Hole In My Shirt

There's a hole in my shirt. A Syracuse University basketball shirt, blue, short-sleeved in otherwise good condition, perhaps a bit frayed at the neck, but under the right arm there is now a hole big enough to pass a stack of quarters through. I should probably get rid of it. Instead, I'm wearing it as I type.

The shirt is comfortable both physically and emotionally. I've had it for a long time and can remember receiving it, a gift from my wife, wearing it to SU Women's Basketball games far enough back that there are pictures of Dad and me in The Dome. The physical comfort is nice, but it's the emotional comfort that really gets to me. A friend has one of those thunder-shirts for her dog and this t-shirt is a little like that for me.

Still, I should probably get rid of it. I have other shirts that are just as comfortable in both ways. I have more than enough t-shirts. That's the sort of thing I never have to buy because I just end up with them. They come my way. I end up giving half a dozen to the Rescue Mission at least once a year, but still, the drawer is full. I wouldn't exactly miss this shirt and even if I did, another would come to me soon enough.

I really should get rid of it. There's a line between frugality and stupidity. I can just imagine wearing this somewhere I might have to raise my hand. For some reason I also imagine someone tickling me under the arm through the hole, maybe with the eraser side of a pencil. I'm not sure why such an image comes to me, but there it is.

Tomorrow morning, changing into whatever I'm going to wear for the day, I will pull off this old shirt. Maybe the hole will stretch and rip a bit more. I might even reach through the hole with my thumbs and pull it right apart, making the decision that much easier. Who knows?

Pulling it on this evening after my shower, I thought of Dad who used to wear ripped shirts and socks. He couldn't see any good reason to replace them. They still worked. Mom would eventually throw them out for him and I can imagine the relief of such a thing though I don't want to burden my wife with that duty. I can do it myself, just get rid of the thing.

Still, this thing really is comfortable and it seems a shame to get rid of something with a hole only I know about. Well, now you know too, but do me a favor and don't tell anyone.

No One Can Keep Us From Our Addictions

The note I passed to a student who was hiding her phone behind her reading book, had skipped all our writing in order to text, and has been doing so for weeks:

Here’s the thing:
No one can keep us from our addictions but ourselves.
I’m reading a book about an alcoholic woman.
She knew she needed to stop drinking.
People told her so.
People who loved her.
But it took something else to get her to quit.
She had to make the decision.
No one but our better selves can save us from our addictions

No original thoughts there and so I thought about not posting it. Then I remembered that there may not be such a thing as an original thought and it's better to focus on having intriguing ones. This seemed to qualify.

I passed the note to my student. I'm posting it here for you. But I wrote it, I think, for myself.

Financial Aid

I just went through an annoying hour of compiling financial information and making educated guesses for The College Board. Our daughter is graduating high school and interested in attending college. A couple months ago I filled out the Financial Aid Form and thought I was done, but several schools to which she has applied require this second more invasive, less convenient form, so I lost the hour to finding information, filling in online forms, and realizing that we are just broke, broke, and broke. At least in this case, that works to her advantage.

Bernie Sanders is back on the campaign trail and I wish I could get excited about that. I was supposed to be excited last time too, being a liberal and leaning toward socialist tendencies — God forbid we share with one another! — but I couldn't get excited about his ideas especially the one about free college. That's a nonstarter.

I think it's a mirage. Free tuition, maybe, but free college, that ain't gonna happen. And anyone who has looked at college can tell you, tuition isn't the half of it. Anyway, I doubt "free" college would be the solution to our problems. I'm not into free college. Instead, I wish we could have guaranteed inexpensive college. Why not? I like the idea of my girl having to pay something, to have some skin in the game. Free stuff too often is valued as much as we've paid for it. I want college to be inexpensive and to not burden her for the rest of her life with crushing debt. I want her to get an education, not become indentured.

There's a good chance I'll need to fill out the forms again next year and show that we're making even less money. Yay!? Quitting my job will likely have that effect. The forms I completed today asked what I think my 2019 income will be. I almost laughed and then put in numbers half of what I made in 2018. Who knows what will be?

