Words of Green

Official website for author Tammy Green

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The Problem With Compassionate Empaths

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The term “empath” may be familiar to you in reference to the Myers-Briggs scale, indicating someone who is intuitive or feels things. However, if you’re an empath, it’s likely that you already know it.

I was an empath even as a small child but didn’t know it for many years because I wasn’t conscious of the term. It took me much longer than usual to realize that other people felt differently from how I felt, and that not everyone could understand my internal experience (or even wanted to). Eventually, however, I did realize this, and have spent the past decade trying to understand not only my own experiences, but empaths as a whole. Now, as an empath with several years of experience, I’m aware that there are advantages to being empathic. However, there are also pitfalls to empathy that can make life difficult for those who have this psychological trait. So, what are the cons of having heightened emotional awareness?

1) Overwhelming emotional experiences

One of the biggest challenges for empaths is learning how to handle the intensity of their own emotional experiences. This is due to a phenomenon called emotional contagion. Emotional contagion is defined as “the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person”. In other words, empaths are likely to involuntarily take on the emotions of those around them. Empaths are able to accurately sense and distinguish between other people’s feelings, but it is difficult for them to prevent themselves from becoming overwhelmed by strong emotional experiences that are out of their control.

2) Lack of boundaries

An empath has a hard time differentiating between their own emotions and the emotions of others. This can lead to intense personal relationships, where they feel like everything is shared, but it can also cause them to neglect themselves because they think other people are more important than them.

3) Sensitivity to stimuli

Being an empath means that you are sensitive to stimuli of all sorts. They can be sensitive to light, sound, taste, or smell. Also, they may have a difficult time going out in public because of loud noises, unpleasant smells, and crowds of people.

4) Physical symptoms

Being an empath makes it hard for you to distinguish between your own emotions and those of other people, which leads to physical symptoms of diseases or other ailments. This can cause them to think they are sick even though they are perfectly healthy.

5) Mental overload

Being an empath means feeling everything that’s going on everywhere, which leads to mental overload and being overwhelmed by emotions. They have no way of selecting what to feel and the emotions can become too much and can cause them to shut down. Also, if the emotions and feelings of others are constantly coming into their area, it makes it very difficult for them to stay in a positive mindset. They may feel like they’re drowning in negativity and sadness, when there’s no reason for them to be sad. Mental overload and constant bombardment of emotions from those around them can also lead to emotional burnout and develop into severe anxiety for the empath. It’s not uncommon for empaths to also suffer from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) as a result of all the emotional damage they’ve accumulated throughout their lives. This can also result in an imbalance of serotonin, the feel-good chemical that helps keep our moods balanced. Without it, stress levels rise and depression becomes more likely. The best thing empaths can do is protect themselves with meditation, visualization techniques, and other protective methodologies. They can also avoid letting others take advantage of them, practice self-care routines, and even use their abilities to help heal others.

In conclusion, compassionate empaths are sensitive to energy and emotions. They can easily become overwhelmed by the negative feelings of others, which is why it’s important for them to monitor their exposure levels. In this article we’ve explored what a compassionate empath is, how they may experience life differently from other people, and some ways compassionately empathic individuals can protect themselves from being over-exposed to negativity.

To learn more about the adventures of a real-life empath, grab a copy of my book HERE.

Photo by Jessica Delp on Unsplash

The Book Is Here!

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Living Without Skin: Everything I Never Knew About Fierce Vulnerability is finally here! Click on Buy the Book in the banner above to get your copy today, or find it anywhere books are sold!

Feeling vulnerable is frightening.
Being fiercely vulnerable is phenomenal.

Most of us spend a lifetime trying to avoid pain and insecurity while overlooking the power we inherently possess. What would you do differently with your life if you knew you were failsafe at birth?

If you’ve ever felt vulnerable, weak, or like a complete failure, you can transform those feelings into fierce superpowers.

