The importance of black

March 1. The first day of the month. I hate the first day of the month. The rent check is due. Child support. Other kids’ expenses. The checking account that looked so hopeful with some serious numbers in it, (serious meaning there’s enough of a buffer that there is no chance of it getting overdrawn) is drained and I have to reach deep into savings that I hope to replace, but still don’t yet know how.

Hope. This world runs on hope. Most of us wouldn’t get out of the bed in the morning if it weren’t for hope.

I have no reason to complain, though, for two reasons: first, I dug my own financial grave, and therefore it's my responsibility to get myself out again. Oh, not that I didn’t have a little help, but that person isn’t going to own up to any responsibility. A true character out of a Tennessee Williams’ play, living inside her own head and fantasies. Or better yet, someone described best by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby:

"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…"

This woman has made a selfish career out of ruining other’s lives, her ex-husband’s, her kids’, everyone near to her gets sucked into her little game — she’s so alluring, she plays so well, adept at really fooling others who have no idea of the emptiness and cruelty that reside inside her — then when things fizzle, as she calls it, she just moves on leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces of their lives. They’re called borderline personalities, and if you don’t know about them, Google the word and read about them. If you meet anyone who even remotely fits this description run, run for your life.

But I’m not bitter. LOL. Seriously, if I weren't, I wouldn’t be human.

But I do have one more reason not to complain. It’s in the bible: Where much is given, much will be expected. I have been given an extraordinary amount. I have my health; I feel good. I’m not dying of cancer like someone I know. Hell, I’m not dead, like others I know (Horseman, pass by.) I do have a means of getting along, perhaps not in a grand fashion, but not like the destitute one sees daily on the streets of Boston. I was given talent and drive; I’ve been taught to fish, rather than just given a fish. I been given the ability to enjoy beauty, and to find it everywhere I look, from a painting hung in the MFA to a book of literature to a piece of music to a gorgeous clear morning. But most importantly, I’ve been given loved ones, family and friends. Special people like my two daughters and Sue who love me, as I like to say, despite who I am. And good buddies like John and Baxter and Scott.

So, March 1. Totalling up the tally sheet here, some of it is in the red, other parts are deep in the black. The important parts are in the black.