Um, I Have to Tell You Something...

This is deeply personal and kind of embarrassing to both of us, but as a friend, it would be awful if I didn’t tell you. It is really hard for everyone not to notice. Truth is...you are smelly. No proverbial green clouds of curling stench are rising, but the current state is close enough. The last time you washed-up, it was just your hands, actually. And that was last Thanksgiving. Oh, and once on Mother’s Day. Almost everyone is too polite to tell you how severe your odor has gotten. But they know.

You feel grimy, too. Its not just the other people noticing. That dirty feeling where you just have four too many layers of chalkiness, stickiness, grittiness, flakiness, scabbiness, and oiliness in all their respective places is overpowering at times. Its several notches past what my sister calls “the pinto bean state.” You know you’re a little bit of a mess, and somehow you don’t know where to start. Where did it come from?

I’ll stop before I gross anyone out further, but someone had to tell you. What you need is a bonified, no holding-back, pressure wash from head-to-toe—in gratefulness. “What? Ungratefulness don’t make me stink!” you say…Bummer. We already know how much you’re aware of!

Sure, you’ve said, “Thank you.” dozens of times over the past days, hours even. But did you mean it? When was the last time you truly came to the place where you realized the absolute necessity of others and their gifts into your life? Gifts of time, care, words, smiles, personality, friendship, and simple presence are for real. It is the unconscious attitude saying, “I didn’t really need that, and I sure can make it on my own.” that stinks up a room, a home, a community, a country.

What starts to rot on us especially, is when we forget that we aren’t perfect. Of course we know that, but do we act like it? Living without responding to the truth we have learned about ourselves from experience and time, is darkly, deeply ungrateful.

Ways to clean up

• Think about yourself. Yes, realize how much you need the people in your life.
• Think about yourself. Know where you go wrong and use what you’ve been taught: taught by life, experiences, mentors, books, God, parents, friends, etc.
• Think about yourself. Look at what you have and realize how much is there.
• Think about yourself. Take time to examine what you know. Where did you learn it? It didn’t come from “no where” or…your-inner-whatever.
• Take those thoughts you just discovered and act on them. Express yourself to the people you owe for those benefits in how you cohabit with them.
• Yes, maybe go out of your way to show that you mean it, because now you do!

Voila! You, my friend, now smell uuuhhhhhhhh-maaaa-zeeng. It is refreshing to even be near you. Even compared to people I thought smelled nice, you now take my breath away. I am loving the fragrance of your life. Look! It even makes you smile, too. That’s all. Glad I could tell you that; get it off my chest.