Life can leave you feeling raw, naked, and skinless. Learning to live without skin can turn you into the superhero of your dreams!

Prepare for an extraordinary and sometimes humorous journey that begins with a child’s imagination and ends with an ordinary adult’s transformation on unexpected paths.

You’ll discover how embracing vulnerability can help you:
– Learn how to find and wear the skin you were created for.
– Uncover the core of your individual insecurities, and transform them into strength.
– Connect internally and externally to humanity-defining power in a personal and public environment.
– Heal from trauma so it isn’t passed to the next generation as culture.

Step out of your old skin. Be your own fierce hero.

A Little More Haphazard Blogging

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It seems as good a time as any to check back in here, especially since my last post was in November, 2020. I feel pretty confident that none of us were sad to see THAT year go. As we came through the beginning of 2021, it appears many of us were just trying to find stable ground again – emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I certainly was.

I have finished writing the book, Living Without Skin. I decided to shoot for the moon when asking for endorsements, and I sent requests to Brené Brown, Glennon Doyle, and Elizabeth Gilbert. I assume we’ll be “talk-on-the-phone” friends by next year anyway, so I wanted to get a jump on building our relationships. Of course, I didn’t get a response from most. However, Brené Brown’s team actually did respond – with a PERSONAL response vs just a canned “No”. So, clearly the first signed copy will go to Brené (who will likely never know how close she came to being famous by endorsing my book).

“Hmmmm…I’ve always wanted to write a book.” Are you thinking that? Do you have a great story? Dreaming of having a different career? Thinking that writing a book must be glamorous and an ideal job? Um, no. It’s a J-O-B! Writing, in and of itself, is a lesson in slicing open your heart and bleeding all over the paper. And, unless you’re famous and you have a publishing company doing all the legwork, putting that book together and actually publishing it is WORK! So, it’s been a labor of love, and definitely a check mark on the bucket list. I am unequivocally proud of it, and of my truth that I managed to tell.

Stay tuned for more information on ordering your copy starting August 1, 2021. We’re halfway through 2021 with many of us gratefully recovering from 2020. Let’s make the last half of this year amazing! Onward.

Rip

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The year of ripping, of goodbye, death, of the word “cruel” and being able to say “you are not who I thought you were”, the year of sickness, when the whole world stopped. The year I broke open, and my guts spilled out onto the paper, into the earth, when I learned that spirit is larger than body, and bodies are fragile. Everyone this year tells me ‘your words resonate with me’, and minds are twisted – the veil between good and evil is opened. The year that slammed me into humanity/humility, stillness, laughter, softness in the corners found underneath the shadows and the swords. Skinless and raw, with scabs that have somehow become scars, and scars that have become beautiful mosaic tattoos on my soul. The year of feeling someone else’s pain, sitting with it, holding a hand, wiping a brow, cupping a face while a hurricane boils inside me. The year of drowning in powerlessness and worry while flowers bloom, the ozone clears, the air is cleaner and fresher than ever before in my lifetime, sadness and joy weave and wind throughout soul and heart like serpents and doves. The year of evolution, revolution, mixed with flour and butter and honey-the best birthday cake ever made for the earth, and I learned through loss what love really means. The year I found my place, and I belong.

It’s Not Really Work

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She was born a caregiver. She’s so smart and can literally do a thousand things at once, and juggle every one down to the detail in her mind. She went to nursing school to learn a trade that would provide an income for her 4 kids and family, but nursing was really her destiny. She did it, and did it well during her whole career. And when she “retired”, she kept on nursing in a private setting until age 86. Seriously, age 86. Who does that? Probably because she loved what she did, it was never really work.

