A Thanksgiving Reality Check

The following post was an email I got from my mom last week. She volunteers at a local food bank. It gave me all the feels, so I thought I'd share--


Sometimes my days at the food bank are very humbling. 

All of our clients who come in for food have stories, but when people pass them on the streets, most just walk a little faster and turn away to avoid them. When they come into the food bank week after week, a face in the crowd becomes a real person-- with a name and a story. Many will open up to you, and you get to know what some of them are going through and how one tiny little act of kindness can make their day.

Janice lives in her car. She ALWAYS politely asks me if she can use the bathroom to wash up, and she always asks how I'm doing.

Frank sits on a bench out in front and immediately eats what we give him, because he's so hungry. He has no plate-- just a plastic fork and a can of cold soup or beans. Yet he smiles at me every time I say, "How are you, Frank?" 

Darrell stands by the door and when we have items that people don't want from their carts, he asks if he can please have them. I always give him whatever he wants, I don't care if it's against the rules.

Barbara hides in the bushes and waits until the place clears out before she comes in for her food. She is very nervous and afraid of men, and always asks for extra soap. I think she might have been sexually abused.

Every week one of us goes in the back warehouse and sneaks Sam an extra loaf of "wheat bread" because he likes it so much. Big deal, it's stale anyway. He has diabetes and can barely walk on his swollen feet.

Charlie always asks if we have any sardines. We always make sure we have a stack of crackers to give him, too.

Victor loves peaches IN HEAVY SYRUP, so one of us buys a can of those for him every week.

Charlene is SO happy when she gets six eggs. We don't always have enough cartons, and that's why I collect them from everyone I know. Stores donate the eggs in cartons with broken eggs in them; we sort out the good eggs and need clean cartons to put them in so we can give them to people.

Debbie has to work swing shift in a vitamin factory because her husband lost his job after 22 years as a chef at a country club. She stinks like fish oil and apologizes. They have six kids. She barely makes it before we close, so I stay a little later for her so she can get her food. If the traffic is bad, she will miss the distribution time if I don't.

Sometimes, if it's a week they aren't supposed to get meat, they will cry. (Only one week a month is a meat week for each family.)

And sometimes the new clients cry when they see how much food we're giving them. They will say, "ALL OF THIS IS FOR ME?! REALLY?!"

I am told "God Bless You" 50 times a day.

This stuff goes on every time I work there.

But yesterday, a lady named Shirley came in. She's kind of latched onto me for a friendly ear. She's a white woman, about 45 if I were to guess her age. She has kids, and she has a husband. Someone from the food bank handed her a paper to sign in front of me. She sold her car to someone there for $375. I was just making small talk with her as I helped her out with her food, and I asked her how her Halloween was. She said, "It wasn't good. I didn't have the money to buy any candy this year, so I turned off my lights and just peeked out my window at the kids. I just wasn't able to buy any candy for them."

Shirley said they have to be out of their house in 17 days. They had to sell their house, they can't afford to keep it; it's in Sierra Madre. They're taking their equity and renting a place half the size. Her husband lost his job after 15 years, even though he got commendations for good sales. He was so embarrassed by it that he couldn't even tell her. Someone's brother in his company needed a job, so they let her husband go. Shirley had been planning an 80th birthday party for her mom when it happened. She said she spent $600 on the party, not knowing how much they would need that money. She told me, "I wish he would have told me. I spent money we needed. I just didn't know." 

One day, she found a movie ticket stub in her husband's pocket. It was for a day he was supposed to be working. She thought he was having an affair, but he wasn't. He just couldn't bring himself to tell her he lost his job when she was happily planning her mom's party.  

Shirley's rationing their remaining money until they move. She told me she can't afford to go to the grocery store. The ONLY way they eat is the food the food bank gives them. One son needs surgery and he was in so much pain they had to go on the husband's COBRA for a month or two so he could be treated immediately-- Medi-Cal takes too long to get processed. So that's more money they have to spend.  

After she told me all of this, she said, "But you know, I see other people inside this place that are in much worse shape than I am, so I am thankful that we will still have a roof over our heads. A lot of these people don't."

Then she said, "I will see you next week because if I don't come here, we'll have nothing to eat." And she left.

It kind of just leaves you speechless sometimes.  And very thankful.

Thank you for being a friend

Relationships are the foundation of life (I know half of you wisenheimers reading this just thought, "No, it's water!" or "No, it's carbon!". Chill out, you're right too). Relationships determine not only how you interact with other living beings, but with every tangible object and abstract idea in existence. There are the relationships you have with others—your spouse or lover, your parents, your friends, your coworkers, your God etc.—and there are the less obvious relationships about which you seldom think; with nature, food, politics, sirens, the plot to Shawshank Redemption, your car, confidence, the ground upon which you walk and the air you breathe. Your entire being is in relation to everything.

So when anyone asks what in life is most important to me, the answer is obvious: Relationships.

Since the day I turned eighteen, I've never lived in any one city for more than four years. Berkeley, Boston and San Diego were home for short periods of time, and Pensacola is it for the next few years—until it's time to pack up and move on once again. Transience isn't rare for someone my age in today's culture. But when it comes to relationships, with each move and with each mile and with each passing day comes the separation and imminent dissolution of one of the most important forms a relationship can take: Friendships. And then comes the need to make new ones.

Remember when you were in elementary school and making a friend was literally as easy as walking up to anyone on the playground and saying, "Will you be my friend?" Boom. That was that. Friend made. You played with them for the rest of recess, sat with them at lunch, got their phone number and called them on the weekend to see if they wanted to come over and play. There were no self-constructed emotional walls, no social anxiety, no pride fueled by the fear of rejection... all of which lead to inaction, and opportunities missed.

Even through college making friends was pretty much that easy (alcohol helped, too, by that point). You were surrounded by thousands of like-aged and like-minded people in the same phase of life in one concentrated area; you were in the trenches together, spurring the formation of inevitable comraderies.

Then we became adults, and making new friends got hard.

With every move and every year that ticks off the calendar, sparking new friendships gets exponentially more difficult. I'm not talking about acquaintances—those are easy. I can be friendly with just about anyone. I'm talking about deep, meaningful friendships.

I half-joked with my best friend (since age 5) before moving to Pensacola this summer that I was going to revert back to my elementary school mindset and just ask people, "Will you be my friend?" To me, that's the hardest part about moving, having to downgrade great friendships to random texts and monthly-ish phone calls. With each new move, you have to start from scratch in trying to find awesome people to reattain invaluable, first-degree, in-person friendships. And even if you do meet someone with that potential, you can't just ask "Will you be my friend?", because now you're an adult, and adults don't do that. Adults are guarded. Adults have developed a fear of rejection. Adults are paralyzed by pride. Adults are too busy with their own, already-established lives. Other adults don't have time for new friends. These are the thoughts that creep into our minds now. And it sucks. Because I, for one, would love if another adult asked me to be their friend.

So why can't most of us do that?

I guess the reason for this blog post (other than the fact that I will find any excuse to sneak a Golden Girls allusion into something) is that lately I've been reflecting a lot on all the great friendships I've made throughout the years, and am being impatient about making more where I am now. Relationships are the most important thing to me, and currently there is a gaping lack of in-person friendships. I haven't yet mentioned that they always come along: these deep, meaningful friendships. Eventually. And I may have even begun the process of making a few in my current hometown. But the time I spend waiting for them to develop seems indefinite.

Anyway, to all in my past, present, and future—Thank you for being a friend.

Sorry, had to.