Now I don’t even remember what these were actually called, after mishearing it all evening. They were filled with chocolate and cake — either chocolate cake with chocolate or white cake with white chocolate. Whatever they were called, they were a holiday in the mouth. This is just a teeny tiny sampling of the copious amounts of food at my former neighbour’s housewarming. I arrived shortly after 8pm and grazed during conversation until 1:30am… that’s a LOT of eating!
I didn’t know a soul apart from my hosts, and I find myself still struggling at parties and other social events, years later, with explaining why I ended up in Toronto. Sometimes I’m able to deflect the questions and sometimes I just come out and say it. It depends on who I’m talking to and how I think they’ll react. It happens at weddings I shoot, meetings, casual conversation. I remember someone saying after David died that the more I said it, the more I would get used to it and it would become easier. I also remember thinking if it wasn’t said over the internet I wanted to punch that guy in the face. No man, it doesn’t get easier, I am just less inclined to waste energy over being angry and would rather let life teach you the lessons than put you in your place. At first I was taken aback by my own anger, but in the end I let myself be angry because it fuelled the fire to do other things. And it reminded me that I was a human being entitled to my full range of emotions.
I was one of the last ones to leave the party (in contrast to my early exit at the company function on Thursday night), and noticed a woman staggering along the street in the darkness. I didn’t know if she was drunk or high or both, but it was cold and nearly 2am. I passed her in my car and got to the intersection. Behind me was another person from the party, who also saw her but he continued on his way. I tried to look where she was going, but had to get out of the intersection so I turned around and found her again, rolled down the window, asking her if I could help. She wanted to go home, and I offered to drive her, although I didn’t know where she lived.
“You shouldn’t pick up strangers,” she said to me in a tone that made me wonder whether I’d done something very stupid.
“I pick and choose who I help.” I paused. “You shouldn’t be getting in cars with strangers.”
“You’re right, but I pick and choose, too.”
As it turned out, she didn’t live far away and we arrived within a few minutes. She was very drunk, but at least she could tell me where she lived and how to get there. She was also profusely grateful. I waited until I could see her inside the front door of her apartment building and drove home, wondering how she would’ve gotten home otherwise. She was weaving on a sidestreet, going in several directions, banging into bins and risking getting run over.
I don’t want to be a part of a society that chooses to ignore people, even those who endanger themselves. We don’t know what people have been through in life to reach that point. I know that major life events can lead to forms of self-destruction, and I’ve faced that demon myself. People have helped me in those times, and now it’s my turn to help someone else.
