The Season of My Discontent

Spring is in the air and I am excited at the possibilities it brings. On the first warm, clear day in NY I was ready to embark on an excursion to Manhattan and got dressed and was thankful for the day. It was bright and shiny outside, and I felt limitless. I have always appreciated the changing of the seasons and thought of them as progression in my life. The winter winds, the April showers, the brightly colored leaves of fall, the steamy air of summer are the things that represent that I am moving forward in my pursuit of being an adult. I appreciate the changes as they represent little milestones and I am happy when they manifest in glorious days. Spring is the season I look most forward to in its brighter days and signs of things about to bloom. Hope is eternal, but with spring there seems to be a fruition of that hope. A new beginning awaits.

I recently walked down Fifth Avenue and walked by The Plaza Hotel on a 86 degree day and it felt so good. Hope springs eternal for me when weather is like that. I feel anew and refreshed. Ever since I can remember, the changing of the seasons gets me excited, and of the last few years, it magnifies my feelings of life, as a whole. I don't walk in fear of things not going right, knowing that if they do I can rebound. The confidence of being an adult and seeing things and knowing that whatever the end results will be I will be able to handle them has allowed me peace, but has also added an element of cynicism.

When I was younger and growing up in a highly dysfunctional household, I imagined that when I got away from my parents I would be out and about in the world among people who were nothing like my family. I never imagined the possibilities that people, every day people, people that I see in the periphery of my life - delivery people, people on the subway, and people I spend more time with than family, the people on my job - would be as dysfunctional as my family, as that would mean the world is a potentially cruel place, as cruel a place as the home I grew up in. I felt, when I left home at 16, people could not be as dysfunctional as those I was leaving behind as they were an aberration who were victimized themselves as children and visited their pain on me. All that I saw on TV and read about in the thousands of books I perused to take me away from the drudgery of my home life told me life was beautiful on the outside of my parents' home, and that once I ventured forth, I would bask in the goodness that was society and the life I could provide for myself. On this day I know I have worked hard to provide for me what I know is a good life. I have fulfilled what I set forth to do all those years ago when I left home, but what I did not find was the society I thought was outside that door.

When I was sixteen and on my own I always had a smile on my face and looked at people as potentially good people as I was hopeful at the odds those I encountered would not be dysfunctional as the people I left behind. Some 20 odd years later when I walk from my home and enter society, I know that many are as dysfunctional if not more than my parents and the rest of my family could have ever been. I get on the train and see faces, many faces ravaged by what I know are the effects of drugs, whether they are now on the straight and narrow after drug rehab, I have always clung to the adage, "Once a drug addict, always a drug addict". Though someone may have gone through "program" they will always have the sensibilities of a dope fiend. I try not to be judgmental, but only knowing that dysfunction brought them to that edge of drug addiction. I have a financial service job that the workers of which advice shareholders of various companies how to handle their stock, but meanwhile these same workers, I hear on the phone, make drug deals with codes they think those of us within listening range can't decipher as such, and those same people have bill collectors calling about late rent payments. I work with mean and disrespectful people. I take the train with people who I sometimes inquire if I am invisible to them because they push into me as if I am not there, thus the need for them to answer my question and put forth an apology. There are so many incidences I have experienced in my life since I have embarked on being an adult that have darkened my thoughts on the luminous society I thought I would find.

As I get ready to go to work everyday and walk to the subway, happy to smell the air of Spring, and I look around at the various people I encounter, and I know I was right to believe that there were better things outside of my parents doorway. I still know that there are good people in society, but I have an edge to my thoughts that makes that thought process delayed. I am cynical upon seeing and meeting people. I don't approach them as if they potentially are good people. I approach them as if they will be dysfunctional. I have become jaded. I read people like I do a book, and don't doubt that I am wrong. From the first meeting or viewing I believe in the possibility of bad, and should I have met and been introduced to them, I wait for incidences that may prove me wrong, but certainly don't hold my breath. I believe in decent people and know they exist, but also know they are few and far between.

Essentially, I am disappointed in people. I had hoped all those years ago to meet and be around confident, well adjusted people, who may or may not be friends, but who were people who viewed me the same way and therefore had respect for themselves and for others. But everyday I see stupid actions from people who are not self-loving which then manifests in them being rude to those around them, be they strangers or people they know. And I am now detached, and no longer have a ready smile for people, as I did those many years ago.

I love the changing of the seasons as they represent newness. The seasons have always represented newness to me, but during these most recent years there is an edge to the thought process of newness as I am jaded toward people upon first glance, but have the hope they will prove me wrong. I love life and people, but have a certain solumnness about and during that process of loving. Because I am older I am more aware of the dysfunction of people in society at large. This is the season of my discontent as it brings forth a newness of knowing life is good for me and it must be shared with many around me who do not know it nor appreciate it, and sometimes have the manifestation of that non-appreciation imposed on those around them.