The internet is no place for dirty laundry. I still believe this even though what I type next isn't exactly fresh and downyfied. Growing up really sucks sometimes. I think I've been saying that since I was 10. For the first time though, I think I'm making some real progress. From the end of August up until a couple of weeks ago, my brilliant, handsome, self destructive father was homeless. Not crashing on a friend's couch, but surviving in a real live homeless shelter. I think for the first time, I was so broken I didn't even try to tape up the pieces for appearances sake. I can't fix him. In a society where (no matter what people say) status is directly related to the ownership of things, there is a particular brand of shame attached to the down and out. Jokes are made about them, hostility bubbles forth, eye contact is avoided. A few brave southern baptists will sacrifice a Saturday to pick up a hair net and their crosses to make sure they are fed and prayed for. I've noticed in many people (even in myself) that there is a serious need to be separate from them. Sort of like a caste system we hold ourselves to at our very core. What does it mean when the man that I am biologically hardwired to worship drops to that unmentionable place in society? The answer; you realize that you've wasted too many years trying to salvage your pride. That invisible ladder you are trying to balance and climb is real because people believe in it. They always will. But when you stop slipping and squirming and are finally honest with yourself, you are quite alone in this world. You can spend your whole life chipping away little pieces and tucking the ugliness away until the pressure erodes you down to a very 'popular' but indistinguishable form among other indistinguishable forms and realize after all of that work that that truth remains the same. Or you can change your perspective and like yourself because you actually like yourself. Not because other people tell you how wonderful you are. I wrote a note on facebook a long time ago called 'becoming' referring to a line in the classic children's book 'the velveteen rabbit.' I ended the story with the words 'As humans, we need so badly to be loved. 24/7, 365, we need more than anything for someone to see us, and know us and need us. To love us when all of our beauty and softness has rubbed off. This makes us real. When you can be heartbroken, ugly, and tired, and someone comes up to you not because you are some charity case but because they LOVE you, and they just sit with you and care..this is when you know you are real' and at the time I believed them. My perspective has changed. I think what makes us real and moves us one step closer to God and enlightenment is stripping away everything we have ever been taught about what a person should be and realizing that love is a replenishable resource. There is plenty to go around. But you have to love YOU before it means anything.