"Lonely Sometimes" Acrylic on Board. Copyright 2012 Totsymae

A few years ago, I had a good friend of mine to run into some money problems. Now, I’m not a one percenter or nobody along those lines but I was in a position to help, so that’s what I did. Never did I put him under the gun for paying the money back. The thing of it for me was and still is, if I absolutely need it back, then most likely, you won’t get shit from me. I would try to help you in some other manner but point blank, if what you want squeezes my pocketbook, then you’ll have to find another source. I don’t want money issues to settle between what we’ve got going. You feel me?

Now, if I say to Kim, “Look, I’ve got these ingredients for you to make me these chocolate chip cookies,”  or asked The Obamacrat to cook me up a healthful meal and got my mouth all watered for the goods and they didn’t come through, folks, that may be the deal breaker there. Oh, I’m serious about my edibles and whatnots, okay?

Now, should I help you out, ’cause I’d like to think I would, I won’t hold it over your head. That ain’t the way of going about doing nothing for nobody. My thing is, I’ll get what I gave from some other folk. That’s pretty much the law of giving when you think about it. You know, Karma can be a real good friend when you treat her right. Now, there will be times when Karma will have you asking, what the fuck, unfortunately. However, I’d certainly like to think I’ve put out some good Karma and not on account of me wanting something back but ’cause you know, it’s a good thing to do.

There’s this other lesson in giving I learned and sometimes have to keep reminding myself. It came from this fella who was over in Vietnam way back. What he said is that he saw so much over there and how folk were living and all, which taught him to complain about nothing. And he didn’t either. I mean, you read about that sorta thing but for some reason, about three years ago, that became a lot more profound for me. Well, I could tell you the reason but I won’t. We’ll just leave it at that. No need to put you all up and inside of my business since we’re still learning each other, you know. (Rolling my eyes and clicking my tongue)

Anyway, I know whenever I’ve bitched about favors I’ve done for folk, I always feel I may as well hadn’t done it at all if I have to go stomping my feet about it. It really takes the joy and blessing out of giving, however convenient or inconvenient the giving may be. Grace is such a small word but it’s a huge deal if you have it and more often than not, folk recognize it. At least, I do.

(Sigh) I just thought I’d share that with you good folk. You know, to keep you on the up and up or something like that. I don’t know. Maybe it’s these raw foods and banana chips that’s got me musing and shit. I kid you not, they’re actually starting to taste like Vanilla Wafers.

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