#uncoffeed...

Once again, I did the thing that I tell other White people not to do. It took a day or two for my words to come back at me, to understand them. My Black friend told me about a situation that made me unhappy. It was a situation where she was being treated a certain way apart from the rest of the crowd. But she was more upset by a mutual friend: she felt he'd made excuses for the way she was treated. I told her that her perspective resonated with me, and then I made excuses for my old White uncle. He thinks he's teaching. He's looking at it from a legal perspective. He's from a different era. He's not really racist. This is not Uncle Jim Bob who spits on the factory floor & talks about the good graces of PBR , but a professional in many industries. I didn't realize right away what I was doing.  In this case, my Black friend and I both know our Uncle is an ally. But, perhaps unintentionally, he's either defending the system or conveying that it can't be...

"Be careful and lazy!" my friend advised. I laughed, because he and I both have a lot going on, always, sometimes collaboratively. Yesterday, the doctor asked me about pain in my broken ankle. I told him, honestly, that there hadn't been much, and in fact more in the last few days than the whole 5 weeks since I'd been injured. "Did you do anything differently these past few days?"  I thought. "I forgot to take ibuprofen." This is true. Throughout my sentence of crutches, I started taking less OTC pain medication to see exactly how much I hurt. I guess that level of pain felt normal, so I forgot to do anything about it.  I never did tell anyone about the pain in my left elbow.  The ankle didn't hurt much; the elbow is bearable. I can still do my work, though I have to do it without twisting or flexing. I have to remember not to twist, not to flex. Losing personal freedom is what hurts. I couldn't just get up and go get what I'd forgotte...