Something occured to me over the weekend that has been getting me down ever since. I've always felt that I could handle myself in most situations; especially those where your average Joe on the street might feel uncomfortable or threatened. Now, I don't go out seeking especially risky situations, but I've spent plenty of time fraternizing in less than desirable circumstances with less than desirable people: shared beers by the pool at a fleabag hotel in Vegas with an ex-con recently sprung from the pen, conversed with hustlers on the streets of New Orleans at all hours of the night, bargained with scam artists just to see how far they would go to make a sale, lived in seedy apartments in seedy neighborhoods with seedy people and so on.
I've put myself in situations in part to learn from the experience and in part to find redeeming qualities in people that most folks would just as soon write off as worthless trash. I obviously have more faith with respect to the goodness of human nature than most, and I fail at least as often as I succeed in finding the good in people. But, I have found evidence of the inherent good in people in the most unexpected places, and I'm a better person for it. Not to mention the fact that I can now identify plenty of situations to avoid at all costs (and without paying a tremendous cost for the lesson).
The price of experience is rising. I won't be able to give people the benefit of the doubt to the degree that I have in the past. I'm going to slowly morph into a distrusting, sour, middle aged malcontent. I'll balk at moving to an "up and coming" neighborhood, avoid conversations with perfectly amicable bums, go to bed early, start eating bran flakes, wash the dishes in a timely matter and on and on.
Well, that's going a bit far, there's no way I'm eating bran flakes. Good thing we've got an ultrasound coming up on Friday. I need strong reminder of the other side of this tradeoff; Bacon is still not kicking hard enough for me to feel it yet. I'll be putting a video of the U/S on the site as soon as humanly possible. It may take a little longer if editing is required due to certain unmentionables presenting themselves too clearly. We don't want to ruin the surprise for everyone.