She cared for her family with just as much devotion. At age 21, I was working my first “real” job after college, and the job had taken me to a small town about 2 hours from Chunky, MS, where I was raised. She still lived there. I was an assistant manager for a retail store 2 hours away, and worked at least 6 days per week. I rented a small house near work and I lived alone. Of course, a small town where you don’t know anyone can be very isolating, and sometimes lonely. So, I worked a lot, and eventually, I got sick. Not seriously sick, but a cold or flu or something that a little chicken soup would eventually take care of. That was all the excuse she needed. She packed up her car and headed on down to take care of me. And she did. She nursed me, and chicken souped me, and we sat together in the evenings, each reading a book. After a couple days, I was feeling better enough to make it back to work. She just said, “Well, I’ll just finish out the week here if that’s alright with you, and I’ll go on up to Jackson when I leave.” If you haven’t noticed by now, Jackson was an integral part of our lives. Listen, I was 21 and foolish, but I wasn’t stupid. When the Mimaw shows up and waits on you hand and foot for a couple days, you don’t really want that to end too soon. “You can stay another week after if you want to,” I said. She just smiled.

She did stay an extra week, and we spent the evenings reading, and talking. Who even wants to spend that much time with a headstrong, know-it-all, 21 year old? Especially one who is sick? She did. I am her oldest grand. The one on which she lavished everything. The one who stole her heart. The one who taught her what being a grand was all about. She wants to spend that much time with me.

So caring for her now, when she needs it the most? Doing for her what she can’t do for herself? This is a breeze. Easiest thing in the world. I want to spend time with her. Because I love her, it’s not really work. ❤️

Myrtle Irby, My Grand, The Great

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I brought the roses to her from Memphis on Tuesday. She couldn’t smell them so I rubbed one of the blooms across her cheek so she could feel how silky it was. They are so beautiful in the vase sitting across from her bed.

This morning when I awoke to go into the kitchen, I noticed one bloom bowing its head toward her. I wondered if it was a sign.

Our tiny little bird spread her wings tonight and flew. She was right in the middle of the people she loved most, listening to stories of her adventures as experienced by each of us. Had she been able to speak, she would have been adding her voice to each one of those stories. She is the reason we all exist, and we were lucky to have her as the matriarch of our family.

The stroke took her ability to enunciate, and to swallow, and to do anything for herself. It was a privilege to do for her what she couldn’t do for herself. She gave my cousin and me one last gift at her last hoorah at 3:30 a.m. on Friday when she sat up and looked at us both and said, “You have been a big help, and everything is gonna be alright.” She spoke the words as clear as a bell. Twice. He and I gawked at each other when she said it. And they were the last words she spoke.

Her roses kept watch over her, and they chose an ambassador to bow to her as she made her exit today. My heart will sing in her memory the words that will forever remind me of her life – “I hope that I see the world as you did because I know a life with love is a life that’s been lived.”

Everything is gonna be alright, Mimaw. Right now and always, Myrtle Irby, RN, my grand, the great. 💔

She’s Not Flying Yet

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This tiny little bird is going to gather a few more stories here with us before she flies. I’m not sure why that’s surprising. After all, she parented two small boys singly after their father was killed. She put herself through nursing school when women didn’t really take on careers like that. She married again and gave all four of her children a legacy. She taught her children and their children the value of hard work, perseverance, and not settling. She worked as a nurse until she was 86 years old. Yes, you read that right. Two weeks ago, she celebrated her 96th birthday. Saturday night, she suffered a stroke. It was big, and we were afraid that we were going to lose her. We forgot who she is. She is coming back by the minute, and after a bit more rehab, she’ll be back to being Myrtle Irby, RN – the RN stands for Right Now. (That’s a family joke as she’s known for her impatience.)

For her whole life, she’s cared for others, and I am the recipient of a large part of that care. It’s a privilege to be able to give a tiny portion of her gift back to her. As she used to read to me, I snuggled her and read to her. As I used to say to her, “Don’t leave me, Mimaw.”, she said to me, “I don’t want you to go.” As she used to drive to work crying after having to leave me, I drive home crying after having to leave her.

But I’ll be back for a few more adventures with my grandmother, the great. ❤️

Reflections

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A decade ago, starting life over.
Love, work, school, life.
The culmination of a few years of darkness.
Painfully shedding the self I had known for 40 years.
Moving, kicking and screaming, into the unknown ahead.

