Day 20: I just wanted to say .....

An old post from 2013 popped up because some asshole posted a spam comment on it today. In it I had written to a prompt I'd picked up from some other bloggers. "Pick 10 people and write out one thing you wish you could say to them. Do not identify who the people are. Just write them in list form. A number and then what you want to say."

As I looked back at that post, I realized a lot of those things I wished I could say were so far removed from my life now, I can't even remember why I cared. A lot has happened between then and now, so why not write a new list? And then 3 years from now, I can look back on it and wonder about some of them why I'd even bothered to care in the first place.

To be fair, others of those things on that old list are still true today. I'm not going to repeat them, but I will say it's the nicer ones that are still true. I should probably ponder that some day. But not tonight. Tonight ... the list.

1. I'm sorry people keep telling you everything will be OK instead of listening to your real and logical concerns. Everything is not OK. You are afraid for good reasons. All I can do is stand with you. I wish it were enough. We won't give up though.

2. Fuck right off. Own your actions and the consequences.

3. I admire your courage and your grit and your compassionate spirit. I wish I'd known you when you were younger. I'm glad we're friends now.

4. I can't believe you said that to me. It's going to change our relationship, whether you ever realize it or not.

5. I will always be here for you like a rock ... no, like a boulder. You're the one who will leave one day.

6. All the fine ideals and righteous anger in the world is worth nothing if you don't do the hard work that is right in front of you. It's too easy to say you'd stand up for strangers you'll never meet. Protect the people you know.

7. Thank you for listening. I feel less lonely and unlikeable knowing you hear me and you even agree with me much of the time.

8. I can't wait to see where your life takes you next. I know it's hard to see more than a few steps ahead, but you'll end up somewhere interesting, which is truly both a curse and a blessing. I believe in you.

9. Actually ...... just shut the fuck up.

10. You're a bully. Nobody will tell you because the awful fact is that people tend to like bullies. Or they pretend to like them so they won't get bullied themselves. It can go either way. Just know that I'm not afraid of you. I'll be back, and next time I'll be better prepared.

11. Nothing I've written here is about you, so stop trying to figure out which one it is. It's not all about you. And number 11 doesn't count, so even this isn't about you!

How about you? What are 10 things you'd like to say to people. Feel free to post in the comments. I promise I'll read and respond.

Dear Anonymous,

Two fellow bloggers are blogging every day this month just like I did last month. They've given each other several prompts they can use if they get stuck. I wish I'd thought of that idea.

One of their prompts struck me as an interesting exercise, so I decided to do it too.

"Pick 10 people and write out one thing you [wish] you could say to them. Do not identify who the people are. Just write them in list form. A number and then what you want to say."

1. I know you think you’re too fat and you never do enough, but to me you’re perfectly you, and I love you just as you are. I wish you could see yourself the way I do. You'd want to be your own best friend. You really are exactly the person you're supposed to be.

2. I hope this isn’t going to end as horribly for you as I’m afraid it will.

3. You aren’t even close to the character you pretend to be. Life isn’t a play. We all know who you are behind that mask …. and frankly, the mask isn't a hell of a lot prettier.

4. You can give up. That was never going to happen anyway.

5. You’re a grown up. It’s time to stop trying to be one of the cool kids. If it didn’t happen in high school, it doesn’t matter now. It never really mattered then either.

6. I miss you. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better friend.

7. I’m sorry you had to choose. And I'm sorry you made the wrong choice.

8. Being jealous of the woman who rejected your boyfriend/husband makes no sense at all. I didn’t want him. That leaves him available for you. You should be on your knees.

9. Some things I won’t forgive without a sincere apology. Some things I won’t forgive ever. You should try the apology though and see how it turns out.

10. I’m proud of you for following your dreams. I wish I could be more like you. You inspire me.

11. Thank you for being in my life. If I haven't said that, I should have.

As I read this list, I'm struck by a couple of things. First, I can't follow orders although these are supposed to be specific to one person, several of them are things I could say to more than one person. They're like a daily horoscope. Only a couple of them are entirely specific.

Second, I doubt most of the people I had in mind when I wrote these will read them, although it's more likely with the positive ones. I realized as I wrote these, this exercise is mostly about the past. If you're reading these, they probably aren't meant for you ... unless you think you're numbers 1, 10, and 11. In that case, hellz yeah those are about you!

