In Someone Else's Story

Remember when we used to play dress up in our mom’s pumps? For those few hours, whilst bedecked in strands and strands of necklaces, wearing mom’s slip and clomping around in heels 8 sizes too big, we were grown-ups. Being someone else, or pretending, that was a way of life. Our imaginations went wild as we threw ourselves into a character unlike our own with reckless abandon. And oh, the things we would see as that person! The adventures we would have!

Why is it then that, as adults, we somehow have lost that same ability? The older we get, the narrower our minds get about what it is like to be someone else. That’s a very painful but true realization I have been coming to recently, and more often since I left my Texas comfort zone. When, at what pinpointed moment in time, did we lose the ability to walk a day in someone else’s shoes?

I am reminded of a line from The Will Rogers Follies, in which the title character says something akin to, “You can’t look at a man from the front and judge him. You have to walk around behind him, see what he sees, and then turn around and face him again. Then you’ll be able to know his character.”

The most heartbreaking part of this realization that we as a human race have lost the ability to do this is the plain and simple fact that I am included in this. We can all make excuses; “I have too much to worry about in my own life,” or “That’s his/her problem, not mine.” What happened to compassion and “seeing things another way?” When did we start becoming selfish and, sadly, taking the issues and problems of others for granted, throwing them away with a wave of the hand as we desperately try to get our two cents in, our own problems in? I ask myself these questions, reflectively, as I read the blogs of others, of my friends and family, of complete strangers…

Right now I want nothing more than to plan a trip to the movie theatre (followed by a round of Cosmopolitans) with CatPants, Maribou Sue and Babs to go see, coincidentally, In Her Shoes with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. Why these women? Because we all share very common insecurities, fears, dreams…but yet somehow the four of us have managed to hurt each other at times as if we were total strangers. It’s very sad, actually, to know that you didn’t take the time to walk a little ways in the shoes of your very best friends sometimes, or that you didn’t even, at the very least, walk around and stand behind them to see what they see (or saw). Then, before you know it…they’re gone. Still alive, still happy, still your best friends…but the very thing(s) you took for granted is/are the same thing(s) you miss the very most about them. Irony can be a bitch sometimes…but sometimes it’s a good wake-up call.

I could be in someone else’s story
In someone else’s life…and he could be in mine.
I don’t see a reason to be lonely
I could take my chances further down the line.
And if that girl I knew should ask my advice
Oh, I wouldn’t hesitate, she needn’t ask me twice,
“Go now!” I’d tell her that for free.
Trouble is, the girl is me…
The story is…the girl is me.