Gossip and Not Caring

[photo courtesy of post/secret]

My mom got a call from our neighbor the other day, who said that, since she was sure we knew anyway, that everyone around was talking about it, and that her son’s family can’t even go into the local gas station without everyone staring at them now, we may as well hear it from the horse’s mouth: her grandson is in the clink for yet another DUI, this time he rolled his ATV and broke two ribs, and will go to rehab.

Now, this was the first time we heard it. Not only is no one talking about it, no one would probably think much of it, and if they did, it would be forgotten two days later.

Living in a rural, small town-ish area, there is that perception that people are interested in everyone else’s business. The truth is, no one really gives a flying fig. Any schadenfreude is usually only a reflection of relief—it takes the heat off our own transgressions and misfortunes for a minute. Because, we all have them! Usually it’s the people desperate to make their lives look perfect who are a train wreck just waiting to happen. For instance, I have a cousin who is a wealthy surgeon. Every year for the past 25 years, we would get the most annoying Christmas letter from his wife. She went on about their travels, her volunteering with the junior league (whatever the hell that is), their mansion, their accomplishments. In short, she had a wealthy husband and three kids, all of them good looking—and why not shout it from the rooftops every year?

No doubt you can see this one coming: they’re currently in the throes of an acrimonious divorce that rivals that of Chris/tie Br*ink*ley’s. “I never did like her,” my aunt says now of my cousin’s wife, though they were always smiling and kissy-kissy on the outside. Last year, would you believe we still got a Christmas card from the woman! She sent a photo of the kids on the beach with simply the words, “Love,” and her and the kids’ names—no mention of my cousin, even though he is our relative, not her. It’s probably a horrible thing to admit, but I did feel a brief moment of glee upon hearing this news, as now it takes the heat off me being the only single parent in my entire family on both sides of cousins.

Because, once it was set it stone that I was going to be a single parent, I believed a lot of people would just want nothing to do with me anymore. Crazy, I know, but we all think this way. In fact, the very opposite has happened—I’m a lot closer to people than ever before! People have just seemed to come out of the woodwork to be supportive. And it’s humbled me a bit, too. Now that any hope of having even a glossed-over image of a perfect life is totally shot to shit, it’s like people are more relaxed around me and I around them, and we’re much more connected. Others open up to me a lot more.

And, even in this area where everyone knows everyone, a woman at church who I’ve known peripherally for over 20 years, asked me a couple of months ago when I was there with Lk, “Who is he?” “My son,” I answered. “Wow, I didn’t even know that you were pregnant. It’s so hard to keep up.” See? People really DO mind their own beeswax, for the most part, at least in this small community.