If You Were In My Movie ...

... Madonna and Guy Ritchie divorcing. Again. This is important. I know this because it's front and central on the MSN home page.

My world is smaller, but my myopia is receding. This week alone (& today is only Wednesday, and only 7 a.m. at that), I've talked to 7 people who are in the same situation my family is in. These 7 people are men who have come in the front office door, patiently filled out an application and produced the required ID, met with our hiring superintendent, endured the 'we're not hiring right now' speech, and managed to walk out the door without their backs sagging. Seven men who, up until 2 weeks ago, or 5 (in the case of 2 of them), had jobs. 5 of the 7 men got no warning, and no severance, just a call into someone's office and a lay-off notification, effective NOW.

Our world has changed. It's strangely and necessarily comforting to share such a life-altering wrestling match with others. Takes the edge off, somehow. To be able to say, to 7 men, 'I know' - the authenticity of my empathy seems to bleed off some of their anxiety. It's palpable. We're not in it alone, that empathy says -- it's NOT me (or mine). It's just 'what is'.

Fortification in the sharing. Here, the world is not changed at all. [googled image]


Best of all, I have discovered a new-to-me blog and am slowly devouring every post back to the beginning. Try it. You'll like it. Fortification and sharing of a different but equally necessary nature.

Thanks to Suzanne Vega for the great post title.