Midway to end, learning, growing. screaming, learning.
Graduating, working, parenting, travelling, learning.
New friends, new family, a soul mutt, a soul mate.
Writing, photographing, living, loving.

Ending the decade, letting go of people and things
no longer helping me grow.
Surviving the most excruciating, most rewarding
experience of my life.
Recognizing the necessity of every tear, every laugh,
every heartbreak, every soul-bursting moment.
I am not lost.
I am the phoenix that emerged from the fire.

And now, I will not use accomplishments to measure.
Only attributes – kindness, empathy, listening to hear.
The next half of my life, this new chapter,
I will see the phoenix fly.


~ Tammy Green

~ Photo by Aziz Acharki

A Life Affair With Sobriety

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Today I celebrate 25 years sober. In a week, I’ll celebrate 52 years of age. It’s a good marking point for reflecting on a life affair with sobriety. I managed to survive the first 17 years without alcohol by honing my sarcastic and comedic skills. I coped with the shit show of my life by being funny. I took my first drink at 17 with friends in a car on a back road, and my life changed in an instant. That giant, empty hole inside was filled instantly. I was immediately beautiful, successful, and intelligent. I was worthy. I was loved. I was important. Mind you, nothing about my environment had changed, but finally, something outside of me made me feel whole.

I started college at 17 due to the way my birthday falls, and not because I was academically ahead of my peers. It was the first time I had been entirely responsible for myself in choosing things about my life, such as curfews and friends. I made the most of it immediately. I chose friends who were much more street smart than me, and I made it my business to catch up in the shortest amount of time necessary. I quickly learned that I could continue to function in my life while binge drinking on weekends. I continued to live this way through college and my first and second adult jobs. I managed to buy a home on my own, and made it through several promotions at my third job before I realized that my drinking was a problem.

My friend called me the day after a night out together and told me to go check my car. I asked why. She stated that I hit a car and drove off laughing. I was shocked. At this point, I knew that I always blacked out when I drank, but I never thought I would do something morally wrong while blacked out. It shook everything I knew about myself as I could have easily hit a living creature and drove off and I would never had known. I went outside to check my car and it was damaged. I was devastated. Who in the hell would I be without alcohol? All of the confidence, esteem, and success that I had earned thus far was to alcohol’s credit. I was 26 years old and having an identity crisis about breaking up with alcohol.

Through my job, I voluntarily admitted myself into an outpatient rehab program. I remember two things: 1) my counselor told us to look to the left and look to the right of us.  One in three of us will stay sober, and 2) I had to go to 90 Alcoholic’s Anonymous meetings in 90 days, and I had to have a form signed for my counselor at each one for the first 30 of them. An introduction to AA was the best gift I got from a treatment program.

Fast forward six months. I met my future husband across the room at an AA meeting. I thought I had finally arrived. I was living like an adult, and doing adult things such as home ownership, getting married, starting a family. I was doing it all without alcohol. I was scared to death of life, but I put on my big girl pants. I showed up and stared life down whenever it roared. I did it. I had a great job, a new family with a husband and two stepchildren, a nice car, and a new home. I spent so long faking it until I thought I had finally made it. I attended AA meetings with my husband, and I didn’t drink that day.

Fast forward four years. I always wanted to be a mother. It was time. I was 30 and the clock was ticking. It took a year to get pregnant, and my daughter was born when I was 32. I have never known anything like the feeling I had when I looked into her eyes for the first time. I saw the past, present, and future in one glance at her face. I fell into a love that rocked my whole world. I attended AA meetings with her in a baby sling, and I didn’t drink that day.

