My Most Humble Apologies

In the past 3 months, my husband and I have had over 15 sets of visitors stay at our place. Friends and family, some of whom we’d never even met prior to moving to New York City (no surprise there). Some were explicitly invited, some invited themselves, but all were welcome (give or take). Over 15 occasions for me to wash extra towels and linens, change the sheets in the guest bedroom, restock the fridge, make sure I have enough snacks and water bottles for everyone. Over 15 occasions for my husband and I to chastise ourselves for never saying “no” to the seemingly endless stream of guests waiting to pounce on… I mean, “visit” us. Over 15 occasions for me to feel guilty about whining about having people come stay with us, because, every time they do, I actually end up having fun.

Every time except this past weekend, the most miserable guest experience I’ve had to date. Not just in the past three months, but to date. My husband’s younger cousin. This was my first time meeting him. A normal-looking, 23-year-old boy wearing a baseball cap, gray t-shirt, and brown slacks. But that’s where the normalcy ended. Now, assholes, I’ve known a few (I used to be a litigator). Pompous nitwits, even more (I used to be a law student). Rude little shits with less character than paste, fewer social graces than a warthog, and a hyper-exaggerated sense of self-importance all combined into one lovely package, this was my first. Needless to say, I was unprepared and, though I hate to admit it, it brought out an unattractive side of me. As hard as my mother worked all my life to teach me to feign interest in and fondness for any and all people, especially houseguests, all of those lessons fell to the wayside this weekend. To the waaaaay wayside. Years of training out the window. I have no excuse, but can only plead exasperation, because I was truly out-gunned on this one.

Let me begin by mentioning that it is very unlike me to be impolite or discourteous in social situations. I have met many tedious, uninteresting, or self-absorbed people in my life, but have always been able to carry on a civil conversation with them, even if for a short while. I once discussed the process of making yogurt for 30 minutes with someone at a cocktail party. Thirty minutes. About yogurt. Clearly, I am well-mannered and, more importantly, adaptable, even if begrudgingly. But not this weekend.

Fifteen. That’s how many minutes it took for this little piss ant to knock me down for the count. Fifteen lousy minutes. A lifetime of good breeding knocked out of me in a flash. Thirty minutes about yogurt? A blessing compared to this. Easily the most antagonistic person I have ever met outside of a courtroom. Every comment from this smug, monotone shit was a form of attempted belittlement. In response to a question about how he likes his Ivy League school, he replied with a smirk, “Well, I’m in the big league. [Seriously, who talks like this?] I will have unlimited opportunities after earning an MS from this school.” Well, hazzah to you, Your Eminence. In response to most any question asking his opinion about something, his response was, “Well, as Blah Blah [insert name of famous philosopher, famous theologist, famous economist, famous whatever-ist] said….” [Let me pause here to point out that, while I was annoyed by Piss Ant's obvious strategy of quoting others in an effort to mask the fact that he had no interesting thoughts of his own, I am grateful that I was spared having to hear any of his personal beliefs.] In response to some friendly advice from my husband about being in grad school, he replied, “The only person I bother to take advice from is Blah Blah [one of his renowned professors], so don’t bother.” All of this leaves me with but one question: Who raises a person like this… and then willingly takes credit for it?

In fact, I know exactly who. I met his parents (my husband’s uncle and aunt) a few months ago and they were, of course, oozing with pride at having raised a son that was so accomplished and had been accepted to an ivy-league program. And, back then, I was happy for them. Now I feel like they need to be punished for having unleashed such a waste of oxygen on society. And here I pause for a little prayer: Dear Universe, if you must choose between the two, please give me a child who never goes to an Ivy League school, but who is pleasant and interesting and a decent human being, rather than an arrogant academe that I’d sooner maim than voluntarily spend two minutes with.

As for me, after realizing I’d reached my quota of houseguests to whom I felt obligated to be pleasant, I decided that I was done. I would tag along wherever the sightseeing took us the rest of the day, but I was done trying to engage His Eminence and I started on Plan B: Operation Ignore Asshole. A few hours into my self-imposed verbal exile, I checked in with my husband to see if I was being sufficiently unfriendly to avoid a future visit from him. “Oh, I didn’t even realize you were trying to be unfriendly,” my husband replied. Damned men and their inability to detect subtlety. Well, whatever. It felt good to me. This was my first time spending an extended amount of time with someone while pretending he was not there and not feeling guilty about it. It was surprisingly easy to do and, in the process, I developed a whole new level of respect and admiration for my husband. No matter how rude Piss Ant got, my husband never stopped being civil to him and trying to have a conversation with him. Unbelievably valiant. In response to each famous quote and belittling comment by Piss Ant, my husband would simply lean back coolly, cross his arms across his chest, look casuallly into his smug, glaring eyes, and continue on with the conversation without skipping a beat, and always with the natural, self-assured demeanor of someone who already owned his worth and had no interest in proving it to anyone else. That’s the difference between confidence and smugness. One is endearing, the other is repellent.And so, to all of my friends and relatives about whose visits I bitched and moaned (behind your backs), I most sincerely and humbly apologize for not having valued you more. It was only in light of this truly horrid guest that I saw myself for the ingrate that I was, complaining about the company of such good and decent people. Keep bitching about the good things you have and Karma will quickly remind you of what the alternatives are… and that you should shut your ungrateful trap. Lesson learned.

Life Is Connections

Life is connections. Connections to the ground we place our feet on, the fruit we wash, the art we look at, the people whose hands we hold. We touch things, hear things, see things and we make them move, make them work, affirm their existence, and they, in turn, do the same for us. We reverberate off of the objects and people around us and, in that way, we assert and evidence our aliveness, our existence. In reality, our interaction with these things is the only discernible act of living. Not the meaning of life, but the proof of life, the essence of life. Without an object to bounce off of, a sound wave may exist, but it doesn’t do anything, doesn’t live. It has no sound, it makes no impact, it causes nothing. It is not loved or hated. It is absent.

My aunt has been diagnosed with cancer. It is terminal and it is fast. She recently told me about a plant that she’s had for decades. In all the time she’s had the plant, its flowers have only bloomed once each year. This year, for the first time, they bloomed twice. She takes that as a good sign, a sign of possibility, a sign of audacious rebellion against science, a hopeful example of that first time that an ostensibly obedient life force chooses to spin off of its predictable axis and charge its own destiny. A sign that inevitability can be outmaneuvered by will power. Her reservoir of promise replenished by her connection to a mere plant.

The end of life is the end of connections. Nothing of “living” to be tethered to. Not a spouse, not friends, not the bills, the milk in the refrigerator, the magazine subscriptions. Nothing more to interact with. How can someone understand, really understand, that she will become disconnected from everything she has ever seen, tasted, touched, or loved, and not be immediately destroyed by the enormity of that thought? How can she carry that weight and, at the same time, have the energy not only to combat her own destruction, but also to live a recognizable, ordinary life? Where in the mass of atoms, cells and fibers that composes her body does she gather the strength to continue such mundane tasks as ironing clothes, brushing hair, or garnishing a plate, when such surreality lies so close at hand? Hope in the face of fear is easy to explain, but what about the ability to maintain normalcy in the face of the unthinkable? Where does that come from? I believe it comes from the innate and remarkable human capacity to connect to a thing as mundane and marvelous as a blooming plant.