{"id":10958,"date":"2015-12-13T12:32:35","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T20:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.godammit.com\/?p=10958"},"modified":"2015-12-13T12:32:35","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T20:32:35","slug":"first-world-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/first-world-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"First World Problems"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"converse$ <\/a><\/p>\n

Let me start by telling you how mad I am that I can’t have a pair of limited edition Converse sneakers with little lions on them.<\/p>\n

I wish I’d never seen these fucking shoes but unfortunately for me, I subscribe to a couple of fashion sites for cutting edge men’s street-wear. If you recall, I am a gay man in a woman’s body.<\/p>\n

A few months ago, one of these sites showed me an overpriced Japanese jacket meant to look like a souvenir jacket from Korea or Vietnam, the kind with embroidered tigers and maps on them. When the jacket sold out, I was mad that I’d passed it up.<\/p>\n

So the Converse shoes reminded me of the jacket and even better, they were affordable. But they were sold out everywhere by the time I clicked on the email. The more unattainable they are, the more they promise the key to perfect happiness.<\/p>\n

But just a few days earlier, I was horrified to learn that the Rihanna Puma Creepers<\/a> I already have in black were released in pink. How could this happen without me being notified?? I found out from a girl in the mall who was showing me some cheap make-up, and she must have been amazed that a 62 year old woman wanted those fucking shoes as much as she did, if not more. We bonded in our sense of thwarted desire.<\/p>\n

After a tense search of the entire internet, I found a pair on eBay. Problem solved.<\/p>\n

But not really. Not at all.<\/p>\n

This obsession and longing for material goods is the foundation of our economy but it serves a deeper purpose, for me, anyway.<\/p>\n

It’s the ultimate First World Problem, in that it masks other First World Problems that I simply can’t handle.<\/p>\n

Those problems are grief and loss. They are persistent like a toothache. I can’t bear the reality of them, and when I can’t distract myself with more superficial problems, I have to take myself to bed. When I take myself to bed, I know I would give anything to not wake up, but just blotting out a few hours usually gets me through the worst of it.<\/p>\n

Last year, I became Facebook friends with a guru from Tibet. I liked his wisdom and his sense of humor. So I asked him how to cope with grief. When I told him that I’d lost a son, he replied that mortality was high in Tibet; families are used to losing children.<\/p>\n

I felt he was chastising me but perhaps he was merely being factual.<\/p>\n

Why was I making a big deal over my loss? Families in Tibet lose a child but still have to worry about typhoons and lack of plumbing and hunger and disease. They expect life to be hard and it is.<\/p>\n

The guru directed me to a philosophy than might help to redirect me but like everything else I have tried, it was a hurdle beyond my capacity. Mindfulness, Dialectic Behavior Therapy, Tonglen<\/a>, support groups, grief studies, Radical Acceptance, nothing matches the force of this unspeakable grief and loss.<\/p>\n

I have spent most of my life saving baby teeth, book reports, handmade crafts, mother’s day cards, school photos, birthday party photos, baseball cards, rock collections, and I have lovingly organized them or displayed them.<\/p>\n

I have boxes of Christmas ornaments, many hand made by my sons, but no sons to hang them on a tree or to open presents with.<\/p>\n

Christmas will pass, so the sense of deprivation will be less acute but it will take a lot of limited edition sneakers to pull me away from the fucking abyss.<\/p>\n

In Chennai<\/a>, India, there is historic flooding, the worst in 100 years. Three million people are without basic services and 269 people have died in this epic disaster. I can’t imagine how desperate these people must feel because I only know First World Problems.<\/p>\n

Feeling ambivalent about living is a First World Problem, and I guess I’ll have to wrestle with it in my White Privileged manner, wearing my pink Pumas if they ever show up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let me start by telling you how mad I am that I can’t have a pair of limited edition Converse sneakers with little lions on them. I wish I’d never seen these fucking shoes but unfortunately for me, I subscribe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2,376,5],"tags":[475,708,584,118,482],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7t44M-2QK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10958"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/godammit.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}