friend turned around to surf the rapid I knew I'd have to give it a try. I attempted once and didn't get close enough. My second attempt, however, was spot on. Turns out, though, that I need a bunch if practice—once atop the rapid, I went for a nice little swim.

Safely rescued, recovered, and back in the boat we played for a few more hours.

As she was dropping me off at my car, Captain said the nicest words a girl can hope to hear, "you totally rocked that IK, Granola. Seriously." Music to my ears. Sweet, sweet music.

The Ones We Love

Bill, his (then) girlfriend, and I ended up going out to dinner one recent Friday evening. Since he and I were out and about she drove up to join us. We picked a restaurant and set about enjoying dinner. Rather, I tried to enjoy dinner.

My struggle came from his incessant need to be touching her, caressing her, or otherwise making physical contact with her. Now, your first instinct is to believe that my problem with all of that is that it's hard for me to see him acting like a boyfriend with his girlfriend. That isn't the case. The amount and kind of touchy-touchy was just uncomfortable. I am fine with holding hands, or resting a hand on the other person's leg and even arm-around-the-waist-or-over-the-shoulder. What I'm not ok with is the kind of caressing and touching that belongs in the bedroom. And, that goes for everyone, not just boys I like.

After dinner he and I were in the car taking me home. "Well," he asked, "what do you think?" His query was what I thought of their relationship and how she felt about it, etc, since it wasn't in a good place and he and I had been talking about that. I intended to tell him that his over-the-top PDA made me uncomfortable, and that she clearly wasn't down with that much public affection. What I ended up doing was yelling at him about it.

The ensuing argument was not awesome. He said somethings he shouldn't have led with, and I retaliated with something that shouldn't have been mentioned in this argument. It spiraled out of control. He ended up saying some quite hurtful things, so I just stopped talking. It was evident that this argument was just going to get more vicious and the only way to stop it was to quit raising the bar of mean.

We were able to restore some peace in the car before he dropped me off, but it was a bit tenuous.

We don't get in fights that often, but when we do, they're apocalyptic. Historically we've been much better about fighting fair (yelling: yes, unfair references to unrelated matters: no), but this one had very little held back. I take responsibility for taking things down that path, but Bill certainly escalated it to epic proportions.

Bill and I haven't talked much about that argument since, except for me raising a few questions based on some of the things he said to me. He, on the other hand, apparently learned nothing for the experience, as he hasn't brought up any possible learnings. I'm pretty sure he feels fairly blameless in the whole matter.

The thing is: the closer we allow ourselves to be to others the more we expose ourselves to potential pain. It's our responsibility as loved ones to be sure we don't violate that trust. Because when we do, the damage may be irreparable. I'm not too worried about it, this time.

To Thine Ownself be True

Bill, as you may recall, got himself a girlfriend a while back. As you can imagine, this did not thrill me. But, to be perfectly honest, he doesn't reciprocate my feelings, and so, as much as it sucks, I'd rather he be happy with someone else than miserable alone.

Except he hasn't been happy since very early on. There's nothing wrong with her (she's quite nice, and smart!) but, she doesn't make him happy. He's lamented this fact to me a number of times, and we've talked about it a lot. Initially, I told him to wait it out and see if this wasn't just a short phase. As days turned to weeks it became evident that this wasn't a week-long funk. This was simply a matter of him not feeling it.

The next time we talked about it I encouraged him to talk with her about it, and, if necessary, end things.

Friday night he finally did. I feel bad that he feels bad, but it was necessary, and I think, ultimately he'll be happier for it. But, for now, he's mopey.

The thing is, as sad as he is about the break up, he's really just sad that his relationship ended, not that his relationship with this girl has ended. Once as he recognizes and accepts that he'll probably move on much more quickly.

Choices

2 hours of sleep as a direct result of doing someone else's job, and on my way to work on time. I was not, you can imagine, in a great mood. Or particularly awake.

I stepped onto the crowded escalator, my boxy purse wedged between my back and messenger bag. The hard corner of my purse pressed uncomfortably against my back, so I half-looked over my shoulder to make sure the person behind me wasn't going to get violated when I grabbed the purse and moved it. They were far enough behind me that it wasn't an issue. I grabbed my purse and moved it to the front of my person.

Then I heard angry, accusatory muttering through my very loud earphones. Initially I ignored it, but the voice continued. I started listening. "...black man so you move your purse. We're not like that..."

That was enough to tell me what I was being accused of. I contemplated ignoring him. Then I contemplated yelling at him that he wasn't helping the cause by accusing people of racism baselessly. Instead, I turned, took out my earbuds and politely tried to explain to him that I moved my purse because it was bothering me, not because he was there. "Yeah, right. It was so obvious," he countered, surprised that someone would respond to his accusations "you saw a black man and moved your purse. We're not that way. We're not like that."

Counter statements like, "my black boyfriend will be relieved to hear that", and "it takes only once of getting violated by a black man to make one flinch when others are around", or "I was adopted and raised by black parents" floated through my mind. Each is entirely false, but he had no way of knowing that.

I settled on the truth, "I really didn't notice who was there. I moved my bag because it was bothering me. And, if you choose to believe that I'm lying, well," I paused, I had run out of plan, "well, I find that unfortunate, but I hope you have a great rest of your day." With that I replaced my earbuds and turned my back to him, facing the right way up the escalator.

I don't know if he took up his angry accusations again, because I was determined to not listen. I don't know what he thought, or what everyone else who was forced to listen thought, but in that moment I really didn't care. I said my piece, I tried to convey it had nothing to do with his race, I didn't escalate the situation as was tempting, and, really, I just wanted to go back to bed.

Sometimes in life people do things near you, and if you're sensitive in just the right way you're going to take offense. The thing of it is, though, sometimes it has nothing to do with you. He could have been my best friend and I would have moved my purse. I hope he figures that out someday. I doubt he will.