spoiled

Little experiences can completely change how one views a place, a person, an experience. For the better or for the worse. I suspect we all have that one former friend who made a single outrageous comment or did some stupid thing that forever changed how we feel about them. They just weren’t the same afterwards. Not that they changed — they were being who they are or were — it’s just that they revealed a part of themselves that clashed with our image of who they were and we realized we didn’t know them nearly as well as we thought.

In the past I have found it harder to become dis-enamored of places. There are a few places I remember having visited a few times and it seemed that every time we went, it rained. I sort of stopped going to them, just because the likelihood of reward for a rather long journey was chancey and there were other more reliable choices available.

There’s a place in Milwaukee that has been a lifelong refuge. When we were happy we went there, when we were sad we went there, it just seemed to be a place to breathe. Then four years ago we had a very, very minor auto accident there. I spoke about this a while ago. There came a lawsuit out of the accident, it seemed to me to be more of an insurance scam than anything else, but in the end the insurance company settled the case and it was all done.

Except…

It’s no longer calming or pleasurable to visit there. We both feel the same way. A not so terrible experience at a lovely place changed our point of view, not because of what actually happened there but because of the 4 years of uncertainty and grief that occurred subsequently. I know it’s not fair. I know it makes no sense. But there it is. Neither of us really wants to go there any more.

I’ve been pondering this for a while now. I feel zero loss. In spite of the fact that we stopped by several times a month at least, for almost all the time we have lived in Milwaukee, neither of us are really interested in the place any more.

Strange that. There are other places nearby — nearer actually — where we can walk, sit, observe people, enjoy the view of the lake, or even go swimming. That one had drawn our attention for many years, perhaps because it was in the hub of the city, near all the excitement of city life. And now we are older, not nearly as interested in all the cultural events that once drew us to city-center, and maybe a little lazier too. But I don’t think it’s really aging or change of interests that caused the change of attitude. I think it’s the realization that the world can be an ugly place, even when it’s dressed up in beautiful garb. The leaves on trees don’t change avarice and greed in human hearts. The lapping of the water doesn’t mean that liars will tell the truth. Sometimes we are lucky if these little tastes of life affect only a small space in our life — like this has done. They COULD, if we allowed them to do so, sour us on life, or on certain people, or professions, or causes, or well, the list is interminable and changes depending on what it might have been that has happened to us. To keep our disaffection limited — so that it doesn’t harden us to the world overall — that is the challenge.

I’m sure our feelings about the insurance settlement will fade over time. I doubt they will disappear completely. I remember when we were newly married my parents drove from Milwaukee to Toledo where we were living at the time to see their grand-baby a couple months after she was born. Enroute they were involved in a fatal accident on the Indiana Tollway. A young person with a snow sled, or Flexible Flyer, thought it would be fun to slide down the snow covered hill from the crossroad down to the tollway. They lost control of the sled and careened onto the highway right in front of my parents car, and were killed. There’s no way anyone on the highway could have expected that to happen, and as good a driver as I know my dad was at the that age he could not avoid them: steep hill, not much space, other traffic on highway, little time. Somethings simply cannot be avoided.

But… neither of them ever again spoke about the experience. Sometimes experiences just change you. You needn’t be at fault, you needn’t mean anything, sometimes things just happen and you have to cope. As best you can. However you can. For as long as you must.

That’s just life. And we have to get used to it. It’s not going to change. We must change.