Monday, August 04, 2008

I spent much of my weekend licking wounds both real and imaginary and plotting strategy for the war inside my head. Lori and I also took several nice long walks.

This morning on the bus a young lady sitting next to me rose to catch her stop, leaving a $20 bill on the seat behind her. It took a few seconds to catch her attention, I actually had to follow her down the aisle and tug on her sleeve before I could return the money, which she accepted with a look of mild surprise and a shrug. At that moment it struck me that I hadn't even entertained the notion of keeping the money, I returned it on sheer instinct and her response to my action planted the idea that perhaps the cash wasn't hers ... perhaps it had been left by some third passenger, and in the haze of morning the girl hadn't noticed the bill before sitting herself down upon it. Which makes me less noble than chump. I'm sure that when Lori reads this she'll smile and be all "that's why I love him" and everything, but when I look back over the past twenty years at all the things I could have had if I had only cultivated the selfish side of my personality and let the empathetic part atrophy, I feel like I wouldn't be nearly as frustrated today as I am. Is it too late to reverse this?

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