The whole time doing the forms I wondered who comes up with these things. I imagine they evolve over time like viruses or infections. One lawyer adds something and an accountant adds another and before long it's incomprehensible to the mere mortal. It becomes something that no longer makes sense but we do it anyway because no one can imagine pulling the whole thing down and starting from scratch.

What would happen if every college cost the same low nominal fee? I'm sure selection criteria would get crazy. It's like making all school districts funded by the state per pupil according to the cost of living in that town, instead of funding schools through local property taxes. I'd love to see the Syracuse City School District funded the same as a suburban district like my alma mater Fayetteville-Manlius. I'd really love it if students could choose to attend either one. That's not going to happen. Savage inequalities must be maintained.

Can Bernie Sanders change that? Can anyone? Not right away. There will be plenty of bluster and bloviating from the left side of the campaign trail. That's better than the hate which spews from the right. Still, I would support a candidate who said simply that she rid us of financial aid forms and level the playing field. Yeah, I could go for that. Especially the first part. I'm so sick of those forms.

Do Tell

Most of what I thought I was keeping private I've really been keeping secret. The former is keeping confidence for the sake of others, not revealing something because it would be a burden for them. The latter is hiding. I'm speaking here of the secrets and privacy of the self, myself really. Secrets can be valuable when carried for a loved one. Secrets kept about myself seem less so. Also, privacy, like solitude, feels healthy and good while secrets, like loneliness, mostly do damage.

Don't worry though, I'm not about to reveal my deepest secrets here today. That's another kind of burdening that does damage. Instead I'm looking to consider the effects I'm feeling of having let go of a couple secrets.

Start easy with one I've talked about before: I'm quitting my job after this school year. That's the sort of thing I would usually kept to myself worrying What if my employer and colleagues find out? What if I change my mind? Fearing these things, I have the habit of making such decisions but keeping them secret. Privacy isn't motivated by fear, but secrets usually are. My habit says, don't tell anyone.

I bucked that habit and have announced the decision and then some. The effects help me see the value of going public. I have been surprised by the support, suggestions, and gratitude with which my announcement has been received. I expected it to be a burden to others, but it turns out to be a type of kindness.

It has been kind to me as well. There have been other times I've said I need to quit my job, but that was only my inner voice echoing inside the empty warehouse of my skull. I kept it secret because the idea felt shameful and made me seem weak. Transforming the secret through telling, I felt lighter and open to ideas. The secret had me thinking I had to go on until retirement. Telling others had me feeling the truth of it.

A second example. At my in-laws, talking about my job, I said it was making me sick. To show I wasn't just whining, I let go of a secret: I'm 219 pounds, technically obese. My mother-in-law was shocked and did not want to believe. No way, she said. That's not possible.

I never want to reveal that I'm fat. It's embarrassing and feels like failure, a lack of will, and weakness. Being fat is something I keep secret out of shame. This is what I've learned. That's my habit.

Saying it didn't change my weight but I felt lighter, less trapped in my weight or held down by it. Letting go of the secret I found that no one reproached me. There was no shame. There was understanding and I felt good.

My recent experience has been that sharing secrets is strengthening. Still, I resist the urge to share because shame, the heaviest of weights, feels so crushing. Shame drives my habit of hiding, of keeping secret while claiming privacy. The habit is so strong it overcomes most logic and experience.

Of course it matters how the secret is told. It's no surprise that telling honestly and in straight-forward fashion without hoping to elicit any response, least of all shock is best. I didn't want to shock my mother-in-law. Instead, I wanted to share something and help her understand how bad my job has become. I told her about my weight not to say, Look at me! but more to offer, This is me. Here I am. I was giving instead of asking for something. For me, that's a radical approach.

There are implications in this for writing. When I tell of my job and weight, I'm not looking for a result, effect, moral, or even an ending. There is no moral. I don't know how the story will end. It's a thing in process. I tell the story without drama or effect and go forward in the belief that someone, maybe me, might benefit. Secrets are hidden stories. Telling in the right amounts — and here there is a border to explore — is good for all.