a message to the love filled imp
who showed up and brought the sausage
Who are you going to be?
That was the question.
The question I asked my buddy Charlie as we sat next on a bench by the osprey nest in Shubi park.
Who are going to be, the piece of shit that you were in your youth - that guy who fucked up all the time and hurt others, or the man whose here now?
Wrapped up in an old story of guilt and shame, he didn’t have any room for who he was.
I just feel so bad all the time… Like I don’t deserve any of this?
It’s so fucking tiresome listening to good men beat themselves up over shit they did five, ten, fifteen and even forty years ago.
How many people did you rape? How many babies did you kill?
His answer was simple: None.
Did you run over any old ladies? How about disabled people on those mobility scooters, kill any of them? That only gets you a year of house arrest if you’re drunk, even less if you’re sober.
He didn’t do anything like that.
And yet…
And yet, he was being more vicious on himself than any standards set around ‘guilt’ and ‘debt to society’ set out by the courts.
We sat for a while and watched the osprey dive, catch a fish, return to its nest and proceed to rip the guts from the fish and feed it to its young. The fish was still alive and twitching as the hatchlings ate it’s internal organs.
Charlie went on to talk about a buddy of his who was dying. He showed up at the hospice to find a dozen of his oldest friends there surrounding their dying pal at his bedside.
But Charlie had a surprise with him:
Which one of you motherfuckers ordered the pepperoni?
He imitated what he said that day, miming holding up a big long magnificent chunk of pepperoni.
The whole room laughed. My dying pal lit up. The whole room came to life. It was like we were back in our twenties again.
Back in his twenties he did a WHOLE LOTTA things he’s got a WHOLE LOTTA regrets about.
But dear reader, were your twenties pristine?
Do you live without regrets, or were you so reserved that you have committed no acts that you could possibly be ashamed of?
You must have done and said some stupid shit because people in their twenties are fucking as arrogant as they are stupid.
But there was also a magic to that time as well.
Things were open, full of possibilities and at times, a whole lotta fun.
Charlie brought a moment of that back to these old men and his dying buddy. Charlie lit up with the vigour and power of a twenty year old man as he told the story - even repeating his punch line again and again - which one of you motherfuckers ordered the pepperoni?
He mimed the pepperoni each time.
I had to ask him
So dipshit, who are you? The dude who fucked up in his twenties and is sulking here in shame, or the love filled imp who brought the sausage and lit up the room?
We may feel terrible about ourselves. You might even spend time dwelling in shame.
That’s both easy and fucking lazy. Our brains are wired to remember the bad and to reinforce what’s terrible.
That’s a fucking survival skill.
Serious people spend a lotta time with these things - processing them and working on them.
It’s as fucking self indulgent as it is pointless.
Mostly though?
It’s so fucking boring.
Instead?
Remember those moments when you felt most alive.
Distill the times when you really lit up a room and were the best feeling version of you.
Play that shit over and over again until you’re convinced that you were the motherfucker who ordered the pepperoni.
Stay greasy you dirtbags.
