Waiting for our ship to come but our ships not coming back, we do our time like pennies in a jar, but what are we saving for?

(dress and belt from Goodwill, my mom's 80's Dior glasses)

“There was this kid I used to know, who had a disability.”
We were sitting in his car, talking, late one Saturday night.
“his arm muscles didn’t form properly, so he was limited in arm movement. He could barely hold a phone up to his ear.”
I stared down at my hands, feeling both ashamed and proud of my mobile limbs.
“and he was dyslexic as well; he had to cope with all of these misfortunes growing up. It made me sad to think that he was born with these problems, while I was healthy, it wasn’t fair. I could be doing so much more with my life.”
I nodded, our feelings reciprocal.

It’s true. We often forget our blessings.
Our parents advocate the “things could always be worse” mentality, but that never makes you feel better when your girlfriend or boyfriend breaks up with you or when you fail a math test or when you get in a fender bender or when your dog runs away.
How can you put things into perspective when you’re dealing with your own problems?
We forget to realize that it’s not the end of the world. We forget that we could be child soldiers in Africa or orphan prostitutes in India or sweat shop workers in China or living, homeless and uprooted, in Chile or Haiti.
We forget all of these things.

It’s scary to think about.
Sometimes I feel like we’re constantly walking across a minefield, one false step and everything could blow up in our face. We have a false sense of security, a false sense of invincibility.

It reminds me of an incident last summer.

During my summer vacation, I had a fascination with rainbow scarab beetles. The little emerald and ruby-colored-horned beauties are native to where I live in Florida and have the detrimental habit of falling into our swimming pool. I had a routine of waking up and making my rounds around the pool, scooping them out with my dad’s net. I formed a one woman beetle rescue squad, saving them from certain watery death.



I remember one time, after successfully rescuing a small jeweled beetle, another movement in the pool caught my eye.
Another beetle must have fallen in! I rushed over to the edge, net in hand, ready to save the drowning beetle from the pool’s cold, chlorine clutches. But it wasn’t a scarab beetle, it was just a bee.
Disappointed, I turned away.

I didn’t get far from the pool until I stopped and went back.
I watched the bee for a moment, flailing around in the water, its iridescent wings water logged. Near the bee, I saw two large black ants drowning as well. One was clutching at its dying brother, holding on for dear life to get away from the cruel water.
I stared. It was almost sad to watch.
I turned away and went back inside the house.

As the day went on my thoughts kept returning to the drowning insects. Why didn’t I save them too? Was it because I was busy? Was I tired or had other pressing matters to attend to? No. I didn’t save them because I was lazy. I didn’t save them because I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t save them because I valued the beetle’s lives more than the ants and the bees. And why? Because the beetles were more pretty and colorful then the lesser insects. Life forms that didn’t deserve to be saved.

It got me thinking about god and our place in the universe.
Maybe certain people are favored over others. Maybe our god is too lazy to save the other pathetic humans because he doesn’t feel like it. We are just ants to the universe. Who’s to say our species deserves more merit than others?
It’s hard to think about the fact that maybe we are all just drowning helplessly in a pool, at the mercy of a more advanced life form. The beetles are saved while the ants drown due to divine negligence.

I looked up at him.
“It makes me feel hollow inside.”
He drew me close and we kissed.
We got out of the car and walked inside to watch the movie we had rented, relived to be so fortunate.