The Three-Legged Race

I spent a lot of my childhood alone. Not in a bad way, no, not at all. It was just the way my sisters and I were spaced out and how they left home early that gave me a lot of time to myself. I often joke about how I'm the youngest child, and a bit of an only child as well and so a product of extreme self-absorption. In fact, most of my writing begins with the word "I." It's all about Suzy. I admit it. I'm self absorbed. I.

But life doesn't work that way. If all I did was talk about myself then I guarantee that most of my friends and family would fuck right off and I'd be forever alone eating whole boxes of Eggo waffles in front of the TV watching Days of Our Lives. But we're created for communion with each other, for community. God must have a sense of humour to give humanity a hefty dose of narcissism with a starving hunger for relationship. It's like we walk around with billboards on our necks proclaiming, "I need you, but piss off!"

We try to do it on our own all the time, don't we? Even as toddlers we'd look up with a scowl at whoever might be helping us and we'd shriek, "I DO MYSELF!" And then we'd cut our finger or tie our shoelaces into 18 different knots. 

My conclusion? Don't be alone so much. True, there are a bunch of us who are wired to be alone a little more than the average person but don't play that card so often that you lose out on community. In a three-legged race, two people move forward a lot slower than they would separately but they cross the finish line together. We fumble, we fall, and if we're lucky we might even wind up on top of each other in a heap of sweat and rope. There are grass stains and rope burns and sweat marks, but we all have them. Together. And that's all that matters.