Fast forward 9 years. Life happened. I was bored. My marriage was boring. My job was boring. Everything was ending in a wall, including my marriage and job. I had started two businesses, bought a big house, enrolled my baby in an exclusive private school, and watched my husband move to the opposite end of the state to start a business there. But I was empty again inside. My life imploded. My businesses were failing. My husband was staying away from home more often. The payments on the big house were getting behind. My health was not good. There was no light at the end of the tunnel. I attended AA meetings while crying daily, and I didn’t drink that day.

Fast forward 3 years. I put myself through school for a second degree after my businesses failed. I moved myself and my daughter to a smaller home after the divorce was final. I began working again in a different field and began another small business. When my ex-husband told me angrily that I could date whomever I wanted, male or female, I discovered a new truth about myself. I embarked upon dating again, this time I was dating women. I attended AA meetings, and I didn’t drink that day.

Fast forward 9 years. I met the love of my life, and I married her. My beautiful daughter, whose eyes hold the universe, started college. Many family of origin members have distanced themselves from me, and many new family of choice members have become prominent in my life. I still have the small business that grew from my failures. My ex-husband and I have a friendship today of which most would be envious. My daughter’s siblings, my oldest two children from the marriage to her father, are a wonderful presence in my life. I work in a job that I love, and am beginning a brand new career doing something I have always loved. The hole inside me is fuller than it’s ever been, and I am the most complete me that I’ve ever been. My life is good, and I remember all the joy and pain of almost half of it. I attend AA meetings, though not as often as I should. Today I didn’t drink. Happy 25 years to me.

What fills the hole inside you? Living life on life’s terms doesn’t get easier with age, or sobriety. Aren’t some days unimaginably perfect?  And aren’t some days absolutely unlivable? Know that this, too, will pass. Good or bad, it will pass. Focus on today. Lean into the wonder or the suck. You can do anything for one day. Let tomorrow take care of itself. Don’t give up. Ask for help. The miracle is waiting for you. Your tapestry is waiting to unfold, and I can guarantee it’s beautiful.

Community

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It’s a word typically used to describe a characteristic of a group of living beings. It’s been used in many different, and quite varied, settings. “Homeless community”. “Church community”. It’s a way that people categorize themselves, identify themselves, and label themselves and others, good and bad. Some communities carry a negative connotation. Some make people appear more esteemed than what’s warranted in reality. A very simplified definition of the word “community” is a group of living things sharing the same environment. At the most simplified interpretation of that definition, it implies that every living being is in a community with another living being. We are all in. We all belong. Yet, we don’t. As humans, we instinctively try to find a pecking order where someone appears to exist at a higher tier than another, for whatever reason. A rich person feels superior to a poor person. Someone with a roof over their head is superior to a homeless person. Someone with a lighter skin color is considered by some to be superior to someone with a darker skin color.
Why? Why do we use the very thing, community, that brings us all together to separate and debase other living beings? I make up that we – all of us – are insecure about our own place in community. I submit that we have an inherent fear of not belonging, not being included, not being seen. I believe that many of us greatly curb and scale back our own individuality in order to fit into expectations and perceptions of a specific community. We are conditioned from birth to conform, fit in, modify behavior, believe so that we can belong. We teach our children to do this because it’s what we were taught. And the cycle continues.
“Be quiet.” “Use your inside voice.” “Don’t speak to me in that tone.” These are all things I personally heard during my childhood. However, it’s taken me 51 years to love the fact that my loudness walks into a room before I do. I was reminiscing with family a few days ago about the time when I was five years old on a routine Friday night sleepover at my grandfather’s home. I was already in bed, as was he, when I asked for a glass of water. Exasperated, he told me no, that it was time to go to sleep. I responded, “All I want are my rights.” Who could have known what a prophecy that would become? It’s my earliest memory of randomly pissing off family members with my words and actions. 46 years later, it’s evolved into an art form. I’ve managed to alienate a mother, a sister-in-law, a brother, innumerable aunts and uncles, and cousins by simply being loud, opinionated, and unapologetically living my truest, most authentic life. And that’s just my kinfolk. Just imagine how quickly I can piss off people who aren’t related to me.
That has most assuredly impacted my space in community. Some have thrown me away. Some have taken me in. Here’s what I’ve learned along the way about community.

