Cold Soup

A head on collision with a 100 mph impact, divorce, tragic death, health issues that leave life-long scars, low economic status, cycles of abuse and dysfunction, victimization due to both environment and intentional assault…

What do these events do to a person? Who does one become? Tell me, how is one changed by them? Because they will change you. Forever.

Well, of course one could become cynical and bitter, lose their sense of self and sense of hope. They could develop tunnel-vision – an over-compensation of one’s traumatic life experiences that lead a person to see only one outcome for a particular experience and therefore make over- generalizations and judgements of others. They could continue their dysfunctional cycles because that is what they were shown, what they were taught. We see it all the time… you can picture the people and hear their words now. “It’s not my fault…”, “That’s the way I was raised….”, “It’s because when I was a kid…”
dot…dot…dot…

Or, one could in the face adversity and trauma, turn away, run, crawl and hide from life experiences and possibilities – in an effort to avoid being hurt again. That is a very real and natural, self-preserving trauma reaction, that without intervention could lead to a loss of one’s will to live. And challenging life experiences could be used to justify those actions and attitudes. It’s understandable. Life can be cruel and at times there seems to be no sign of improvement in sight.

This insight shouldn’t be used as an excuse to judge others for their life choices but an opportunity to hold our own selves accountable. No one experiences life the same or has the same genetic make-up. And therefore, don’t bother drawing comparisons.

We all have scars. We all have left-overs … remnants from our past that bubble-up or sneak-in… giving those who happen to be watching close a peep-hole view of the world we came from, behind the doors we thought we had closed behind us. No one comes away from a battle unscathed and we ALL have a story.

 

The point is, what you do with your story.

 

I remember a time when I walked into a patient’s room and she and her husband were eating soup, cold, out of a can.… cream based soup at that! Horrified, I said “Oh no, we have a microwave!” “We know”… they said, “its fine, we’re used to eating it like this.”

Now, those who know me, know I am direct but curious and never approach with the intent of making a judgment but instead, of gaining insight. And … I have the biggest mouth in the universe. So, I inquired, “What makes one start eating soup out of a can, cold? I’m just curious … and why would you choose that when you have a microwave available?”

The husband’s demeanor changed immediately. A smugness and attitude crept in. “We didn’t have a lot of money growing up. Sometimes this is what we could afford and we just got used to eating our food cold.” And then he made some vague reference to his days spent in college dorms and eating cheap food.

I knew in that moment, he saw the little blond registered nurse standing in front of him and he thought we came from very different places. I’m sure he thought I grew up in high society – with my highlights and big vocabulary and BSN. Fact is, when I was growing up, we couldn’t afford canned soup. My mom fed our family of 6 for days with a ham bone and a bag of dried beans …. probably from the church pantry. But it was heated and eaten at the table with dishes – the same set of dishes for 20 years that some relative handed down to us, because that was cheaper than paper plates. And we hand-washed them because we had no dish-washer. And I never had the privilege of living in a dorm. I paid for my college degree myself and commuted back and forth in between my four jobs in order to do so.

I knew exactly what it was like to ‘go without’… but that was no excuse for not striving for better. Eating cold soup straight from the can is lazy. And lazy has not a thing to do with economics. That’s what I wanted to say… I wanted to tell him not to use poverty and background as an excuse for continued choices and behaviors …. but I couldn’t.

Instead I very calmly and quietly said, “Yeah … me too … I grew up without money too. It was hard. At least we always had a fire source though and I didn’t have to eat food cold.” He was speechless and I just left the room.

Maybe some people like canned-soup cold and maybe they don’t want to dirty dishes. That wasn’t the point of that story. Had that man stated those reasons for his choices, I wouldn’t have had a judgment or an argument to make. He likes it, period! And that’s fine. Your past will always tint your future, but don’t use it as an excuse to keep buying the same color. Yesterday, you could have gone the extra mile to heat your food, with or without a microwave. Today, you have a microwave.

 

Cynical. Cyclical. Defeated. A victim ……… OR ……… Learned. Experienced. Diverse. Hard-working. Resilient. Fortuned with varied experiences. Gained perspective. A survivor. A conqueror.

The choice is yours.

What do challenging experiences lead to? How are you changed by them?

I can only tell you what I’ve tried to do. And I am flawed. My personality is a strong one and it’s not for everybody. Those experiences I listed up top in my intro…the ones that change people…they happened to me…and not just once. Many of them happened enough times or for enough time that they left scars. I don’t let my scars define me but I don’t cover them up either. They are a beautiful part of me and how I have evolved. I acknowledge them. I ponder them. I work on them – to keep them soft and pliable, not hard and rigid. They are reminders of a past and experiences that I learned from.

What will you do?

Will you run away? Or will you fight? Will you hide? Or will you seek an opportunity for success? Will you use fear as an excuse or a goal to overcome? Will your lack of perspective be a crutch or a reason to go explore?

What have my experiences taught ME?

They’ve taught me that tomorrow is promised to no one. That everyone has a story, and if you sit long enough with someone – they’ll tell you. That you never really know ‘what you would do’, until you’re there. They’ve shown me that kindness and goodness show up in the most unlikely of places. And that those two things, matter more than just about anything. I’ve learned that anger is a normal and an often immediate response but it can be controlled. And time and introspection is the best healer. I know that I can’t change my past … but I can accept it and learn from it … and further, I can learn to appreciate it for what good it has given me. Because there is some amount of good in everything.

And I am still learning, that like my past … I can’t change people and people don’t owe me anything. But, I can choose to learn from them, and to accept them as they are and I can relish in whatever goodness they have to offer. My life is a gift to me and I have one shot at it. So I’m choosing not to be a victim but a conqueror, an adventurer, a seeker, a student.

Many years after my youth, I own my own home … and it doesn’t have a dishwasher. Instead, I married a man who doesn’t mind hand washing in the least. Occasionally I do buy paper plates for convenience. And I never eat cold soup unless its gazpacho. And I eat it in a chilled bowl with fresh avocado on top because damn it, it’s delicious. And life should be filled with as many moments of deliciousness as we can fit in …. not laziness … just deliciousness.