on embracing privilege

and a fart in the face of empathy

I ran into an old colleague the other day - a former colleague.

Well, not exactly ‘run into’. She was walking her very large dog past my house.

It was a therapist friend, one of the few I had and still have respect for.

We hadn’t connected in quite a while.

She asked me about ‘my practice’.

I told her - I’m practicing serving food and mixing drinks. I’ve done a little bit of private tour guiding as well. It’s been great. People come, they have fun then they leave. I’m not bringing any heavy shit home. My life is a lot better these days because of it.

She paused, sighed and it looked as though a little bit of her soul leaked out;

You know, my dad did tour guiding. A lot of people opened up to him. They shared a lot of heavy personal stuff. They came back to him year after year. In a lot of ways he was like a therapist.

Why did she tell me this?

I’m not sure if she was trying to reassure me that I was still doing helpful and important work.

Because really?

I did that for a while and ya know what?