Next!

Again I find myself thinking about the nature of suffering and friendship because Paparazzo is on Percocet. He needs it. Fucked up ankles and broken bones require the good stuff. You can check out all of the pics on his blog, but here is my personal favourite:

I feel a bit nauseous looking at them, and then a bit guilty for thinking “cool.” He goes through all the gory details on his blog and at Free Ride South, but the long and short of it is doing something you have done a million times with success does not guarantee you won’t crash and burn at some point.

Frequent readers of my little blog know Paparazzo means the world to me. He is my best friend. I do not know how I would have made it through these last six months–in particular–without his sunshine in my life, let alone moved! Twice! I told everyone my move into a first floor flat was due to Miss Audrey’s knees, but really it was because Paparazzo would have K.I.L.L.E.D. me if he had to help haul my gorgeous green buffet down and up any more stairs, given it weighs around one million pounds. A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to keep her friends!

You know, us girls tend to be much more expressive of how we feel in general, but also towards those we love. I always tell those in my life how much I love them and the neat things about them I just find to be the bomb-diggity. Take Paparazzo: He is brilliant, funny, annoying (in an endearing way), always on-time, kind, would help any friend or stranger, has an amazing eye, game (he did go with me to Jacksonville and back in one day just to see puppies for an hour), athletic, fair, a great employee and boss, a good listener, honest, and a treasure trove of worthwhile insight. I also think he is brave. When he first moved down to South Florida he knew basically no one, and time and again that boy has put himself out there to meet new people and make friends…let alone a love connection! In fact, we met because he saw Paulina Ballerina and me sitting at the bar of P.F. Chang’s (his own personal “Cheers”) and fought for the seat next to us. A grown-ass man drinking a Shirley Temple with his calamari caught our attention and the rest is history.*

So, dear reader, I love him. It broke my heart to see him laid up in the ER without any pain meds for two hours, so I did what any good chaplain would do. I became the sweetest pest around! “Hi. You’re Adam? I’m Jacqueline, Paparazzo’s friend. He needs some pain medicine.” To which Adam replied, “I am getting it right now.” And with honey dripping from my voice I said, “Goooood. It has been two hours, so I am glad you are on it!” Sharp look of: “Don’t let that fucking happen again Nurse Boy.” and the meds were delivered then, and later, promptly. Trust me. In these types of situations, I am at my best. Car repair, reconciling my checking account, and understanding the hearts and minds of men…not so much. Blood, guts, doctors, hospitals, drugs, interventions, craziness, and emotional break-downs…I’m your girl.

You know, as a Hospice Chaplain I get asked all sorts of questions about the nature of suffering. I cannot even begin to count the times I have been asked the whole, “But I was a good person; why is this happening to me?” question of the ages. I try to just sit with them over the pain of feeling abandoned by God or life. I know, from my own experiences, not much that I might think to say in the moment of touching such a profound sense of just how fragile and unfair life really is will help my patients and their loved ones. It never helps me. But, I do say to myself–in that small corner of my heart where I speak the brutal truth–”It is just your turn.”

Years ago I read a story in a women’s magazine about a woman who had a miscarriage. In times before, when her own friends had been through one, she would tell them things like: “It is going to be okay. You can have another one. This one was just not meant to be. God needed this baby.” As she lay in her hospital bed after her D & C following the loss of her baby, her friends poured through the door. One by one, they too offered empty words of support. Then one friend, a friend who had herself gone through the loss and pain of a miscarriage came to see her. Weeping the author pulled her friend to her and asked her, “Why did this happen to me?” Her friend replied, “It was your turn.”**

This story has been freeing to me in so many ways. Life is full of bad luck. We all stand in line waiting our turn at the window marked “Shit Happens.” Sometimes it is your turn. Sometimes it is mine. These last six months have been brutal for me. I still sometimes wonder how I will find my way towards life and love again. I do not want to be the one who has to get back up AGAIN and pick up the pieces. I do not want to be the one who hears the other person say, “Well, I treated you like shit, but I saw no need to apologize because I knew you could handle it.” I do not want to handle shit sometimes. Sometimes, I just want it to go the fuck away.

Yet when it was my turn, I got through in large part because I had wonderful friends and family who understood it was also my turn to receive extra measures of love and care. Paparazzo surely did. So, now it is his turn to be in Shitville, and my turn to stand beside him. I know it is hard to be on the receiving end–we all value giving over receiving–but the ebb and flow of friendship and life and love require give and take. Those who only take are users; those who only give, martyrs. True friends do a bit of both.

And have no fear. One day, I will again be at the front of the “Shit Happens” line and hear the teller say, “Next!” I know Paparazzo will be there for me then, even if he will claim that his old ankle injury will not allow him to haul my gorgeous green buffet anywhere!

*In reality, it was cranberry juice and vodka, but it sure did look like a Shirley Temple!

**Mad props to the original author of the article. I cannot remember the magazine, let alone the woman who wrote it. If you know, let me know.