Coping Strategies

What do you do when someone’s unfairly unkind to you? No, really, I’m asking, what do you do? I don’t mean rhetorically. I want some coping strategies. I said a while back that, for me, I had made my peace with most “issues.” This is so obviously a lie, so I was thinking what are some things I need to make peace with? I know one is when someone is mean to you through no fault of your own. Like someone in a car thinks you did something wrong when you were just trying to get somewhere or something, and they give you the bird as we used to say and shout jackass. Or people at work manage to be jerks to you, day in and day out. You’d think every once in a while they’d give the other way a try, just to mix it up a little, at least. But they consistently manage, despite your best efforts, to be dicks. You know what I mean. Or you’re part of some group that has anonymous enemies, like being Jewish or a Tutsi or being a woman. I guess my question is basically, what should you do when you get your feelings hurt, and it hits me that asking this question, at my age, if I don’t know by now I never will.

Now I have noticed a geographical element here. Having been born and raised in the South, even in the crazy Mediterranean/Las Vegas South of New Orleans, moving to the Mid-West has not been without politeness adjustments. I know the stereotype joke would be, no such thing as Mid-West culture. But that’s not right. There is a definite culture here. You just have to say whether you like it or not. I don’t want to be ungracious to my current host, the Mid-West. But so far let’s say I’m, uh, still adjusting.

Everyone should make an attempt to be kind to people. Everyone should try more to see that every life out there is a novel. Often a real black satire of a novel, or a tedious and violent one. But a novel nevertheless. It begins, it tells a story, then it ends.  Most people, I think, are just trying to do their best and get along, as they walk and walk to their final reward. As Anne Frank famously wrote. The sense of separate is an illusion, so every time you look at someone that means you’re in some sense looking in a mirror. So you shouldn’t hurt yourself so much. You should take better care of yourself.

Dear Mid-West: I’m sorry if this hurts your feelings. I just foresee the day when you and I will need to see other people. I may need to date other geographies. Uh, it’s not you; it’s me. Sorry, babe.