We are Trash

Yes us. All of us. We are trash. We have one job as human beings. We are supposed to be kind and respectful to our fellow humans. Yes, we are capable of so much more and most everyone performs countless jobs any given day, but at our base level, we have one job. And we are failing miserably. During the past year, one of my favorite things (because I have the privilege of having a warm, safe home to hang in so I’ve been able to take time to find bright sides) has been the ability to take a true bird’s eye view of what my life looks like. What I need, what I love, what I want, and what I’m grateful to leave behind. It’s been beautiful. I need very little. Food, water, clothing, a place to live, sleep, movement, love, and family. That’s it. I had a lot of extras in my life pre-pandemic and many of them will come back when we are safely able to see each other again. Brunches with best friends, trips to the grocery store just because I thought of something random I wanted to make, trips to see family and friends, exercise classes whenever I feel like it, movie nights out in the theater, Broadway shows. It’s going to be awesome. But other things I am glad to leave behind.

I haven’t fully unpacked what it says about me, but I am very susceptible to falling into the patterns and moods of people around me. I think it has something to do with being a highly sensitive person (side note: if you haven’t read the book “Quiet”, it’s pretty amazing. It’s all about introversion and also spends a great deal on what it means to be highly sensitive. I read it for the first time in 2013 and it changed the game for me.) In short, if people around me are being gossipy and negative, I can easily fall right into the mud with them. And the only person to blame in that situation is me. I learned this most notably at my old job where there were a few for lack of a better term “mean girls”. I definitely let myself get on the petty, gossip, talk about people behind their backs train. It didn’t last long, mostly because my boss called me out on my behavior and pointed towards the strong, amazing women at my job who didn’t concern themselves with being rude and petty. 

Then after I had my son, I met a couple of mothers who were similarly gossipy and also weirdly compared their children to other children. As in, one woman would ask me every time I saw her how high my son could count and how he knew all his letters already. It was awkward and felt icky. That woman and I don’t hang anymore. I don’t miss that. Also, if you ever find yourself comparing your child to anyone else’s child, please stop. Your kid is their own person with their own path. Which brings me to the main point of this post. We are trash. We are failing at our one job.

Kindness and respect. The words I repeat to my children every single day. That’s our only real job. My son is a lot like me and gets anxious when he’s not doing things “right”. He and I have some version of this conversation every day. Me: All you have to be in this world is kind and respectful. If you do those things, you will have done your job. It doesn’t matter what you do for work or where you live or how smart you are. All that really matters is that you are kind and respectful. Him: ok, but what if I mess up? Me: you’re gonna mess up a lot. But if you try your best to do better next time and you put kindness and respect first, you’ll be awesome. 

I really do believe it’s that simple. However, we are failing. We are supposed to stay home as much as we can and yet those of us who do live in warm safe homes surrounded by family and love seem to be the people who are whining about missing out on what we used to do. Meanwhile, there are people who live alone and do not have family nearby who are understandably extremely lonely yet follow the rules and do their part. When we do go out, we are supposed to wear masks. It’s super duper easy and there are literally at least 10 different kinds of masks one can wear to suit their particular preference. Yet we whine about those too or don’t wear them at all or wear them all sorts of ass backwards wrong. Trash. Y’all it’s been a year. Change is hard, but at this point we are no longer in a state of change. We are in a state of statis. We are actively choosing to continue behaviors that are destructive to ourselves and everyone around us. Please no.

Then there’s the blatant racism legitimately everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been everywhere since always, but the boldness with which so many people choose overt racism is an extra kind of trash. Please for all that is good in the world just stop. People are people. None of us is better or more worthy of anything than anyone else. Ever. Again, kindness and respect are our only jobs and we’ve perfected failing at them on purpose here. So many of us (read: it’s mostly white people being terrible, it’s not only white people, but white people created the problem so it’s out problem to solve) care so much about being “better” than other people that we are proverbial “mean girl” at the job. The insecurity about ourselves and our worth as human beings has us so fragile that we attempt to deal with the issue created in our own heads by subjugating other people. It’s trash.

I do not have answers to this other than to say if I had my way and met my fairy godmother (side note: did you watch Cinderella on Disney + yet? If you haven’t, get over there. It’s the best version and then we can discuss my decades long crush on Paolo Montalban and how Brandy still looks the same almost 24 years later and Whitney and just please go watch), I would ask her to make everyone in the world kind and respectful. That’s it. That’s all I want. For now, I’m gonna keep drilling that message home each day with my kids. It’s going to take the rest of forever, but it will help. 

I want to be clear when I say that we are trash that I’m including myself in that sentiment. No one is perfect or above making shitty comments or doing something foolish. But each one of us has the opportunity every day to choose kindness and respect. Please let us all move in that direction and then stay there. Happy Wednesday!