  • I’ve always had a voice. I had to learn how to use it effectively, and become indifferent to how others expected me to use it.
  • I exist to pull others into community, even while I am discarded from it.
  • I don’t have to agree with others to love them, and I have the capacity to love them even while they are hurting me.
  • Family is not blood. They are relatives. Family is who stands beside you through the good, the bad, and everything in between. Pay attention to who those people are and appreciate them.
  • My pain always has a purpose.

I’ve paid close attention the last few years to the community around me. I’ve become selective about what I allow into my life. I exist in several communities today. I am part of a recovery community, activist community, female community, gay community, family community, animal parent community, empathy community, empty nester community, real estate community, medical community, writing community, and spiritual community. Not a single one of these communities defines who I am. I used to be part of a relative community, church community, soccer mom community, single parent community, student community, corporate community. Not one of those communities ever defined who I am. Most importantly, I’m hyper aware of the simplified community to which I belong.
Humans are such funny creatures. We need to belong. We need it like the very air we breathe. We seek it out in the oddest of places such as gangs, drugs, bars, recovery rooms, and other places when we are discarded from one where we thought we belonged. And we find it. Whether or not we survive it is a different story. We always find it.
I’m grateful today for community, a group of living things sharing the same environment. I’m even more grateful for those who gift it freely to others. I aspire to be someone who creates community. If you are non-residenced, non-Caucasian, non-Christian, non-affluent, non-gender identified, non-female, non-male, non-straight, non-gay, non-married, or any other thing that makes you feel like you are separate, you belong here. I encourage you to stop being “non”.
Find your voice.
Include everyone.
Love regardless.
Pay attention.
Use your pain.
Be who you are, and know that you are valued. You belong. You are my community, and you have a place here.

Who inspires you to be a better human?

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Who inspires you to be a better human? Is it your pastor? Your partner? A relative? Superhero? Your mom?
It’s not an easy thing to find in today’s culture in America. Inspiration? Hope? Every where we look, we see polarity. Arguments. Bullying. People who profit from and support the suffering of others. How deeply do we have to dig to find something that reminds us of the goodness of humanity in our everyday lives?
Let me tell you a story of inspiration. The story photo shown is actually a wall of canvas prints of animals. Dogs, specifically, and spirits now. They are memorialized by two people that I am privileged to know and love. I am privileged because I get to love them, and I get to learn from them each day what real love, values, morals, caring, and action looks like. All the things that most of us would like to attribute to our own religion or spirituality, these people just live every day.
The dogs include Wesley, the old man with bangs, and Patsy, the boxer with cancer, and Tater, whose back legs and hips wouldn’t let him move very far without help. There is Pops, whose tongue is perpetually dry because the lower half of his jaw is gone, and Gus Gus, whose heart wasn’t expected to function for very long. Not pictured are some of the current crew consisting of Kevin, the five legged pittie whose ears were cut too short by someone more interested in his fighting skills instead of his health, and Poo, the blind and deaf poodle dropped off because he required too much care. Also not pictured are the fur kids adopted throughout the years. There’s Jake, black lab extraordinaire; Kaya, dope on a rope who enjoys a good bag of mulch occasionally; Pepper, the gazelle disguised as a dog; Nola, the soul mate adopted during a rescue during Hurricane Katrina; Biscuit, the dog training cat; Butter, the cat who morphs into whatever you need at the moment, and countless other ferrets, snakes, mice, and rabbits.
Deb and Dave provide hospice care to elderly, sick animals that need a soft place to land on their way out of this world. For some, these people are the only soft place ever known to these animals. For all of these animals, these people give generously and lovingly from their hearts and their bank accounts. How unselfish does one have to be to fully fund, without assistance, expensive medications, food, and medical care for animals who have been thrown away essentially? How loving does one have to be to offer a home, a heart, and time to another living creature unable to fend for itself? At any given time, they nurture a minimum of three hospice animals in addition to their brood.
In addition to this, what they consider to be their life’s work, they volunteer weekly at the Humane Society loving animals that don’t have a soft place to land. They regularly transport animals from not so great situations to homes where they have a chance to be loved and cared for. Deb volunteers regularly for rescue missions with organizations, and sees situations that would break most people and render them catatonic. People like me.
I love animals. Many of us have pets that we consider family members. Our own Cora Belle, Rumi, and Bit are the family that brings constant joy to our lives on a daily basis. I know how to care for animals. I am filled with compassion, and a desire to end pain for any living creature.
But I can’t do what my better humans do. I do not have what it takes to witness the outcome of human cruelty with my own eyes, and not let it break me. I do not have what it takes to quietly take on the suffering of multiple living creatures, and emerge whole. Maybe they don’t either. Maybe they each give pieces of life from themselves to every life they touch. You won’t find a person alive who has met them, worked alongside them, or volunteered with them who doesn’t love them. There are many more out there who do what they do, quietly, willingly, without us ever knowing the cost to them. What about the people who can’t do what they do? The people like me, who just can’t. Maybe our job is to say “thank you”. Maybe our job is to hug them, and love them, and cry with them, and lift them up. Maybe we can pour into them a tiny portion of the love that they so freely give to the ones that we can’t.
Who inspires you to be a better human? Find them and say “thank you”.

