Letter to Joanie about feeling responsible

Dear Joanie,

I have grown into a sense of responsibility. I think I like it, though I clearly only have an edge of this thing. I have become friends of different sorts with roughly 20 year-old baristas at Aimee’s, a coffee shop. It’s hard when they move on, sometimes.

One quit without notice last year, apparently her life was blowing up. She was just not at Aimee’s one day. Then one very, very good day I ran into her on the street. We hugged and she said things were going well with her – another job, going to go back to school. She looked happy.

I tell you this because I think of the kids at FVHS now and then. I felt responsibility then, but it has grown deeper. I know myself to be self-centered, but I hope to give to others. Sometimes I manage to give, but usually I make someone else happy because it makes me happy. This exchange is clearly better than taking only. Maybe – except in rare instances – this is as good as humans get.

So it is good that I think about what I can give. And often I think about giving something to younger people.

I made a piece of some middle school kids’ day not long ago. They were trick or treating for UNICEF. A boy read from his script while his friends watched. Even ten or fifteen cents would help, he said, but something something would help feed a kid in somewhere. I was looking at the kids on my porch and not listening to the details.

I went inside to get a buck off my dresser. Instead I spotted the packed jar of change I keep to dump into the Salvation Army kettles at Christmas and I grabbed it. I didn’t give them anything I hadn’t already long decided I didn’t need anyway, but I got to listen to those kids yelling across to their friends on the other side of the street.

But the catch that I see is that if you do care, you find you often can’t give people what they need. But I would not give up that pain, either. I can handle some of it, anyway.

Bailie, one of the baristas, will be going to Scotland for an exchange program in January. I care about her as if she were my daughter or maybe a favorite niece – though, of course, my tips won’t pay for her college. I’ve made her laugh when she was frustrated. So little I have given to her, but she can mostly take care of herself already. After Scotland, she won’t be back at Aimee’s. But I feel some responsibility.

So here’s a story I want to share with you that Bailie prompted me to write. You will recognize the protagonist. This link takes you to a page with another link to me reading my story aloud as well as the text.

I think that we are too far apart but we also have to be with the people who are near by. Something else to think about. I hope this finds you well. At least we have the internet. And emoticons. Insert hug here.

bert

Link to 'Which story - about my life'