 Third, and finally, I could have written an entire list of nasty things I want to say to certain nasty people (although I'm not sure there are as many as 10 certain nasty people), but I tried to add some balance so it wouldn't be an entire bitch-fest. I may even have cheated, because I've said those nice things to a significant number of people, and maybe I was even thinking of those people when I wrote them. The directions don't say it has to be a secret though. And I'm not going to be hard on myself about the mean things, because it proves that I tend to tell people the nice things I want to say, and I keep to myself the uglier things I'd say if I allowed myself to go there. Some of these could have been a lot harsher and crueler, but I'd rather not focus that much energy and attention on people I feel that way about.

I'm not sure I'll leave this list up. No offense to the other bloggers, but it feels a bit passive aggressive. And yet, it's also kind of cathartic to say some things aloud. Let me know what you think about it.

Want to give it a try? Post your own list of 10 things you'd like to say to 10 different people in the comment section below. I promise I won't take any of them personally if you won't!

(Photo credits: copyblogger.com and blog.vistage.com)

How Can You Get Lucky?

Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire, wrote a book called The Luck Factor, which relates his findings on why some people are lucky. He found that people who are observant tend to be luckier than people who are oblivious. If that's the case, I should be very lucky, because I'm one of the most observant people I know. I remember walking with a friend at a park and stopping to pick up a cicada wing off the pavement. "How did you even see that?" he asked. "I couldn't see it even when I saw you bend to pick it up." I don't know. I constantly look for things and patterns and connections; things that are where they're supposed to be and things that aren't; things that can be explained and whatever is needed to explain the things that can't be explained, to put the world in order. I notice people doing things they shouldn't--like the day I saw an elderly woman slip the disk-shaped bone out of a piece of beef in the meat case. She tore right through the plastic on top, quick as if she'd done it many times and popped that round bone--the kind with the marrow in the middle--out of the steak and into a baggie in her purse. I see dropped paperclips and tiny earrings and pennies. Writing on bathroom walls and misplaced keys. Sometimes I think I see too much.

The only other person I know who notices things like I do is my 17-year-old daughter. Last night she said, "Guess what I saw on the bathroom floor today?" I didn't want to guess, but she didn't wait for me to anyway. "An empty granola bar wrapper and a packet from drink powder that you pour in a water bottle." I waited for her meaning to become clear. She continued, "So I looked in the feminine waste dispenser and found just what I expected: a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a baggie. Somebody in a school of 3000 people had eaten lunch in the bathroom stall." I made a disgusted, yet compassionate sound. "Can you believe somebody in a school that size would have to eat lunch in the bathroom?" she said. "Surely out of all those people you could find somebody to eat lunch with so you don't have to eat in a bathroom stall. Even weird kids have friends in a school that size."

Every quarter I pass out notecards and ask my students to write one line about something they've observed in the past 24 hours. They come up with some pretty crazy stuff, and I keep the cards after the exercise.

Here's a poem I wrote about needing to be observant during a particular period in my life. What have you observed lately?

Pennies

Since my husband left in October

I’ve been collecting pennies.

random

abandoned disks

copper-colored Lincoln icons not worth the bend-over for most people.

They’ve become cheap 97% zinc prayers…

(Jesus loves me, this I used to know)

prayers that I’ll be OK, just OK,

or that they’ll add up to the cost of a few cans of cat food

if I’m not

OK.

I don’t ask for much these days.

I decoupaged an old square salsa jar to hold my pennies—

words: green, sign, wise—

photos: a woman playing a guitar, Granny Smith apples, a praying mantis, the sun,

a voluptuous nude woman caught in tree branches, a bird flying, a woman flying.

All my found pennies go in it

after I polish them,

touching them to remind them of their worth.

One day I stepped off the shuttle bus at The Academy

and saw a penny on the pavement.

I bent in front of the bus to pick it up

but it was stuck in the asphalt

embedded from a summer day

when the tar was hot.

I couldn’t pry it loose with my fingers;

I wanted a tool,

my keys,

a dime,

a ballpoint pen

to dig up an edge so I could get it out,

take it,

put it in my pocket,

hear it clink when it hit the bottom of my jar,

but I was embarrassed

aware of the bus driver waiting to leave the parking lot,

make another circle around the campus.

So I left it there.

A week later as I waited at the bus stop

alone,

I looked for the penny.

I looked all over, keys in my hand,

ready to pry, claim my reward,

certain I remembered where it had been,

watching for the bus, ashamed

of how much one cent meant.

It was gone.

One copper penny and it was gone. Maybe…

maybe it was worth something to someone else.

The shuttle came.

I got on.

Other days I found other pennies

and paper clips

and pens—

many useful things have little worth.

But that penny,

that penny trapped in its tarry, asphalt prison,

bearing the weight of tires and feet…

I hope that wasn’t the one penny that stood between being OK

and being a penny short of OK.