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SHITTY THIS IS?”

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That was the question written on his sign as he stood on the side of the road at the exit ramp. The temperature was a frigid 28 degrees. In the South, anything below 40 degrees is freezing. He was in his mid-thirties, age wise, with dark hair and a beard. His waist-length jacket covered as much as he could shrink into it, and his toboggan hat didn’t do much to hide the dirt on his face. His four-legged, furry companion sat stoically next to him wearing his own strategically ripped sweater, one size too small. 

 

I never knew his name, but he stuck with me in my mind for the rest of the day. I made up stories in my head about the path that led him to that exit ramp. How does it happen? Maybe he lost a job where he was only one paycheck away from being broke. Maybe his wife and children left him to move in with her parents. Maybe he was an addict and drugs took over his life. Maybe he tried as hard as he could, and it wasn’t enough. 

 

Could he turn it around now? How would he manage to interview for a job with no clean clothes and no transportation? How could he think about interviewing for a job when the greatest challenge ahead of him today is surviving hunger and freezing temperatures? How could he sustain a job with no place to sleep, shower, or clean his clothes? A million scenarios flutter past my eyes, but I can only feel the pain of my own experiences. Could I even imagine his? 

 

Although I don’t carry cash, I always have an assorted compilation of random things in my car. I have things like wool socks that I’ve picked up at a store, running gloves from a running expo, the occasional toboggan hat on sale, or random coats or shoes awaiting a goodwill drop off. 

 

I smiled and looked him in the eye as I rolled my window down. “Hey, Mister, are you interested in some warm socks?” 

 

He moved quickly to my car as his pup watched keenly without moving. “Yes, ma’am, I sure am.”

 

As I handed him four pair of wool socks, he smiled back at me and said, “Thank you so much. God bless you, ma’am.” 

 

The light turned green. I rolled up my window and adjusted the heat in my car. It was hard to see the road for a few minutes as my heart leaked out of my eyes. I’ve been to the place where I tried as hard as I could, and it wasn’t enough.  I’ve felt the hopelessness that comes with not having a safety net.  I made a mental note to carry one extra granola bar in my car all the time, more than one pair of running gloves, a few extra pair of wool socks, and some $5 gift cards for fast food. These are such small things, but they are strings in someone else’s safety net. Such small acts that say to another human being “I see you.” 

 

“DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW SHITTY THIS IS?”

 

No, sir, I don’t, but I don’t want you to know it alone.

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