Letters to the Editor
noneofmybusiness
Published Letters: 8
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I was the kid in this scenario
[Read the article: Somebody tell my husband to slow down!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have an older brother, but after he went to college, it was just me and my parents. Dad liked to go for family walks after dinner. So I was the kid in the middle saying, "Wait up Dad! Dad, wait for Mom!" and "Hurry up, Mom! Come on!" If I rushed ahead with Dad, I felt disloyal to Mom; if I stayed back with Mom, I missed walking with Dad.
God bless her, Mom stuck to her pace. Having grown up with allergies and asthma (in the days before good identification and treatment), she's not, and never has been, athletic. It didn't take a genius to figure that out.
Was Dad controlling? Um, you could say that. Was he maybe also typically male in his results-based perspective on the family walk? Maybe.
I have no great words of wisdom, other than to say my parents eventually divorced after 33 years of marriage. It's not mine to say whether issues like this one played into their inability to salvage the marriage. Suffice to say, it sucked being in the middle of their dynamic before I was old enough to know to get out of the way.
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Not defending the roll-on steamer trunk, but...
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I too am frustrated by all the aforementioned inconsiderate behavior with regard to baggage, size and placement thereof. BUT every time the airlines lose my luggage, I am reminded why some individuals might want to sneak larger-sized bags into the cabin. They most likely don't want to spend a week wearing one outfit and washing their underwear in the sink using some hotel shampoo.
If airlines could reduce the number of (or is "eliminate" too much to hope for, given human error?) lost bags, fewer people might feel the need to stuff all their earthly belongings into the overhead bins...
I would love to be able to board a plane carrying only a magazine and a pen, rather than lugging one bag with laptop and a couple of novels, and another with a change of clothes and basic toiletries. What luxury that would be. In fact, on a recent trip out of state, on the return leg, I thought, "Hey! I can put my PJs and all this other crap into the checked luggage! Since I'm going home, it won't matter if they lose my bag!" Then I remembered reason #2 for carrying all the crap: getting stranded. As it turned out, I made an unplanned overnight visit to NYC. Boy was I glad to have some contact lens solution and a clean pair of undies.
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you may not care, but others like living
[Read the article: I only feel alive when I'm in danger]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Once upon a time I heard a lecturer talk about his wife's struggle with depression. One night they were talking about her suicidality and she spoke of sometimes wanting to steer her car into the oncoming headlights. He said, "But what about the people in the other car?" She hadn't really thought about it.
When I think of you risking life and limb in the desert, I think of the rescue workers who will risk their own lives and limbs to come and find you, should you slip one day and end up in an injured heap. You may not care about your own life, but I guarantee you these folks care about theirs. But they will come to find and help you, because that's what they do.
You don't live life in a vacuum. You may be solitary, but you are connected to others in this way, like it or not. The other drivers you share the highway with, the rescue workers who will peel you off the asphalt, etc.
And yes, much as I hate the knee-jerk way we diagnose each other in today's society, the not-caring you describe sounds a lot like low-grade depression, where the risk-taking is a kind of self-medication, getting the brain chemistry jolted up to a level that makes you feel alive.